Stefani
Reynolds/Bloomberg)
It’s
one
thing
for
the
Supreme
Court
to
not
explain
its
decisions,
but
it’s
a
whole
other
level
to
refuse
to
explain
a
decision
that
contradicts
a
written
decision
from
just
over
a
month
ago.
The
quick
timeline
is
this.
The
Supreme
Court
allowed
Louisiana
to
draw
racist
maps,
but
specifically
explained
that
this
didn’t
change
its
earlier
decision
blocking
Alabama’s
maps
as
a
racist
bridge
too
far.
Alabama
responded
with,
“please!”
Then
the
Supreme
Court
issued
an
unexplained
shadow
docket
ruling
asking
the
lower
court
to
decide
if
the
Callais
opinion
that
explicitly
said
this
does
not
change
the
situation
in
Alabama
had
changed
the
situation
in
Alabama.
The
lower
court
said
it
did
not.
And
now
—
with
the
election
already
underway
—
the
Supreme
Court
put
out
another
unexplained
ruling
that,
“just
kidding,
Alabama
is
allowed
to
install
those
maps
we
agreed
were
too
racist
3
years
ago
and
in
fact
can
do
so
right
now.”
Cutting
through
the
bullshit
that
the
majority’s
sycophants
will
spin,
what
happened
is
pretty
simple.
The
majority
liked
the
playbook
Louisiana
laid
out
for
diluting
the
state’s
Black
voters
into
inconsequence.
But
the
Alabama
ruling
presented
an
obstacle
to
the
Callais
case
that
the
conservatives
couldn’t
write
their
way
around.
So
the
Callais
opinion
—
which
they
had
to
explain
—
affirms
the
earlier
Alabama
decision
and
tells
the
reader
that
nothing
about
Callais
changes
that.
Then,
a
few
weeks
later,
with
the
benefit
of
the
shadow
docket,
the
Court
junks
the
Alabama
decision
without
having
to
come
up
with
an
explanation
why.
Because,
to
borrow
from
Love
Story,
the
shadow
docket
means
never
having
to
say
you’re
basing
this
on
any
law.
As
an
added
twist
that
Aaron
Sorkin
would
dismiss
as
too
heavy-handed
of
a
liberal
fantasy,
Alabama
needed
the
Supreme
Court’s
emergency
action
after
blowing
its
own
June
1
deadline
because
“state
and
county
administrative
offices
are
closed
today,
June
1,
to
celebrate
the
birthday
of
Jefferson
Davis.”
They
couldn’t
get
the
racist
maps
installed
in
time
for
the
2026
midterms
because
they
were
too
busy
kicking
back
to
toast
the
Confederacy.
Luckily
for
them,
the
Supreme
Court
is
not
going
to
let
that
stand
in
the
way.
Declaring
these
maps
“racist”
is
not
hyperbole.
The
record
in
the
case
is
damning.
The
district
court
held
an
11-day
trial,
heard
51
witnesses,
reviewed
nearly
800
exhibits,
and
produced
a
268-page
opinion.
The
court
found
Alabama
had
intentionally
discriminated
against
Black
voters,
described
a
record
“replete
with
sharp
departures”
from
the
state’s
own
traditional
districting
rules,
and
noted
the
legislature
had
conjured
findings
out
of
“thin
air”
in
“the
dead
of
night.”
There’s
a
reason
even
John
Roberts
balked
at
these
maps
3
years
ago.
Most
importantly,
it
grounded
the
holding
in
an
independent
Fourteenth
Amendment
finding
of
intentional
discrimination
—
the
constitutional
rationale
Callais
went
out
of
its
way
to
explicitly
declare
that
it
did
not
reach.
Don’t
let
this
get
undersold:
the
majority,
if
one
takes
its
own
reasoning
in
Callais
at
face
value,
just
adopted
a
new
standard
for
Fourteenth
Amendment
without
even
attempting
to
mount
an
explanation.
The
Supreme
Court
said
Alabama
was
“likely
to
succeed
on
the
merits”
in
its
Fourteenth
Amendment
fight
—
despite
Alabama
having
lost
that
battle
under
existing
law
already
—
and
offered
no
further
analysis
for
this
change.
Thus,
Alabama
succeeds
in
this
case
running
the
only
strategy
it’s
known
for
the
last
century
and
a
half:
if
you
lose,
just
pretend
you
didn’t
long
enough
until
“The
South
Shall
Rise
Again.”
Unlike
the
earlier
post-Callais
shadow
docket
order,
the
majority
resisted
the
temptation
to
even
acknowledge
the
lengthy
and
detailed
dissent.
In
her
dissent,
Justice
Sotomayor
repeats
a
warning
from
her
dissent
to
the
original
order
remanding
this
case
to
the
district
court
last
month:
As
I
have
explained,
“[t]hese
cases
are,
of
course,
Allen,”
so
if
the
majority
meant
what
it
said
in
Callais
and
“Allen
is
good
law
.
.
.
,
then
it
must
be
good
law
here.”
Which
is
exactly
why
the
majority
waited
for
the
shadow
docket.
It
relieves
the
burden
of
having
to
slap
lipstick
on
this
pig.
