Breaking: Without Noted Dissent, Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Challenge to California Voting Rights Act

Order list. This is a very big deal. This was a case backed by Ed Blum, the conservative crusader who brought us the Supreme Court’s Shelby County case gutting Section 5 of the (federal) Voting Rights Act and the Fisher case attacking affirmative action.

California’s VRA is much easier to satisfy than the federal VRA, and it essentially requires the breaking up of at-large local governments in California whenever there is racially polarized voting (even if there is no indication that it would be possible with districts to give minority voters a fair share of voting power). I had thought this attack on the CA VRA could capture the attention of some of the Court’s conservatives, given their writings about race-based remedies in voting more generally.

There will be another case down the line potentially raising these issues, out of Santa Monica. But the fact that the Court quickly disposed of this case, without even any Justices writing something separately, is a surprise to me.

[This post has been updated.]

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