Louisiana, Alabama Republicans Pretty Sure Black Voters Not As Black As They Say They Are

Vile yet predictable.

Who even is “Black" these days? That’s the big question Republican state officials in Alabama and Louisiana are pondering. There’s some obvious irony here because like most of America during slavery and even decades afterward, the states defined racial status according to a strict “one-drop rule.” Any known Black ancestry was enough to classify you as Black. There were a lot of Taylor Swift-looking enslaved people.

However, that’s become an inconvenient Blackness now. Lower courts have separately ruled that Republican-led legislatures in Alabama and Louisiana created new congressional maps that deliberately dilute Black voters’ political strength. Alabama and Louisiana are 27 and 33 percent Black, respectively, but they’d each have just one majority “Black” congressional district out of seven (Alabama) and six (Louisiana).

This violates whatever Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts left standing in the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 clearly states that maps can’t give a minority group "less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”

Politics is very much local, so when minorities feel they can’t impact local elections, they are less likely to turn out for the statewide and national ones.

When pushing back on Section 2, Republicans have argued that the VRA is the real racist, treating voters differently based on skin color and ethnic identity. Republicans might draw districts that marginalize Black voters but that’s only because they’re likely Democrats. All’s fair when ending free elections.

PREVIOUSLY:  Chief Justice John Roberts Made Jim Crow Great Again 

Republican state officials are challenging these rulings by questioning the very definition of “Blackness” that for decades has served as the standard in these cases. They claim the current definition is too “broad.” It’s as if Black people will let just anyone into our secret society. Look, I'm not happy about Candace Owens and Kanye West, either, but they’re still Black.

 The Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that “Black” could include anyone who self-identified as Black on Census forms along with any other racial or ethnic category (e.g. white, Asian, Hispanic or Latino). Republican state officials have called for "narrower definitions of Blackness" that do not include people who also identify with another minority group. That would definitely include Owens and West, who don’t even identify with other Black people. Republicans would probably love it if Owens and West were the only ones who legally counted as “Black.”

I’m sure that the previous Black definitions will apply for law enforcement purposes.

 NPR reports:  

 Citing no evidence , GOP officials in Alabama argued in lower court filings that limiting the definition to people who mark just the "Black" box and do not identify as Latino for the census would be "most defensible."

And in the Louisiana case —  Ardoin v. Robinson  — officials have been arguing for the definition to only include people who check off either just the "Black" box or both "Black" and "White" and do not identify as Latino.

The federal government considers "Hispanic" or “Latino” an ethnic group that can include any race. This isn’t a wacky opinion. It reflects reality. Black Latinos exist! 

Both Alabama and Louisiana are appealing the lower court rulings to the Samuel Alito Supreme Court, which is hardly encouraging. Alabama at least possessed sufficient shame to abandon its push to redefine Blackness. Louisiana and its Republican secretary of state, Kyle Ardoin, have no such scruple. Louisiana officials argue that judging the state’s new congressional maps based on a freewheeling definition of Blackness is an "independent legal error warranting this Court's intervention."

The Supreme Court heard arguments in the Alabama redistricting case earlier this month. Justice Elena Kagan ruefully observed that this case is the third in a depressing trilogy in which the conservative majority has hollowed out the Voting Rights Act.

The Alabama redistricting plan, she said, is a "classic voter dilution claim," and, she told Alabama's lawyer, "You're asking us essentially to cut back substantially on our 40 years of precedent and to make this too extremely difficult to prevail on. So, what's left?”

What’s left is a Jim Crow-resurgent “democracy.” That’s always been the rightwing endgame.

[ NPR ]

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