Some Rights are pretty Righteous

And the SCOTUS will be under enormous pressure to do the right thing

Voting restriction laws to block the votes and rights of Black people in Georgia are hardly new. The new ones are likely to get shot down this time because they violate the Voting Rights Act. And the slew of pending voting restriction bills across the country after the huge number of new voters voted in 2020 cannot be ignored by the Supreme Court. Even conservative jurists can’t finesse away the overt multiple efforts occurring in so many states simultaneously.

The sheer number of efforts is historically unprecedented. Courts across the country faced dozens of challenges to the presidential race outcome by the same political party and repeatedly shot down those challenges as meritless because the lawyers presenting them offered no evidence to support the claim that any significant voting fraud occurred. So the SCOTUS will be weighing the past lack of evidence presented as they consider challenges to the so-called ‘election reform’ bills in Georgia and any other state.

They can’t easily weigh one state’s efforts without giving weight to the multiple efforts occurring. The groups trying to block the suppression wave won’t let them. The SCOTUS already sat out that round of efforts to overturn the presidential election. They simply let lower court rulings stand. They can’t take the same approach now. They’ll have to grill lawyers not only about the specifics of each bill without asking about the motivation of the authors of those bills.

’What does the bill do?’ and ‘Who does it impact?’ will be followed by ‘how does this bill reform a problem when there’s no evidence the problem exists?’

If the multi-state efforts occurred over several years, the SCOTUS could weigh them independently but the simultaneous introduction of bills claiming to fix a problem without evidence of an actual problem will have to be weighed.

It will be additionally interesting to consider whether non-elected groups participated in the testimony that preceded the crafting of each states’ bills. Did any partisan group like a Super PAC, a corporate group, or an advocacy organization take part in efforts in more than one state?

Even before the court challenges reach the SCOTUS, we’re already getting an eyeful of information on the methods employed by Georgia state government.

Look at what the history is of its dealings with the major employer of Georgians, Delta Airlines. The reward & punish approach that Georgia’s electeds have applied to Delta is a civics lesson in itself.

Consider these excerpts:

>> The airline’s statement risks running afoul of state Republican leaders while they’re locked Wednesday in a frenzied final day of the legislative session. Several Republican legislators said they expect Delta to face retribution for its stance, though it was not immediately clear how that would play out. <<

And:

>> That’s what happened in 2018 when Delta enraged conservatives by ending a group discount for the National Rifle Association. That prompted then-Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle to block a lucrative tax break for the airline. The $35 million annual incentive was later revived, though it strained the relationship between corporate executives and state Republicans.

The airline, Georgia’s largest private employer, has taken divisive stands on other heated political debates under the Gold Dome.

The company and other corporate titans rallied against a “religious liberty” measure in 2016 that critics framed as discriminatory toward the state’s LGBTQ community, and praised then-Gov. Nathan Deal when he vetoed it.

And the state Legislature punished Delta in 2015 after a the company’s then-chief executive urged lawmakers not to be “chickens” about raising the gasoline tax to finance infrastructure improvements. <<

Curious about Delta’s lobbying and persuasion efforts on multiple topics, I read about its CEO at Wikipedia. Ed Bastian’s early career efforts demonstrate a capacity to go after shady things.

>> Bastian began his career as an auditor in New York City at Price Waterhouse, now PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). During a 1981 annual review, he uncovered a $50 million fraud scheme involving ad powerhouse J. Walter Thompson.[2] This prompted a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, leaving many PWC executives with marred careers. A few years later, he was named partner at age 31.[2] <<

He also helped rescue Richard Branson’s Virgin Airlines. and was rewarded for his multiple civic efforts:

>> On February 17, 2018, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and the Georgia Historical Society inducted Bastian to the Georgia Trustees, the highest honor an individual can receive from the state of Georgia.[14] <<

And Fortune Magazine named him to its annual World's 50 Greatest Leaders list in 2018. So he apparently chooses his fights and investments well.

I couple that with my intense and ongoing research of Covid-19 and my own multiple uses of Delta planes in recent years. I don’t believe any other major airline in the world has performed better through the current pandemic. It created and enforced strict policies about masks and seating distances and air filtration systems. . For that alone, Bastian deserves plaudits.

And Georgia Republicans now intend to punish him for standing up for Black voters who want to vote. They will. They’ve done so before.

Here’s his response.

I’d like to think the SCOTUS justices are capable of displaying similar integrity as they weigh the voting suppression challenges to come. That’s their job, to weigh impartially. I think it will be very, very difficult for them to make rulings on narrow grounds that maintain a pretense of impartiality, like they’ve done with other issues. Voting Rights are too big, bigger than any specific SCOTUS membership.

But at this moment, I trust Ed Bastian more.

From the Bible, Amos 5: 21-24

21 “I hate, I despise your feast days,
And I do not savor your sacred assemblies.
22 Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them,
Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings.
23 Take away from Me the noise of your songs,
For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments.
24 But let justice run down like water,
And righteousness like a mighty stream.

And this video sums up this Voting Rights struggle perfectly.