It is hard to understand the Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday to reinstate a congressional district map drawn by the Alabama Legislature as anything other than an effort by the conservative justices to help Republicans in the midterms.
In a 5-4 decision, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining the three liberal justices in dissent, the court ignored basic principles of law and essentially gave the Republicans another House seat.
A federal three-judge district court in Alabama (with two Trump appointees and one Clinton appointee), after hearing seven days of testimony and reading more than 1,000 pages of briefs, concluded that the map violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That provision prohibits state and local governments from having election systems that discriminate against minority voters.
