The shocking 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that tilts things in our favor
These days, when you read in the headlines about a Supreme Court 5-4 ruling, you typically brace yourself for the bad news. On Thursday, however, we won a surprising and significant victory, as Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal justices and Justice Kavanaugh to protect the Voting Rights Act and ruling against racial gerrymandering, upholding Section 2 in their ruling on Allen v. Milligan.
The lawsuit pertained to Alabama officials who were asked by SCOTUS to redraw the state’s latest congressional map in order to include another Black majority district for a more accurate reflection of the state’s 27% Black population.
In addition to potential repercussions that could be felt in states like Georgia and Mississippi where Republicans are cracking down on voting rights, this has a sizable impact already, with Cook Political Report updating four congressional races in favor of the Democrats.
AL-01 and AL-02 have been moved from Solid Republican seats to tossups – as have LA-05 and LA-06, with NC-01 now moving from tossup to a Democratic Lean. That’s enough opportunities to flip the House to Democrats on its own, once we have candidates to run.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making