Equal Votes?

Of all the cases heard by the United States Supreme Court during the term that ends today, only two were direct appeals under a statutory mandate that they be heard directly from three-judge panels of District Courts. That is a requirement that Congress imposed because there were several historical instances when three-judge panels operated as a form of appellate court on their own. To require aggrieved parties to go through another couple years in the intermediate appellate courts would greatly expand the time for ultimate resolution of the dispute.

Over the years, Congress has diminished the use of three-judge District Courts and the resulting direct appeals to the Supreme Court. Those issues that remained were saved because Congress determined that there is an extraordinary need for them to be resolved quickly. Likewise, there are very few times when the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction is mandatory, not discretionary.

Both of these cases meet both criteria. The Supreme Court could deny certiorari; it is required to hear them. They also involve issues that require timely resolution. In this case, they both involve the same issue: Louisiana’s redistricting after the 2020 census. Timeliness is obviously important because shortly after the redistricting there was another election and 2022. We had a second election based on the new criteria in 2024. The Supreme Court still has not decided if the current redistricting is constitutional.

The cases were consolidated in Louisiana v. Calais. I was expecting a decision with the large dumps last Thursday and Friday and quite surprised when these cases were the only ones left out. Then I checked another part of the court docket and found an order, entered on Friday, rescheduling those cases for a second oral argument next term. As a result, it is likely that the primary elections for a third election since the 2020 census will take place before the Supreme Court determines whether or not the current districts are constitutional. Wow!

In short, the Supreme Court has shirked its responsibility for deciding what are arguably the most important cases it was scheduled to decide this term. These cases should have been decided four years ago.

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The Louisiana cases are very important because they concern the Voting Rights Act of 1964 (VRA). The VRA is the most racist legislation ever passed in the United States. It requires states to draw congressional districts such that the majority race in a certain percentage of districts equals the same percentage of that race in the entire state.

The VRA is moronic for at least three main reasons. First, it requires drawing bizarre districts. In the case of Louisiana, one of the subject districts is almost 400 miles long and often no more than a quarter mile wide to almost include black voters based on single residences. What if they move and someone of another race moves in?

Secondly, it implies that everybody who is black or white will vote for the same person. As the Democrats learned in the 2024 election, that is not the case. If anything, it is patently racist on its face and should have been declared unconstitutional in 1964 for that reason.

Third, the VRA has proven over the last 60 years to have actually reduced the effect of white voters in favor of black voters because white votes have to be substantially diluted to meet the percentage requirements of the VRA. By putting affluent white neighborhoods in the same district as predominantly black neighborhoods (like Florida did when moving Winter Park into District 10 after the 2020 census), the votes of the white people in those districts are substantially reduced (assuming the VRA’s underlying premise that people vote the same way based on their race).

The result is that these bizarre districts give us radical, moronic representatives like Rashida Talib, Ilhan Omar, Maxine Waters, Jasmine Crocket, Alexandria Occasionally-Cortez, Hank Johnson (who thinks Guam will tip over into the ocean if too many people live there.), and several others.

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In Florida, we have an increasing problem because a high percentage of our population is white, but also Hispanic, and we all live in the same neighborhoods. It is next to impossible to draw districts excluding part of that population. We also have many neighborhoods, like mine, that are integrated with several black families (many of which are short-term residents, until they are traded to another professional sports team). Under the VRA, we have to gerrymander some districts to account for every racial percentage.

After the 1990 census, Florida had to gerrymander two new districts for mostly black voters. It resulted in one district starting in Lake City, in the middle of the top of the state going east through Jacksonville and then south to Cocoa. Another district started just south of Jupiter and meandered through Palm Beach and Broward Counties. One of the districts was at one point only one block wide.

The two people who were elected from those new districts were both felons. Corine Brown was subsequently convicted of accepting bribes from a variety of people, including Osama bin Laden. Unlike the other felon, she went to prison.

The first representative in the other district was backed by powerful South American drug cartels and held his position for more than 30 years, until his death. He was Alcee Hastings, the only person in the history of the United States to be impeached and convicted (for accepting at least nine bribes) as a federal judge but allowed by the United States Congress (100% Democrat-party-controlled at the time) to hold another position in government.

Yes, that violated the part of Article I, Section 3, of the Constitution, which states in part, “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States . . . “ (Emphasis added).

In other words, all the VRA did was reduce to near zero the quality and integrity of our representatives.

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Another fallacy of the VRA became obvious in South Carolina. The federal Department of Justice (DOJ) told South Carolina they had to change their voting procedures to do away with county-wide election of county commissioners. South Carolina appointed one commissioner to deal with the feds. He was appointed because he had been elected by the highest percentage ever in a county-wide election.

The DOJ claimed that commissioners must be divided into districts so that predominantly black districts could elect a black commissioner. Under the DOJ theory, no black person could ever be elected to a county commission in South Carolina because of their county-wide elections. The South Carolina representative then pointed out that he had been elected by the highest percentage ever in his county-wide election and he, himself, was black.

You know him now as Senator Tim Scott, a black man who won his last Senate reelection in a state-wide South Carolina election by one of the highest percentages in the entire country.

Unfortunately, although logic and reality proved the DOJ and the premise of the VRA wrong, the federal government forced South Carolina to change its election procedures. Now, their counties are inundated with moronic commissioners who were elected only because of their race.

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I understand why the Supreme Court wanted to kick this can down the road. They are so frustrated with the issue that about six years ago the Supreme Court actually said they were “getting out of the redistricting business.” At that time I said it was impossible. I was right. The issue continues to clog up our courts.

The Supremes also have been coming increasingly close to determining that the VRA violates the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution. For example: I am French. Does that mean I get a district in Florida with the 200 or 300 other French people living in the state. If so, doesn’t my vote then count much more than somebody who is in a 2-million-person, all-white district?

What the Supreme Court should have done this term is the same thing they should have done in 1964. They should have declared that the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional because it categorizes people based on their race.

Remember, if we want race to stop being a divisive issue, we need to stop passing laws that make race an issue.

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