Democrats have just been dealt a massive blow by the U.S. Supreme Court.
A ruling came down on Thursday night that the newly drawn maps eliminating five likely Democrat seats in Texas can be used in the upcoming election cycle, reversing a lower court decision.
Democrats are having a nervous breakdown over this, but the Supreme Court ruling is very telling when it comes to moving this battle forward in terms of fighting Democrats' maps.
We have to go back to July for the origins of this battle, when President Donald Trump reached out to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to have him redraw his electoral maps.
This was an unprecedented move to adjust congressional districts in the middle of the decade, given that they are usually only redrawn after a census is completed.
Trump knew that the upcoming midterm election cycle would be difficult to win, so he was hoping Texas would be able to gerrymander its districts to give the GOP a few more seats, and the new maps gave Republicans a five-seat advantage over the previous ones.
The maps were challenged, of course, and California soon came out and announced that it would redraw its maps in retaliation.
After the maps were challenged, Texas lost its battle in the lower courts, but all was not lost.vTexas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed to the Supreme Court, and in November, Justice Samuel Alito stayed the lower court order disqualifying the maps until arguments could be heard.
At this point, I still did not think the maps would be permitted, as the whole process was an act of clear gerrymandering, but as it turns out, the argument made by the plaintiffs was flawed, as was, according to the Supreme Court, the lower court's rationale for overturning the maps.
The lower court ruling was overturned by the Supreme Court this week, sending a shockwave through the Democrat Party.
The lower courts blocked the maps based on alleged discrimination, but the Supreme Court majority ruled that the lower courts had made “serious errors,” further explaining that the courts had “improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections.”
Justice Elena Kagan issued a blistering dissent, which, in part, stated, “This Court’s stay guarantees that Texas’s new map, with all its enhanced partisan advantage, will govern next year’s elections for the House of Representatives.”
She continued, “And this Court’s stay ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this Court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution.”
Having read through the ruling, I think the court also gave the GOP a perfect game plan to defeat Democrat-devised maps going forward. Now, I am not a legal expert, but from what I read, the court went out of its way to explain why the Texas maps were permitted, allowing the GOP to deconstruct the reasoning to figure out a proper strategy to defeat any of the Democrat maps that remain outstanding, as well as defend their own in upcoming litigation.
Regardless, get ready for some significant outrage from Democrats and liberals who are going to absolutely lose their minds over this ruling. This will reignite calls from the left to expand the high court to achieve a Democrat advantage, and it will amplify the voices of those contending that the court is nothing more than Trump’s rubber stamp. In fact, both things have already started.
