Today on the Prospect Weekly Roundup, we welcome New York Times opinion columnist (and Prospect alumnus!) Jamelle Bouie to the show.
Our managing editor Ryan Cooper and Jamelle discuss Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, the 6-3 decision the Supreme Court handed down on Thursday, which endorses partisan gerrymandering even in cases that have racial implications. Alito’s opinion goes a step further than the conservative majority to explicitly state that racial gerrymandering is fully constitutional.
This goes against the precedent set by the Court’s last major opinion on racial gerrymandering, Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019, which held that federal courts do not have jurisdiction to decide on cases that challenge partisan maps but did not go as far as to state that rigged maps are allowed under the Constitution.
As Justice Alito’s latest scandal, flying a flag outside his home that was seen on January 6th, shows us, the people who make up the nation’s highest court are not of a higher caliber than the rest of the public. They’re political actors, just like anyone else, and the conservative majority is using their untouchable status as Supreme Court justices to achieve their own political ends. Without major Court reform, liberals may never have a majority on the Court, and the institution will always exist to further the right’s agenda.
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