Former Confederate states openly defying court rulings on Black voting rights: analysis

Georgia, Louisiana, and Alabama — three states that were part of the Confederacy that was founded in part to maintain the institution of slavery — are now at the forefront of a new effort to rebel against court rulings aimed at securing the voting rights of Black Americans.

The Atlantic's David Graham writes that those three states' Republican-led state legislatures have, in recent months, shown a defiant attitude toward legal mandates that they redraw their voting maps so as not to dilute the power of Black voters in their states.

Although Graham said it would be possible to dismiss one of these states' resistance to court orders as an aberration, he thinks that having three states engaged in the same conduct makes it part of a dangerous trend.

"That state politicians now see incentives to defy federal-court orders, for whatever reason, poses a danger to national unity, the rule of law, and, ultimately, the Constitution," he writes.

Graham does not ascribe the actions of the GOP legislators' in these states to out-and-out racism, but he then argues that the effect they're having is incredibly damaging regardless of their true intentions.

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"Regardless of why legislatures are defying courts, the implications are bleak," he writes. "The situation would become more dangerous if Trump is reelected.

"As President Andrew Jackson is said to have noted, the Supreme Court has no independent enforcement capacity, and relies on the executive branch for that. Would a second-term Trump bother forcing rogue states to follow court orders that he didn’t like?"

Read the full article here.