In a 6-3 decision, SCOTUS rejected the notion that state legislatures have unlimited power to determine the rules for federal elections and draw partisan congressional maps without interference from state courts.
How much effect will this have on existing congressional maps and upcoming elections?
This session has really been sort of surprising when compared with last session. The 6-3 Republican majority last year really kicked the hornet’s nest, between the NY gun case and Dobbs. It seemed like now that the Court was firmly in the hands of ideologues they were just going to go YOLO and tick off every item on the right-wing wish list.
I have no way of substantiating this, but I have to wonder if the outrage that has arisen nationwide in the wake of Dobbs, along with all of the coverage of the various justices’ ethical lapses, is having a similar effect as FDR’s court-packing scheme had on the Court of the 1930s. His plan to add sympathetic justices to the Court to stop the string of right-wing blows against the New Deal failed, but it was a credible enough threat that it caused at least one justice to stop obstructing and allowed FDR’s programs to get through unimpeded.
Could it be that the majority is so uncomfortable with the heat it’s gotten the past year that they’re throwing cold water on their grander ambitions? If so, let’s keep up the pressure!
I don’t know about “the majority”, but I’m pretty sure Roberts has been twisting arms so that his legacy isn’t being the chief justice who presided over the downfall of the court.
Entirely possible, though it seems like he was twisting arms the last session to get his colleagues to slow down, and we all saw how that turned out. Something has shifted, and I’m not really sure what, but while the Court as a whole is decidedly right-wing, it’s more chastened than the triumphalist 2021-22 session.
I have a suspicion that the court would have left Roe at least partially intact if the draft memo hadn’t leaked.