The New York Times reports:

If Republicans succeed in pulling off an aggressively partisan gerrymander of congressional districts in Texas, they will owe the Supreme Court a debt of gratitude.

In the two decades Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has led the Supreme Court, the justices have reshaped American elections not just by letting state lawmakers like those in Texas draw voting maps warped by politics, but also by gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and amplifying the role of money in politics.

Developments in recent weeks signaled that some members of the court think there is more work to be done in removing legal guardrails governing elections. There are now signs that court is considering striking down or severely constraining the remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act, a towering achievement of the civil rights movement that has protected the rights of minority voters since it was enacted 60 years ago last week.

Taken together, the court’s actions in election cases in recent years have shown great tolerance for partisan gamesmanship and great skepticism about federal laws on campaign spending and minority rights. The court’s rulings have been of a piece with its conservative wing’s jurisprudential commitments: giving states leeway in many realms, insisting on an expansive interpretation of the First Amendment and casting a skeptical eye on government racial classifications.

At bottom, the court’s election-law decisions seem aimed at dismantling decisions of the famously liberal court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren from 1953 to 1969.

In his memoirs, Chief Justice Warren described decisions establishing the equality of each citizen’s vote as his court’s most important achievements. That made them more important in his view even than Brown v. Board of Education, which ordered the desegregation of public schools.

Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the Roberts court may be moving in the opposite direction.

“At least some of the conservative justices on the court seem ready to turn the clock back to the early 1960s,” he said, “when courts imposed very little constraints on the most blatant power grabs, and before Congress exercised its constitutional powers to protect voting rights.” [Continue reading…]