Media ignore high-impact SCOTUS case

Progressives have used the courts to advance their agenda, but now, thankfully, we're using them to restore constitutional values.

A case with huge ramifications was presented to the U.S. Supreme Court last week. A positive decision could be tremendously beneficial for those of us who respect the rule of law and equally devastating for the left. Argued Dec. 8, Evenwel v. Abbott put into question the Texas Legislature's redistricting plan. So why haven't you heard about it?

The media are consumed with Trump calling for a moratorium on Muslims entering the U.S. in reaction to Islamic terrorists Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, as well they should be. Before that, the media were occupied by the Syrian refugee crisis due to the ISIS attack in Paris, France, and they should've been. Prior to that, the media werwe busy blaming "right-wing rhetoric" from conservative talk radio for Robert Lewis Dear's terrorist rampage in Colorado Springs, where he shot and killed three people at a local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic and injured nine others, as we knew they would. The Evenwel v. Abbott case has gone virtually ignored – and it shouldn't be!

Obamacare is collapsing under its own weight. Christians in America are being told to shut up in the name of diversity and free speech, particularly in academia. Federal taxes set a record in the first couple months of fiscal year 2016, but D.C. is still running a $201.1 billion deficit. Illegal aliens crossing our borders are destroying wages for blue-collar workers. Our military is being gutted while operating with no clear objectives from our commander in chief. America's educational institutions have been taken over by revisionist hippies determined to prove America is not exceptional, despite thriving under its freedoms. Capitalism is treated like the unwanted stepchild by the left, despite bringing much of the world out of poverty and into prosperity.

So Carl, "why should conservatives be excited about this particular case when ISIS is on the march, Obamacare is destroying our health-care system, freedom of speech is eroding, federal taxing and spending is increasing under a GOP Congress, illegal immigration is considered a constitutional right by leftist, the military is being cut at alarming rates, and academia keeps breeding more loony Democrats?" Good question. There are more common-sense conservatives across America than liberals want to admit. In the Evenwel case, the plaintiffs want eligible voters to be the standard for creating state lawmakers' districts rather than all the population. Ask yourself, do you want your district's representation influenced by illegal aliens, ex-convicts, children, inmates, Syrian refugees and Mickey Mouse – or by lawful "eligible voters"? I prefer the latter. From the left's perspective, if the Project on Fair Representation, the conservative advocacy group that is representing Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger in court, proves successful in their case, political power could shift from urban areas to rural ones.

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According to the New York Times, "a closely divided Supreme Court struggled to decide 'what kind of democracy people wanted,' as Justice Stephen G. Breyer put it during an argument over the meaning of the constitutional principle of 'one person one vote.'"

Justice Elena Kagan argued the Constitution requires "counting the whole number of persons in each state" for apportioning seats in the House of Representatives among the states. She went on to explain that it struck her as unlikely that a different rule should apply for purposes of drawing state districts.

Justice Kagan, still referring to apportionment, said "how you go from that being mandated to it being prohibited in the state context is something that I still can't quite work myself around."

Justice Ginsburg followed suit, citing a brief filed by Nathaniel Persily, a political scientist at Stanford Law School that opined there is only one constitutionally required and reliable data set: the census. The brief said "the census counts everyone and there are no comparable data for eligible voters."

That's when Mr. Consovoy of the Project of Fair Representation schooled the socialist justice by responding that courts have in fact accepted other sources of data to assess other kinds of voting rights violations. As recently as 2011, SCOTUS issued a unanimous decision in Shapiro v. McManus, that arose from Maryland's congressional maps. Conservatives claimed Democrats had gone to elaborate and unconstitutional lengths to create oddly shaped districts to favor their candidates. Predictably, a single judge dismissed the case, stating it didn't present issues "serious enough" to warrant convening the three-judge panel ordinarily required by a federal law in cases concerning apportionment of congressional districts.

Not so this time! Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a unanimous court: "Perhaps petitioners will ultimately fail on the merits, but the law entitles them to make their case before a three-judge district court." Booyah!

If you're tired of places like Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Baltimore, Austin and every other leftist city receiving additional representation and canceling your vote due to the impact of ineligible voters being counted for representation, you should be jumping for joy! Democrats have managed to keep their representation in Congress despite their high abortion rates by flooding urban areas with illegal aliens, refugees and ex-convicts. Texas may get the last say, however.

Now it's up to us to choose a conservative GOP presidential nominee that understands the power of the courts in addition to the issues I mentioned in this column. I can't wait for Ted Cruz to appoint Justice Mike Lee!

Media wishing to interview Carl Jackson, please contact [email protected].