Jonathan Turley cheers for the Colorblind Constitution: The Roberts Court Ends a ‘Sordid Business’.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, barring racial gerrymandering, has many on the left feigning vapors, despite the predictions of many of us that this result was likely.
While figures such as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) declared that the court itself has been “gerrymandered” to rig the upcoming elections, this decision is actually the culmination of decades of jurisprudence by various justices — particularly Chief Justice John Roberts.
Indeed, the decision will cement the legacy of the Roberts Court in moving the country toward a colorblind system of laws.
Like most Americans, Roberts abhors racial discrimination in any form. He holds the quaint idea that when the drafters of the 14th Amendment barred discrimination on the basis of race, they meant it. This is why, in 2006, Roberts famously wrote, “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”
It is indeed.
At the WSJ, Jason Riley urges the Gerrymander to not let the screen door hit it on its way out: Good Riddance to Racial Gerrymandering. (WSJ gifted link)
The fainting spells on the left after last week’s Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais were probably to be expected. Democrats these days reject colorblind public policies that they championed in a previous era and scoff at clear evidence of America’s racial progress. A court decision that reins in racially gerrymandered voting districts checked both boxes, so it is no wonder that Democratic elites from Barack Obama on down are outraged.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision effectively guts a key pillar of the Voting Rights Act, freeing state legislatures to gerrymander legislative districts to systematically dilute and weaken the voting power of racial minorities,” Mr. Obama wrote in response to the decision. “And it serves as just one more example of how a majority of the current Court seems intent on abandoning its vital role in ensuring equal participation in our democracy and protecting the rights of minority groups against majority overreach.”
What nonsense. The case before the court concerned Louisiana’s 2024 decision, under pressure from the courts, to draw a congressional map that included a second majority-black district. Supporters said the racial gerrymander was necessary to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which bars the use of qualifications, standards or procedures that make it harder for minorities to cast a ballot. Opponents contended that the map violated the Constitution’s equal-protection clause by sorting voters based on race. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices sided with the challengers and said Louisiana unlawfully discriminated by race when it created a second majority-black district.
To repeat: It's a nasty business indeed, and you have to be a Democrat cheerleader to like it. But as to today's headline: all this aggravation could have been obviated if we had implemented the crackpot scheme I proposed back in 2017. Essentially: the problem with the current system is that it's "winner take all".
To take an egregious example from the 2024 election: In California's 13th congressional district Adam Gray (D) defeated John Duarte (R) by 187 votes out of over 200,000 cast. A statisical 50/50 tie, but Gray goes to Washington, casting one whole vote there. The 105,367 voters who favored Duarte get nothing, no representation at all.
Pun Salad solution: send both Gray and Duarte to DC, with a half-vote each. (And repeat for the other 434 Congressional districts.)
Also of note:
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Me too. Erick Erickson comments on the (apparently very fluid) situation in and around Iran: I Hope I Was Not Wrong.
I have to admit it. I hope I was not wrong, but I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong.
I support bombing Iran and destroying the regime. I presumed there had to be a plan, and I have had friends with deep roots inside the Trump Administration tell me this was all very much an impulse play by the President flying by the seat of his pants.
I did not believe it. But as I see it playing out now, I am wondering if they really were right. There never really was a plan. There was a hope to bomb them into submission. The President saw Venezuela and was on top of the world.
So he decided to use the American military against Iran. Until he decided otherwise.
I sympathize. And kind of feel the same way. Things could still work out, but that's what you get when the Commander-in-Chief operates on narcissistic whim.
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Can we call them RINOs yet? Eric Boehm describes some fiscal shenanigans: Republicans Want To Borrow Every Single Dollar of the $72 Billion Bill To Fund ICE and Trump's Ballroom.
Senate Republicans have unveiled their plan to fund immigration enforcement and President Donald Trump's ballroom, and the proposal might take fiscal irresponsibility to a new record high.
The two bills included in the package call for spending nearly $72 billion. Remarkably, every single dollar would be borrowed.
That's according to the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis of the bill, which was released on Wednesday morning. According to the CBO, the bill would direct $38 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and spend $26 billion on various programs run by Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
And they want to do this via "reconciliation", hoping to bypass a Democrat filibuster. Some see that as a problem:
I have never been more ashamed to be a registered Republican.That process was "originally designed to make deficit reduction easier. Republicans are using it to make deficit expansion easier," wrote Dominik Lett, a fiscal policy analyst for the Cato Institute, in an email to Reason.
After reviewing the CBO's assessment, Lett confirmed that every single dollar in the spending bill will be borrowed. "They don't even attempt to include offsets," he wrote.
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Of course, the other side is worse. Jack Butler notes the latest from a totalitarian fanboy: Bernie the Dupe.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is worried about artificial intelligence. He wrote last month in the Journal—we publish a variety of viewpoints—that AI could “displace tens of millions of workers,” “threatens our privacy” and is “reshaping how we as human beings relate to one another.”
Mr. Sanders’s economic concerns are consistent with the consistently wrong antiprogress socialism that has arisen before almost every wave of ultimately beneficial technological transformation. AI is currently propping up our tariff-addled economy. But the noneconomic potential of AI to drive further atomization, increase distrust and drown everything—politics, art, relationships—in a sea of slop is something worth at least discussing.
None of these anxieties, however, are sufficient reason to trust the Chinese Communist Party. Yet that’s exactly what Mr. Sanders advocates. Recently he brought U.S. and Chinese AI experts to Capitol Hill to discuss the new technology. His rationale is that the “existential threat” it poses ought to get the two rival powers to lay down their arms and figure out how best to confront it. “We need to cooperate. We need dialogue,” he said.
Jack provides a brief history of fellow-travelling. Bernie's just the latest.
![[The Blogger]](/ps/images/barred.jpg)
