AKCOG

In an important victory for constitutional federalism, the rule of law and democracy, the Supreme Court just upheld Texas's redistricting plan against activist judges who "improperly inserted (themselves) into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections." One key point is that the Leftist/Democratic Party challengers falsely asserted that Texas redrew maps based on race (unlawful) rather than partisan advantage (lawful). When making such an allegation, one is generally supposed to offer an alternative map drawn to achieve the same partisan advantage without racial considerations. The challengers did not bother to do that here and the lower court couldn't be bothered to make them follow the rule. As Justice Alito noted in a concurrence supporting the order: Because of the correlation between race and partisan preference, litigants can easily use claims of racial gerrymandering for partisan ends. To prevent this, our precedents place the burden on the challengers “to disentangle race and politics.” Thus, when the asserted reason for a map is political, it is critical for challengers to produce an alternative map that serves the State’s allegedly partisan aim just as well as the map the State adopted. Although respondents’ experts could have easily produced such a map if that were possible, they did not, giving rise to a strong inference that the State’s map was indeed based on partisanship, not race. Neither the duration of the District Court’s hearing nor the length of its majority opinion provides an excuse for failing to apply the correct legal standards as set out clearly in our case law. (Justice Alito's concurrence was joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch.)

The “Seditious Six” should face criminal investigation.