The Supremes are more than doing their part
I noted last week that Bolts magazine was featuring a reader Q&A with an election law expert and they have published some of them today. It’s quite interesting even if a little bit depressing. But we’re used to that when it comes to this subject.
Here’s one example:
What’s the most underrated case where this court weakened voting rights, but that we just don’t talk about enough? — Anonymous
There are two cases that hardly anyone has heard of but that have had a major impact on the way the Supreme Court treats the constitutional right to vote: Anderson v. Celebrezze, in 1983, and Burdick v. Takushi, in 1992. Anderson dealt with the desire of an independent candidate to gain ballot access after a state’s deadline for turning in enough signatures. Burdick was about an individual’s attempt to write-in a candidate instead of choosing one of the candidates listed on the ballot. (These two cases are the subjects of Chapters 1 and 2 of my new book.) But the specific disputes in these cases are less important than the judicial test that came out of them.
These two cases began the Supreme Court’s descent into its underprotection of the right to vote by failing to apply the highest judicial standard, known as strict scrutiny.
Previously, the court in the 1960s had strongly protected voters by requiring a state to prove that it had a really good reason for a law that infringed upon the right to vote, and that the law actually achieved that goal. But in Anderson, the court began to weaken that test, instead balancing the burden that a law imposes on voters with a state’s interests in regulating the election as it wishes. Burdick went further, accepting a state’s desire to run its election as it sees fit. These two cases comprise what election scholars call the “Anderson–Burdick” balancing test.
Now, states no longer have to explain, with specificity, their reasons for a law to have the Supreme Court uphold its voting regulation. As far as this court is concerned, a state can simply offer a more general assertion that it’s looking to “prevent voter fraud” or “ease election administration,” even when doing so is at the expense of voters’ easy access to the ballot.
Check out the full Q&A if you are interested in this subject. This Court is fully engaged in the right’s assault on democracy — and they’ve been playing a very long game.
Remember, the only reason they are so intent upon doing this is because they know they are on the wrong side of history, the party of the wealthy, landowning class, and will not win if everyone has a right to vote and exercises it. They’re been trying to ensure that doesn’t happen since the founding of the republic.
Just today: