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Outrageous Pretense
April 30, 2026
AI Analysis: Name Calling
Posted 1 hour ago by
The worst ruling in a century The Supreme Court handed down its Callais decision about the time I finished my morning posts on Wednesday. Written by Justice Samuel Alito, it is a blockbuster ruling, and not in a good way. Hours later, Rick Hasen called the 6-3 decision in a case from Louisiana “one of the most pernicious and damaging Supreme Court decisions of the last century.” Callais guts what the Roberts court had not already whittled away of protections for minority representation passed sixty years ago, Hasen writes, “while pretending they were merely making technical tweaks to the Act.” Of course.
Alito wrote it. Hasen’s assessment is blistering: This decision will bleach the halls of Congress, state legislatures, and local bodies like city councils, by ending the protections of Section 2 of the Act, which had provided a pathway to assure that voters of color would have some rudimentary fair representation. It’s the culmination of the life’s work of Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito, who have shown persistent resistance to the idea of the United States as a multiracial democracy, and a brazen willingness to reject Congress’s judgment that fair representation for minority voters sometimes requires race-conscious legislation. It gives the green light to further partisan gerrymandering. It protects Alito’s core constituency: aggrieved white Republican voters. It’s a disaster for American democracy. Hasan explains that under the original VRA, proving intent to discriminate under “vote dilution” schemes proved difficult: Congress responded boldly to that ruling—it rewrote Section
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Technique: Name Calling
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