Thomas leaves nothing left unsaid on racial gerrymandering decision: ‘Go further’
Justice Clarence Thomas said Wednesday the Supreme Court should go further than its latest Voting Rights Act ruling, arguing the law’s key anti-discrimination provision was divisive and should never apply...
By Fox News · Fox News
Justice Clarence Thomas said Wednesday the Supreme Court should go further than its latest Voting Rights Act ruling, arguing the law’s key anti-discrimination provision was divisive and should never apply to redistricting cases. "As I explained more than 30 years ago, I would go further and hold that [section two] of the Voting Rights Act does not regulate districting at all," Thomas, who was joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote in a concurrence. Thomas' remarks came as part of the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais , which upheld a finding that one of the state’s majority-Black congressional districts was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The decision had broad implications, serving to narrow section two of the Voting Rights Act, a civil rights-era law making it illegal for voting policies to discriminate based on race. The ruling already makes it more difficult for states to justify using race when drawing majority-minority districts, but Thomas' concurrence went further, saying the statute should not be used for redistricting under any circumstances. CHICAGO MAYOR BRANDON JOHNSON TAKES JAB AT CLARENCE THOMAS WHILE DEFENDING CITY'S REPARATIONS TASK FORCE "Today’s decision should largely put an end to this 'disastrous misadventure' in voting-rights jurisprudence," Thomas wrote, quoting himself from a 1994 concurrence. Thomas argued the high court's prior interpretations of section two of the Voting Rights Act have encouraged states to engage in discriminatory race-based map drawing. He said the text of section two covers access to ballots and voting procedures, not how states draw district lines, and that it should therefore not be used in lawsuits about maps. Thomas, an appointee of President George H. W. Bush, has long advocated gutting the Voting Rights Act provision. The conservative justice, the second Black justice in history after Justice Thurgood Marshall, said in the 1994 case, Holder v. Hall, that people who use section two of th…