Category: Elections

The One Letter That Exposes the FBI’s Trump Raid Was Not About Missing Documents

The Biden Department of Justice should be bracing for a whipping because the longer this Mar-a-Lago fiasco goes on without a smoking gun. FBI agents ransacked the home on August 8 under suspicion that Donald Trump had classified materials on the grounds, violating the Espionage Act. There was also obstruction of justice allegations. It was a historic moment, a political bombshell that had every liberal in America sighing with relief—this was the ‘we got him’ moment, right? It never came. The president is the ultimate authority figure in declassifying classified materials, and Donald Trump declassified many documents before he departed Washington. That’s why no president, the figure who also is the main decider regarding issues involving state secrets, can never be slapped with such a silly mishandling charge.

Mar-a-Lago is a secure site protected by the Secret Service. Former presidents have staff to handle these records with care. We’ve mentioned how the follow-up stories have mainly been concentrated on the dates involving legal members of Trump’s office and the National Archives. That’s not evidence of a crime. If anything, it shows cooperation, but another angle is that the Biden DOJ might have laid a trap for the former president.  They sent a June 8 letter telling Trump’s legal team to keep all documents at Mar-a-Lago in the storage room basement. They were instructed to keep those records there “indefinitely.” One month later, federal agents raided the house.

Again, you all know this wasn’t about some missing document beef. Was it a dragnet to find any corroborative evidence regarding the Russian collusion investigation or the January 6 riot, the latter of which liberal America erroneously thinks was a Trump-led plot, despite an August 2021 FBI report rebuking that conspiracy theory?

Erick Erickson believes the raid was over the latter—the FBI wanted to find anything to tie Trump to the January 6 riot. It blew up in their faces. They also searched the safe, which they had no probable cause for, as indicated in the partially released affidavit, but it was empty. Were they expecting to find Russian rubles in there?

Around 30 FBI agents raided the home of a former president over disputed documents that the National Archives per regulation and the Presidential Records Act. No one believes that.

Trump wants a special master to review the documents, though the DOJ says they’ve already analyzed them.  Where’s the incriminating evidence that will put Trump in prison? With how leaky that building has become, we would have heard about something damning because, thus far, this has devolved into the most boring anti-Trump fishing expedition.

McCarthy and Nadler’s congressional districts were basically merged due to New York City population loss. The primary election campaigns have devolved into each one trying to ‘out lib-proggie’ the other.
It’s wonderful watching demoncraps try to tear each other’s guts out.

BILL WOULD FORCE AR MAKERS TO PAY EXTRA 20 PERCENT IN TAXES

A Manhattan Democrat amid a “cage fight” of a reelection campaign has introduced legislation that will make licensed firearm manufacturers pay extra taxes if they elect to make the most popular rifles in the country.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, vying for her 16th term in Congress, has been remarkably busy in recent months to publicly scold gun makers for producing semi-auto rifles such as variants of the AR-15.

Facing fellow “tough on guns” Dem U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler in a primary runoff this week, Maloney has announced two new bills, the Firearm Industry Crime and Trafficking Accountability Act, which would mandate that gunmakers somehow establish a monitoring system to track the crimes committed with guns they have made, and the more punitive Firearm Industry Fairness Act. The latter would tax gun makers that produce any “semiautomatic weapons” or “high-capacity magazines” at a rate of 20 percent on all its revenue, even if the guns in question make up a small amount of their catalog.

“My message is clear – if you continue to sell dangerous weapons of war to civilians, your cost of doing business will go up,” said Maloney in a statement. “There is no reason that an assault weapon used in mass shootings should be taxed at the same rate as a family hunting rifle or a gun manufacturer should be allowed to ignore the crimes committed with their products.”

The problem is, for a substantial chunk of America, modern sporting rifles – the industry term for ARs and the like – are the “family hunting rifle.”