Because
the
record
in
this
case
presented
a
challenge
for
even
the
highly
toned
cynicism
muscles
of
the
majority.
As
Dahlia
Lithwick
and
Mark
Joseph
Stern
explain
in
Slate:
In
reality,
the
Alabama
map
was
determined,
over
many
years
and
many
pages
of
fact-finding,
to
have
been
a
product
of
intentional
discrimination.
For
instance, the
state
admitted that
it
had
tried
to
keep
residents
with
“European
heritage”
(that
is,
white
people)
in
the
same
district
while
aggressively
slicing
up
nonwhite
communities
into
different
districts.
Under
the
new
regime,
the
Roberts
court’s
conservatives
don’t
care.
In
fact,
Tuesday’s
order
expressly approved of
the
state’s
desire
to
keep
those
white
voters
together
while
divvying
up
Black
voters
to
prevent
the
latter
group
from
electing
their
preferred
representative.
It
is
now
open
season
on
minority
voters
in
any
state
that
seeks
to
crowd
them
out
of
their
voting
booths.
In
killing
the
sole
remaining
remedy
for
blatantly
racist
gerrymanders,
the
court
has
goosed
the
cynical
partisan
voting
wars
even
further.
The
“partisan
voting
wars”
is
the
whole
ballgame
here.
Roberts
didn’t
see
fit
to
help
Alabama
Republicans
3
years
ago
because
there
wasn’t
a
political
need
to
secure
an
extra
“European
heritage”
district.
But
that
was
before
California
decided
that
it
would
let
its
voters
approve
a
highly
partisan
map
to
counteract
Texas
redrawing
its
maps.
The
Supreme
Court
opened
the
door
to
purely
partisan
gerrymandering,
assuming
the
Democrats
would
refuse
to
play
on
principle.
For
several
years,
they
were
right.
But
now
that
the
free-for-all
is
on,
Republicans
have
run
into
a
roadblock.
The
Voting
Rights
Act
and
the
body
of
constitutional
protections
against
racial
disenfranchisement
create
an
outer
bound
to
what
maps
a
heavily
Republican
state
government
can
draw.
In
the
past,
with
a
state
like
Wisconsin,
the
GOP
could
—
and
did
—
draw
itself
a
caricature
of
partisan
gerrymandering.
But
in
the
Deep
South,
eking
out
those
last
few
additional
seats
require
carving
up
Black
communities
in
ways
the
Constitution
doesn’t
allow.
At
least,
it
didn’t.
If
states
don’t
have
to
protect
racial
minorities
from
having
their
neighborhoods
broken
up
to
diminish
their
voices,
the
last
limit
on
GOP
gerrymandering
is
gone.
And
the
majority
on
the
Court
isn’t
willing
to
wait
until
2028
to
free
up
their
fellow
conservative
activists.
After
years
of
lecturing
lower
courts
about
the
Purcell
principle
—
the
doctrine
that
judges
shouldn’t
change
election
rules
close
to
an
election
lest
voters
get
confused
—
the
doctrine
just
got
waved
away
to
avoid
punishing
a
state
for
celebrating
Jefferson
Davis
Day.
Justice
Jackson
calls
this
majority’s
executive
power
rulings
“Calvinball
with
a
twist,”
and
that
seems
to
extend
to
the
Purcell
principle
too.
The
Court
invoked
Purcell
to
protect
the
Texas
gerrymander,
deeming
a
challenge
four
months
out
too
close
to
the
wire.
Since
then
it’s
turned
around
and
endorsed
gerrymanders
in
Louisiana
and
now
Alabama
after
voting
already
started.
When
the
shoe
was
on
the
other
foot
in
this
case,
Alabama
claimed
that
reassigning
voters
back
to
the
old
maps
would
take
months
and
now
they
contend
it
can
be
accomplished
in
days.
Purcell
isn’t
really
a
principle
as
much
as
public
relations
copy.
The
public
increasingly
sees
the
Supreme
Court
as
a
collection
of
nakedly
political
actors
and
the
conservatives
aren’t
happy
about
that.
But
using
the
shadow
docket
specifically
to
refuse
to
defend
a
decision
to
rewrite
election
laws
to
help
Republicans
win?
Man,
you’re
never
going
to
beat
the
“they’re
just
political
actors”
charges
that
way.
(Opinion
on
the
next
page…)
The
Supreme
Court
Just
Transformed
Its
Horrible
Voting
Rights
Ruling
Into
Something
More
Calamitous
[Slate]
Order
in
Allen
v.
Caster
(No.
25A1314)
[Supreme
Court
of
the
United
States]
Earlier:
John
Roberts
Thinks
Alabama
Maps
He
Decided
Were
Too
Racist
Magically
Aren’t
So
Racist
Anymore!
John
Roberts
Decides
Voting
Rights
Already
Weak
Enough
For
Him
In
Latest
Supreme
Court
Ruling
Supreme
Court
Shadow
Docket
Just
Throwing
Darts
At
Democracy
At
This
Point
Supreme
Court’s
Shadow
Docket
Scam
Collides
With
Reality
Joe
Patrice is
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