Jimmy Hoover, Supreme Court editor-at-large for Law360, joins Cheddar Politics to discuss the high court's latest ruling in an Alabama gerrymandering case that could end up further chipping away at the Voting Rights Act.

Cheddar Politics

Supreme Court Reinstates Alabama's Congressional Map

Welcome back guys to general politics. The roberts court yet again taking aim at the voting rights act. In a 54 decision, with roberts joining the court's liberals in dissent, the Supreme Court reinstated Alabama's congressional district map. This overruled the lower court decision that said that the map diluted the power of black voters in a way that had violated the voting rights act. So to break this down and so much more for us is jimmy hoover, Supreme Court editor at large, over at law 3 60 jimmy, always good to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. So let's break this down just a little bit more here. What was sort of the majority of the Supreme Court's reasoning for reinstating this map that essentially packed in all of the black voters in Alabama, which is 30% of Alabama by the way into one congressional district. Yeah, what's interesting is that the majority actually didn't explain its rationale at all. This was an unsigned order issued on what's called the Supreme Court's Shadow docket um in a sense that it wasn't a ruling on the merits necessarily. It came to the Supreme Court on an emergency appeal and request for a stay from the state of Alabama. We got a little bit of an insight into what the majority may have been thinking in its decision to reinstate um this allegedly discriminatory map with a concurrence written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh now in his concurrence, Justice Kavanaugh explained that under Supreme Court precedent of federal courts are not to intervene or change the rules of an election close to an election or on the eve of an election. Um Now, obviously the primary elections in in 2022 are, you know, several weeks um potentially months away now. Um And so you have the N double A cp representing black voters, saying that that, you know, it was enough of a run time in order to um have Alabama create an additional a second black majority district in the state that would give black voters in Alabama adequate representation in Congress. Do you think almost in a sense, because roberts, by the way the roberts court gutted the voting rights act before, even though I think it's interesting that roberts is siding with the liberals here when it comes to the voting rights act, even though he gutted the law. But is that sort of where we're thinking from, the Supreme Court might be going when it comes to these minority districts. Next those are the things to go after the voting rights act? Well, I mean, this has to do with a claim for voter dilution under section two of the voting rights act. Now, you mentioned the Supreme Court having gutted section five, which had to do with the Federal government's ability to kind of sign off on changes to voting rules in certain states with a history of discrimination. Now, what the conservative majority signaled here in this decision reinstating Alabama's map, is that they disagree with the way that the Supreme Court has generally been um adjudicating claims of uh dilution of black voting representation. Now, it's interesting, you mentioned Chief Justice roberts now, if you read his dissent in this case, so he's dissenting to the Supreme Court's temporary stay of the lower court order. Now, what that means is he would have allowed the 2022 elections in Alabama to have taken place under this new map that was ordered by the lower district court creating an additional black congressional district. However, he says that he would also welcome the opportunity to kind of revisit the Supreme Court's precedents in the areas of these voter dilution claims. And so what the Supreme Court did on monday in its decision was not only to temporarily stay or in effect to reinstate Alabama's original congressional map, that just had the one single solitary black majority district, but also agreed to take up Alabama's appeals at a future date where you could possibly see what you may be referring to, Which is kind of a changing a substantive changing of how courts are supposed to adjudicate these voter dilution claims, which could make it more difficult for black voters in history in states with historic discrimination to be able to say that there that these congressional maps are not adequately representing them. They're packing them all into either one majority black district and then dispersing the remainder across other majority white districts. Now, you mentioned at the top that, you know, Alabama has seven congressional districts and now just one of them have a majority of black voters. Um even though black voters represent about 27% of the state's population. So this could be a really interesting thing going forward and could have some pretty broad repercussions in other states across the country. Absolutely. Let's switch gears and let's talk about the Supreme Court opening here, because now we're sort of now in the big moment here, Joe biden reportedly already looking at binders of potential picks, potentially we already now have the Sherpa doug jones now who's going to help shepherd this potential individual across the finish line here and still at the end of the day, the betting favorite seems to be K Tangie Brown Jackson, basically likely the frontrunner here, but it seems like we're getting a lot of republicans though that are coming out now Lindsey Graham in particular for Michelle Childs here saying that potentially she could get up to 10 Republican votes here. If joe biden chose her. How much do you sort of think the Supreme Court and getting broad bipartisan support is weighing maybe on the president's mind here, given we're so polarized as the country and the Supreme Court also coming across as fairly polarized. It's a really interesting question, you know, on the one hand, biden technically doesn't need, you know, a single Republican vote in support of his nominee with Vice President Kamala Harris's tiebreaking vote for an evenly divided chamber. Right? So theoretically even if not a single Republican voted for his nominee, she could be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Now, what we've heard from biden when it comes to the Supreme Court is kind of an effort to reduce the temperature a little bit. Um He summoned this bipartisan commission to study efforts possible changes to reforms to the Supreme Court um that, you know, made recommendation well actually didn't make recommendations but produced a lengthy report about the various proposals to do so. But he's come out against some of these more controversial efforts being flooded by the left such as court packing or adding seats to the court. So that could suggest that biden, you know, being more of an institutionalist might think it actually might be better for the long term health of the Supreme Court to nominate someone who like you say could get a number of Republican votes. Michelle Childs being probably the most likely 1 to 2 to broaden uh to get the most broad support they're coming from a state where both of her home state. Republican senators are on the record is pretty much supporting her eventual nomination if it does in fact happen now. But there could also be um I mean it's worth pointing out that Judge Jackson herself earned the vote of senator lindsey Graham lisa murkowski and Susan Collins when she was confirmed to the D. C. Circuit court last summer. Um whether that is enough of a bipartisan valence to potentially you know leave biden to maybe nominate her remains to be seen. There's also another California associate Supreme Court justice being floated for the open seat named Leandra are Kruger who is considered more of a moderate um than particularly some of the other names on the list and in her case could potentially galvanize some bipartisan support as well. So the White House is clearly taking pains to vet these candidates to make sure no surprises come up. That could complicate her eventual confirmation of the Supreme Court. And that's why it could be that you know we don't find out until biden's more target date that he's expressed towards the end of the month. Yeah exactly. It's the president clearly doesn't want to Brett Kavanaugh situation to happen here as well. Jimmy hoover. Supreme Court Editor at large for law 3 60 jimmy. Thanks so much for joining us.