Greene County Democrat

Tag: Justice Clarence Thomas and the conservative Supreme Court have fanned the flames of racism in America

  • Newswire : Supreme Court in 6-3 decision in Moore vs. Harper rejects ‘independent state legislative theory’

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    The U.S. Supreme Court declined to impose new restrictions on state courts regarding election-related matters. The decision came as the Court ruled against Republicans in North Carolina fighting for a congressional district map that favored their candidates.
The justices voted 6-3, in the case of Moore vs. Harper, stating that the North Carolina Supreme Court had acted within its authority by deeming the map a partisan gerrymander under the state Constitution.
The ruling rejects the “independent state legislature” theory, an obscure legal argument made by Republicans.
The theory argues that state courts have limited power to strike down election laws enacted by state legislatures.
However, the Supreme Court’s decision refused to adopt this broad interpretation, much to the relief of voting rights groups and Democrats concerned about potential limitations on state court authority.
Former President Barack Obama expressed his approval of the Court’s decision, tweeting, “Today the Supreme Court rejected the fringe independent state legislature theory that threatened to upend our democracy and dismantle our system of checks and balances.”
The “independent state legislature” argument centers on the language of the Elections Clause in the Constitution, which states that election rules “shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”
Proponents of the theory claim that this language gives state legislatures ultimate power over federal election rules under state law, potentially overriding any constraints imposed by state constitutions.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the majority opinion, agreed that state courts could apply state constitutional restraints when legislatures exercise the power granted by the Elections Clause.
However, he noted that state courts should be within the bounds of ordinary judicial review when conflicts with federal law arise. Federal courts can intervene in such cases, according to the Court’s conclusion.
The North Carolina Supreme Court had previously issued the ruling.
Still, following the midterm elections, the court composition changed to Republican control, and the decision was recently overturned.
That development raised questions about whether the Supreme Court needed to decide the case at all. Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by fellow conservative justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, dissented, arguing that the case was moot.
Thomas expressed concern that the decision would create confusion in lower courts, potentially leading to more cases resembling the controversial Bush v. Gore ruling in 2000 and ultimately resulting in Republican George W. Bush becoming president.
In a separate opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh hinted that the Court might address the scope of state court authority in a future case. He emphasized that the Court had established a general principle for federal court review of state court decisions in federal election cases.
He suggested that a more specific standard would be distilled in due course.
Although the congressional map in North Carolina will be redrawn before the 2024 election due to a state law provision, the Supreme Court’s ruling suggests that the new map is likely to favor Republicans heavily.
Had the Court embraced the “independent state legislature” theory, it would have impacted redistricting disputes and other election-related rules, including issues like mail-in voting and voter access to the polls.
This theory could have also called into question the power of governors to veto legislation.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist had endorsed a version of the theory in the 2000 Bush v. Gore case. During the recent oral arguments, several justices referenced Rehnquist’s opinion to support the notion of constraining state officials, including judges, from making changes to election laws enacted by legislatures without proper legal grounding.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump cited the “independent state legislature” theory in various cases related to the 2020 presidential election.
Republicans, including Tim Moore, used the theory after the North Carolina Supreme Court invalidated the congressional district map last year. They argued that the state court had exceeded its authority.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case but maintained an interim map for the 2022 midterm elections, in which Democrats and Republicans each won seven seats.
Prominent figures supporting the theory included John Eastman, a lawyer involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Eastman argued that then-Vice President Mike Pence could block the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021. Conservative groups advocating for stricter voting restrictions and claiming widespread voter fraud also supported the theory.
Democrats and voting rights activists had raised concerns about the case, particularly in light of attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“This 6-3 decision should put an end to the radical theory that state legislatures can operate without being bound by state constitutions or judicial review,” said Dr. Jennifer Jones of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“The fight to end partisan gerrymanders is still ongoing, and politicians in North Carolina and other states may still try to lock in their power through biased maps, but today’s decision confirms that those legislators’ power is not absolute. Today’s decision is a relief for everyone concerned with free and fair elections.”

  • Newswire: Justice Clarence Thomas and the conservative Supreme Court have fanned the flames of racism in America

    By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent

    Justice Clarence Thomas

    The Supreme Court not only abolished abortion rights in America with its June 24, 2022, decision but also ended any semblance of racial tolerance in the United States.
Former President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again cry proved an easy to read between-the-lines moniker, but even that was seen as nothing more than the typical dog whistle – until now.
 After the high court’s ruling, the MAGA crowd has become more emboldened.
“President Trump, on behalf of all the Maga patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court [June 24],” Illinois Republican Mary Miller told a cheering crowd during a rally as she stood next to the former president.
Running for reelection in the 15th congressional district, Miller received an invite from Trump to speak. Her camp attempted to deflect from her racist comment, stating that she misspoke and intended to say, “right to life.”
Responding to a tweet by the nation’s first African American president, Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn compared the decision to reverse Roe v. Wade to segregation.
“Now do Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education,” Cornyn tweeted at Obama following the 44th president writing that the court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, “it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues – attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.”
Cornyn thundered what many in the GOP and the high court’s conservative majority have always whispered: a desire to overturn Brown v. Board of Education and resurrect the 1800s doctrine of “separate but equal” to re-establish racial segregation laws that inherently imply that Black people are inferior.
“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a day before abolishing Roe.
Thomas and fellow conservatives had struck down a New York law that restricted gun ownership. “Because any substantive due process decision is demonstrably erroneous … we have a duty to correct the error established in those precedents,” said Thomas.
The justice has gained the turncoat nickname, Uncle Thomas, from African Americans and others.
In the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut case, the court voted 7-2 to strike down a law restricting married couples’ access to birth control.
The majority stated that such statutes are impermissible because they violate the right to privacy for citizens.
The cases of Lawrence and Obergefell respectively made same-sex activity and marriages legal.
Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in that landmark case, called Thomas out in a nationally televised interview.
He noted that Thomas specifically named same-sex and contraceptive rights, in his opinion, omitting interracial marriage. If the court overturned that law, Thomas’ marriage to Ginni, who is white, would face peril.
“He omitted Loving v. Virginia because it affects him personally,” Obergefell stated.
Striking a severe nerve, Thomas went a step further when voting to strike down New York’s gun law, even after more than 277 mass shootings have occurred in 2022.
The Black justice invoked the disgusting Dred Scott decision, where then-chief justice Roger Taney cautioned that African Americans would have the right to carry firearms in public if the court recognized them as U.S. citizens.
“Even Chief Justice Taney recognized that public carry was a component of the right to keep and bear arms – a right free Blacks were often denied in antebellum America,” Thomas dared to assert.
Justice Stephen Breyer noted the “serious dangers and consequences of gun violence” against the Second Amendment.
Thomas wasn’t done, however. He compared abortion statistics to soldiers killed during the Civil War. “I join the opinion of the court because it correctly holds that there is no constitutional right to abortion,” Thomas wrote.
“Abortion is not deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition. It’s not implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” he said.
Attorney Daniel Goldman, the former lead counsel for the House Impeachment Committee who is running for Congress in New York’s 10th district, blasted Thomas.
“When you read Clarence Thomas’s concurrence, where he calls into question many other rights based on the fundamental right to privacy, remember that he testified unequivocally in his confirmation hearings that there is a right to privacy in the Constitution,” Goldman tweeted.