Black voters suffer another significant loss in the Supreme Court – By Ian Millhiser (VOX) / March 23, 2022
The justices are concerned that Wisconsin’s legislative maps may give too much political power to Black people.
On Wednesday, as the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court, the incumbent justices handed down a decision undermining the right of Black people to participate equally in America’s elections.
The Court’s decision in Wisconsin Legislature v. Wisconsin Elections Commission strikes down state legislative maps selected by the Wisconsin Supreme Court after the state’s Republican legislature and Democratic governor were unable to agree upon which maps the state should use. The maps that the state court adopted were proposed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, but Evers was also constrained by criteria, laid out by the GOP-controlled state supreme court, that favor Republicans.
These maps apply to the state legislature. The Court’s decision does not touch the state’s congressional maps.
The Court relied on a confusing array of legal doctrines governing racial gerrymanders, but one key, inflammatory assumption appears to undergird the decision: That legislative maps with fewer Black-majority districts are often preferred to those that give more power to Black voters.
