The Supreme Court has officially wrapped up its first week of oral arguments for the 2022-2023 term. Two cases cases that especially stand out are Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency and Merrill v. Milligan. The Sackett oral arguments seemed to suggest that the Court may be heading towards changing the standard used for determining whether the federal government has regulatory jurisdiction over an issue:

If oral argument was any indication, the justices recognize the need for greater regulatory certainty, but also recognize the difficulty in drawing a clear line to demarcate where "waters of the United States" end and non-federal waters or lands begin. Much of the argument focused on precisely this question, causing the justices to explore the meaning of the word "adjacent," as the Court previously upheld the EPA and Army Corps' authority over wetlands adjacent to navigable waters in United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, perhaps the high-water mark of Court acquiescence to broad assertions of federal regulatory power under the CWA. Accordingly, the justices considered whether "adjacent wetlands" must be physically connected to navigable waters, must be neighboring to such waters, or must merely be nearby, and most seemed unconvinced with the answers they received from the advocates.

At the beginning of what is certain to be a historic Supreme Court term, the Court will hear oral arguments next Tuesday in Merrill v. Milligan, a case that considers whether Alabama’s 2021 congressional maps violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Much drama unfolded earlier this year when Alabama’s newly adopted congressional maps were challenged. Now, the Supreme Court will hopefully resolve the issue once and for all, and with it, clarify how race should be considered in the redistricting process.

The past week has been a good week for both Republicans and open, fair, and honest elections.  It has also been a downright bad and ugly week for the Democrat Party’s consigliere, Marc Elias.  

First, the good: Yesterday, a New York Supreme Court Judge ruled that (like virtually everywhere else in the world) you have to be a citizen to vote in New York City:

Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio also issued a permanent injunction that bars the city Board of Elections from letting around 800,000 non-citizen residents register to vote.

In a 13-page ruling, Porzio said city officials can’t “obviate” restrictions in the state constitution, which “expressly states that only citizens meeting the age and residency requirements are entitled to register and vote in elections.”

“There is no statutory ability for the City of New York to issue inconsistent laws permitting non-citizens to vote and exceed the authority granted to it by the New York State Constitution,” he wrote.

Following the 2020 U.S. Census, Democrats immediately began raising tens of millions of dollars to fuel a redistricting effort they hoped would push the needle in their favor for the next 10 years and help them gain seats in Congress.  But despite the best efforts of Democrat elected officials, PACs, and liberal dark money groups, Republicans are projected to gain anywhere between three to five Congressional seats. 

The Democrat controlled state legislature of New York ignored their Constitution to concoct an outrageous ultra-partisan gerrymander of New York state.  The courts rejected that and state Democrats are now paying a heavy price.  Under the special master's adopted map liberal House Democrat heavyweights are now going to be forced to face off against each other in primaries, foremost among these:

The maps set up an explosive clash between two longtime Democrats who now find themselves drawn into the same district. In statements after the maps were released, Nadler and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D) both said they would run for the same district.

Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Maloney, chair of the House Oversight Committee, both won election to Congress in 1992.

The past week has been a busy one for redistricting. Unsurprisingly, most of the scrutiny has been on Republican-drawn districts. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order reinstating Alabama's congressional map that a lower court struck down.

Alabama's new congressional map is a status quo map based on the previous one precleared by Eric Holder’s Justice Department 10 years ago. The Supreme Court rightly stayed the lower court's egregious misapplication of Section 2. https://t.co/JopP8piI0c

— National Republican Redistricting PAC (@GOPRedistrict) February 7, 2022

Today, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court's decision in Chatfield v. League of Women Voters (League of Women Voters v. Benson below) and remanded for further consideration in light of Rucho v. Common Cause.  There was nothing unexpected or even very newsworthy in this, but what is newsworthy is the hand-wringing among Democrats and in the mainstream media.  The misleading headlines and stories that gave the impression that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Michigan Republicans.

Based on the reactions of prominent Democrats to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause, you’d think the end of the United States as we know it was eminent.

The Supreme Court issued two opinions with direct implications for redistricting this morning, on the last day of the October 2018 Term.  In a consolidated opinion for Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek, the Court held that "partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts."  In Department of Commerce v. New York, the Court remanded the "census" case to the district court for further proceedings consistent with its rather confusing opinion that held both that it would be permissible for the the Department of Commerce to ask a question regarding citizenship on the census and that the Department did not provide an accurate reason for the question's inclusion.

Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Rucho v. Common Cause, a partisan gerrymandering claim against North Carolina's congressional map, and Lamone v. Benisek, a First Amendment retaliation partisan gerrymandering claim against one Maryland state legislative district.  Both cases were before the Court last term and were sent back to the district courts for further proceedings.  As in the past, today the justices continued to search for a justiciably manageable standard for considering partisan gerrymandering claims: