Kavanaugh ally backs Alabama's push to gut Voting Rights Act

Alabama Republican officials directly flouted a Supreme Court decision striking down a redistricting map that failed to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Republican Gov. Kay Ivey all but admitted that state officials were defying the court when the Legislature produced a new map that failed to create a second district where Black voters could elect their preferred candidate, as the court had ordered. That defiance seems to have been intended to kick the issue back to the Supreme Court in hopes of a different outcome.

A new report indicates that the driving force behind this campaign of defiance is likely Leonard Leo, the billionaire Catholic fundamentalist who has reshaped the Supreme Court through his vast dark-money network and the organization he co-chairs, The Federalist Society. The Alabama Political Reporter reported in July about “intelligence” from D.C. insiders working with state Republicans that Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was the swing majority vote on the initial ruling, was open to rehearing the case and reconsidering one of the last remaining protections of the Voting Rights Act.