John Roberts Thinks Billionaires Deserve Greater First Amendment Protections Than Voters
By MARK JOSEPH STERN
JUNE 27, 20192:53 PM
In February, Chief Justice John Roberts touted his commitment to free speech, declaring: “I think I’m probably the most aggressive defender of the First Amendment on the court now.”
On Thursday, he authorized one of the most effective and widespread attacks on free speech today, prohibiting federal courts from reining in partisan gerrymanders. Roberts’ decision in Rucho v. Common Cause will have a devastating impact on freedom of expression in the United States, allowing lawmakers to punish voters for their political views by diluting their votes. It is the court’s most disastrous betrayal of the First Amendment in recent memory.
Rucho posed a simple question: Can federal courts place limits on partisan gerrymandering? The answer should be obvious, for two simple reasons. First, these gerrymanders impose grave constitutional harm on citizens. Second, they are not at all difficult for courts to remedy. There is nothing uniquely challenging about measuring and fixing partisan gerrymanders, as multiple lower courts have already demonstrated. The task falls squarely within the court’s duty to protect Americans’ constitutional rights—indeed, to safeguard the most important right, an ability to participate equally in self-governance.
Yet Roberts, joined by the remaining conservatives, declared otherwise in a 5–4 decision. He insisted that partisan gerrymanders “present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.” To limit this practice, Roberts wrote, would be to expand “judicial authority … into one of the most intensely partisan aspects of American political life.” And he wrote that federal courts are ill-suited to decide when partisan gerrymandering “goes too far,” as they lack a standard by which to measure a party’s illegitimate entrenchment of political power.
To reach this conclusion, Roberts shrugged off the serious constitutional injuries inflicted by political redistricting. Most notably, he dismissed the plaintiffs’ theory that extreme partisan gerrymandering violates the First Amendment. There are, Roberts wrote, “no restrictions on speech, association, or any other First Amendment activities in the districting plans at issue. The plaintiffs are free to engage in those activities no matter what the effect of a plan may be on their district.” He scoffed at the putative “burden” that gerrymandering placed on the plaintiffs, citing “slight anecdotal evidence” that the minority party had “difficulty drumming up volunteers and enthusiasm.” This alone, Roberts suggested, did not prove a First Amendment infringement.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/john-roberts-rucho-common-cause-arizona-free-enterprise-hypocrisy.html
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