How the Supreme Court Is Reshaping the US Midterm Elections
The United States Supreme Court has already given a significant boost to President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans in their efforts to redraw electoral maps across the country. In the coming weeks, it could rule in favor of the Republicans in two more crucial cases related to elections ahead of the November midterms that will decide control of Congress.
One case involves the Mississippi Republican Party's bid to strike down state laws that permit late-arriving mail ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. President Trump has cast doubt on the security of mail-in ballots, although evidence of voter fraud is rare, and Democratic voters tend to use this method more than Republicans.
The other case centers around Trump's Vice President, JD Vance, who is seeking to chip away at legal limits on money in political campaigns - specifically involving coordinated spending between party organizations and candidates. The Republicans argue that these curbs violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protections against government abridgment of freedom of speech.
The court has been receptive to this argument, as seen in its landmark 2010 decision in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Rulings in both cases are expected by around the end of June.
Republicans are working to defend their slim majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate in the November midterms. If Democrats win control of either chamber, they could impede President Trump's legislative agenda and mount investigations into him and his administration.
In April, the Supreme Court delivered a 6-3 conservative majority decision that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, making it harder to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under the landmark civil rights law. This ruling provided an immediate advantage to President Trump's party ahead of the midterms, although legal experts said the impact of the two forthcoming rulings is more difficult to gauge.
The Voting Rights Act ruling opened the door for Republican state legislators to dismantle Democratic-held U.S. House districts with large Black or Latino populations across the South, potentially giving Republicans an electoral advantage for years to come. Black and Hispanic voters tend to vote for Democratic candidates.
This decision has been a "boon for Republicans," said Travis Crum, a Washington University in St. Louis School of Law professor. Thanks in part to this ruling, Republicans are positioned to gain up to a dozen U.S. House seats currently held by Democrats through the process of redistricting - redrawing the boundaries of voting districts.
Working against Republicans in November are President Trump's sagging approval ratings, as measured by public opinion polls, amid the unpopular Iran war and higher gasoline prices it caused, and the historical trend of a president's party losing congressional seats in midterms.
In the mail-in ballots case, the Supreme Court is considering Mississippi's appeal of a lower court's ruling that deemed its mail-in ballot law illegal. The state's Republican Party challenged the law, which permits mail-in ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by and then received within five business days of Election Day.
During March arguments in the case, a majority of the justices appeared ready to invalidate Mississippi's law. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 14 states, plus Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Washington, D.C., accept and count mailed ballots if they are received after Election Day but postmarked on or before - sometimes only before - Election Day.
The Supreme Court's ruling in this case could lead to stricter voting rules around the country. Casting ballots by mail has been common among some Republican voters, particularly among rural and older ones. However, President Trump's false claims about widespread voter fraud involving mailed ballots after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden have made the practice less popular among Republicans.
The Democratic National Committee filed a legal brief warning of "disastrous consequences" if the court backs the Republicans in this case. Striking down Mississippi's law and imposing an inflexible Election Day deadline for receiving mail-in ballots could disenfranchise millions of voters, including military voters stationed away from home, overseas citizens, rural voters, elderly and disabled voters, and voters lacking reliable transportation.
A ruling against Democrats could lead party committees to seek the same discounted rates for television and radio advertisements that candidates have long received, although election law specialists said this would raise an untested legal question.
Written by: Green Machine | The Citizen Edition
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