What a message to send to state legislators and mapmakers about racial gerrymandering. For reasons I’ve addressed, those actors will often have an incentive to use race as a proxy to achieve partisan ends. See supra, at 20–22.
And occasionally they might want to straight-up suppress
the electoral influence of minority voters. See Cooper, 581 U. S., at 319, n. 15. Go right ahead, this Court says to States today. Go ahead, though you have no recognized justification for using race, such as to comply with statutes ensuring equal voting rights. Go ahead, though you are (at
best) using race as a short-cut to bring about partisan gains—to elect more Republicans in one case, more Democrats in another. It will be easy enough to cover your tracks in the end: Just raise a “possibility” of non-race-based decision-making, and it will be “dispositive.” Ante, at 16. And so this “odious” practice of sorting citizens, built on racial generalizations and exploiting racial divisions, will continue. Shaw, 509 U. S., at 643. In the electoral sphere especially, where “ugly patterns of pervasive racial discrimination” have so long governed, we should demand better—of ourselves, of our political representatives, and most of all of this Court. Id., at 639. Respectfully, I dissent.
I would encourage everyone to read her whole dissent.
I think I have a favorite supreme court justice.
I would encourage everyone to read her whole dissent.
Which 'she' is that please?
Elena Kagan
… because the other commenter was unhelpful.