According to the 2022 Ammunition Consumption Study by Winchester Ammunition, some 60 percent of those who hunted with a centerfire rifle used an MSR. Besides traditional outdoor publications like North American Whitetail and Petersen’s Hunting, which have expounded on the benefits of MSRs for sporting purposes, even Time magazine has pointed out in the past that the AR is often used for harvesting game and controlling predatory or invasive wildlife. There is little wonder why big-name rifle makers like Daniel Defense, Savage, and Windham Weaponry make dedicated “Hunter” model ARs – because people want them.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimates that there are at least 24.4 million MSRs in circulation, a figure that doesn’t take into account guns produced prior to 1990 or personally made firearms constructed from so-called 80-percent receivers or receiver kits.

America’s firearms industry already pays Congressionally mandated excise taxes ranging from 10 to 11 percent on the firearms and ammo they make for commercial sale, a levy met ultimately by the law-abiding Americans who buy them. That total has added up to more than $15.3 billion since 1937.

I can say it sure didn’t help! But, after it became clear she was nothing but an eastern carpetbagger using here father’s coattails, the people of Wyoming had had enough of her.

Trounced: Was Liz Cheney’s Gun Control Vote the Final Straw?

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- Soon-to-be former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney evidently forgot the wisdom of late House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, who once famously observed, “All politics is local.”

She was trounced in the primary by a better than 2-to-1 margin, losing to Harriet Hageman 66.3-28.9 percent. Much of it is blamed on Cheney’s vote to impeach former President Donald Trump and then sit as vice chair on the controversial Jan. 6 committee, which conservative commentators liken to a kangaroo court whose ultimate goal is to prevent Trump from running for another term in 2024.

As noted by Fox News, Cheney couldn’t concede without stating, “I will do whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office.”

Hageman had Trump’s endorsement, and Cheney is now one more Republican who lost their job during primaries after voting for impeachment. The Baltimore Sun reported that 10 House Republicans “backed Trump’s impeachment in the days after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress tried to certify President Joe Biden’s victory.”

The story also said Cheney sought assistance from Democrats to retain her seat, and “Democrats across America, major donors among them, took notice. She raised at least $15 million for her election, a stunning figure for a Wyoming political contest.” A check on Cheney’s campaign contributions confirms she got a lot of money from out-of-state donors.

But is there another reason Cheney’s Capitol Hill career bit the dust? Earlier this year, she was one of 13 House Republicans to cross the aisle and vote with Democrats to pass Joe Biden’s far-reaching gun control bill, dubbed the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.” Whatever else Wyoming may be, it is definitely “gun country,” and it doesn’t help a politician running for office there to help pass a gun control measure.

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Progressive activists put 2A rights on the ballot in Oregon

Oregon’s secretary of state says a coalition of anti-gun activists and organizations have collected enough signatures to place a gun control referendum on the ballot this November, and while there’s still a small chance that the ballot initiative could get scuttled before Election Day, gun owners in the state aren’t counting on that outcome. Instead, they’re sounding the alarm about what the initiative would mean for current and would-be gun owners in the hope of rallying enough opposition to defeat the measure at the ballot box.

Initiative Petition 17, deceptively named the “Reduction of Gun Violence Act” despite targeting legal gun owners and not violent criminals, would impose several new restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, starting with a ban on the sale and purchase of ammunition magazines that can accept more than ten rounds. Unlike other recent magazine bans, the Oregon proposal grandfathers in existing owners but would still make it a crime for anyone to purchase, sell, or transfer a “large capacity” magazine once the law takes effect.

IP 17 would also impose a new “permit to purchase” requirement on all gun owners, subjecting them to a needless round of government investigation, background checks, training, and fees before being able to legally purchase a gun. Oregon already has so-called universal background checks, so before any firearm transfer can legally take place the purchaser must undergo a background check. Gun control activists want to duplicate that process by forcing all would-be buyers to get a permit beforehand; one that requires documentation of undergoing a state-approved firearms training course, another background check conducted through the NICS system, and the sign off from a county sheriff or local police chief, who will have the discretion to deny that permit if they believe the individual “poses a risk” to themselves or others (even if the applicant has never been charged or been accused of a crime).

Several Second Amendment organizations have put out statements pointing out the hidden consequences buried in the initiative’s fine print, with the Oregon Firearms Federation warning that the ballot measure, if approved, would allow for indefinite waiting periods for gun purchases.

As you know, Oregon already requires the permission of the Oregon State Police before a person can purchase a firearm. Firearms may not be purchased or transferred without approval of the State Police through the Oregon background check system.

