By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling that the blatantly partisan gerrymandering in Tennessee, which for all intensive purposes neutered a heavily Black voting bloc and now results in a Republican
Tennessee having absolute control of all nine Congressional delegates, it is time to pack the court!
The MAGA side of the Supreme Court, led by the ever grinning Chief Justice Roberts, has spoken in twisted legal gibberish that the Tennessee lawmakers were permitted to carve up the Black voting district
in Memphis under the guise of permitted political gerrymandering.
The Supremes with no judicial embarrassment whatsoever, concluded that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and specifically its critical Section 2 , was inapplicable to the issue at hand and they glibly stated that the defenders of
Section 2 could not demonstrate that the motive of the gerrymandering, was intentionally done with racism as its rocket fuel.
From the outset, let’s be clear, the recent ruling of the Supreme Court is not balanced or fair when it comes to matters involving race being a factor.
The Supreme Court justices have taken upon themselves the mantle and crown of being the final arbiter of all things racial when it comes to judicial pronouncements. They do not give deference to the effect of the passed laws
in Congress but rather they pontificate on legal issues as if there are not two other branches of a co-equal government and especially so when it pertains to the powers of Congress to regulate the courts.
Under the US Constitution, it is Congress that oversees the power and reaches of the Supreme Court and the lower courts and not the Supreme Court regulating itself and more importantly, dictating what they believes shows or does not show, intent of the lawmakers.
Suffice to say, attempting to find a racist intent regarding the passage of a law that clearly tramples on the rights of minority voters to have access to their chosen candidate is nigh an impossibility.
That is why the impetus behind Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act did not engage in such tomfoolery but rather it relied upon the effect of the outcome of such biased gerrymandering by white politicos.
Anyone with two working brain cells can ascertain that if you have to rely upon showing what the framers meant when they arbitrarily and capriciously drew up boundary lines involving majority Black districts and which resulted in black voting strength being either diluted or totally nullified, you are asleep.
What makes this outrageous decision even the more injurious is that Justice Clarence Thomas, whom I now call Sambo, was concurring in the majority opinion of this devastating ruling.
As long as the white MAGA skewed majority had Sambo sitting in their midst giving assent to this assault, they had the confidence to wreak havoc on this 60-year old decision.
Sambo had no shame in throwing Black voters under the bus because, in my humble opinion, it only demonstrates that he was and is willing to stick it to Black voters or Black people whenever the opportunity arises.
Clarence Thomas, for all practicable purposes, is simply another “white” jurist on the Supreme Court and he has absolutely no qualms about it. His woeful lack of the history of racism in this country when it pertains to the shameful history of Black people being denied access to the ballot box, does not phase Sambo one bit.
This is all the more remarkable when you understand that Sambo was a direct beneficiary of Affirmative Action in his educational career but he has made sure that once he got the benefit of accessing higher education, he slammed the door on others trying to gain entry in the same manner that he did.
With the racial polarization in this country increasing due to the openly hostility of Trump, Hegseth and now emboldened white Southern state legislators, matters of race, D.E.I. and the teaching of critical race theory (C.R.T.)
are nigh taboo subjects and easy pickings for racist legislators.
America’s hostility to people of color is not toning down but rather has been heated up due to the racial remarks of Trump and his clown car of similarly likeminded enablers. Once the right to vote and the process to vote is pummeled by legislation that attempts to frustrate and limit minority voters, Jim Crow wins!
Chief Justice Roberts, Trump and others of their ilk are preening and grinning because they currently have the judicial ammo to impede racial progress in America and especially so when it comes to the critical right of who gets to vote and how that process is fairly, or unfairly, implemented.
One remedy to a right wing Supreme Court is if and when the Democrats win both houses of Congress, they can, “pack the court” which means they can place five appointees on the Roberts court to both blunt and “revisit” certain decisions with the goal to deem then null and void.
Short of that activism and if the Republicans continue to control the Senate and the White House, the Roberts court, and its progeny, will continue to steer America back to a Jim Crow era regarding voting rights.
Packing the Court would be a highly combustible issue but with a clear explanation given as to why it is critically needed at this junction in American history, it is worth the time and effort to undertake its implementation.
What is the alternative? Simple: Jim Crow flies again and you will have rule by the Supreme Court and not rule by the people, of the people and for the people.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at lafe5x@gmail.com