Oregon State Police have no statutory time limit on how long they can take to conduct a background check. There are many cases of people waiting over 2 years for the completion of a check. Requests for information or corrections from OSP are routinely ignored.

While current law allows a transfer to take place after 3 business days if the OSP has not completed the check, in practice that virtually never happens because dealers fear retribution from the ATF. (This ballot measure removes even that one small and rarely used safeguard.)

NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action has also sent out an alert to members, noting that the measure also “creates a state registry of firearm owners and their sensitive personal information” just like the one in California that was recently leaked by the state Attorney General’s office.

There is a sliver of hope that the measure won’t appear before voters this fall. NRA-ILA says there is still a chance for gun owners to weigh in before the ballot initiative receives it’s final approval in early August.

The Explanatory Statement Committee (ESC) will draft the statement for the ballot. The title of the draft is “Reduction of Gun Violence Act.” Initiative 17 does nothing to reduce gun violence and blatantly disregards your constitutional rights.

Please tell your friends, family, and fellow sportsmen and women to vote NO on November 8, 2022.

On August 3, 2022, NRA members, Second Amendment advocates, and the public will have an opportunity to comment on, and challenge, the statement. Your NRA-ILA will update you with the language of the draft statement as it becomes available. It is critical that you provide comments on the draft statements identifying the unconstitutional infringements Initiative 17 will place on law-abiding firearm owners in Oregon.

We’ll be following up here as well when that information is released. If IP 17 does end up being approved by voters, its provisions are almost certainly going to be challenged in court soon after the votes are tallied, but it’s always better to defeat a bad bill (or in this case, a voter referendum) than to try to overturn a bad law. Now’s the time for Oregon gun owners to be heard, and to remind their friends and neighbors that while the state’s shocking rise in violent crime is real, it won’t be stopped by targeting legal gun owners and their constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms in self-defense.

From the first time I heard about it, and did some research on it, I never was impressed.

Ranked-choice Voting: Leftist Attack on Election Integrity

The Left is attempting to implement ranked-choice voting (RCV), also called instant runoff voting (IRV), in each state. RCV threatens election integrity and undermines the electorate’s ability to choose the best candidate in elections.

The May 10, 2021 issue of The New American magazine explains how ranked-choice voting works and why it would harm U.S. elections:

[It] is a complicated system that requires voters to assign a rank to each candidate on the ballot, regardless of whether they support that candidate. If no candidate is ranked first by a majority of voters, the lowest-performing candidate is eliminated. Voters who gave their highest ranking to the eliminated candidate then have their second choice counted instead. This process repeats until one candidate receives a majority.

As implied above, ranked-choice voting can lead to candidates with little genuine support winning elections. The system confuses voters, distracts from policy issues, and forces voters to vote for candidates they otherwise would not support. In the United States, ranked-choice voting was enacted in Maine in 2016 and Alaska in 2020. These efforts, primarily backed by liberals, led to Republican U.S. Representative from Maine Bruce Poliquin losing to Democrat Jared Golden in 2018 despite winning a plurality in the first round. Meanwhile, some political analysts believe that Alaska’s new system, which also eliminates party primaries, will enable liberal Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski’s reelection in 2022 despite her unpopularity among Republicans.

With any voting system, the more complicated it is, the greater the risk of manipulation strategies or fraud. Additionally, RCV would make hand counts much more difficult, creating an excuse for computerized vote counting. By contrast, genuine election integrity must involve hand-counted paper ballots.

Ranked-choice voting is already being used across the country. As mentioned above, Maine and Alaska have already implemented it statewide. Meanwhile, Nevada will hold a referendum on the issue in November, and there have been attempts to impose RCV via referendum in multiple other states, including North Dakota, Massachusetts, and Missouri.

Meanwhile, dozens of cities nationwide — including New York City, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Minneapolis — have implemented RCV, and multiple states have enacted legislation allowing RCV to be used on the local level.

State legislators need to oppose all attempts to enact ranked-choice voting, whether on the state or local level. Notably, many of the efforts to implement statewide ranked-choice voting occurred due to ballot initiatives. However, the federal government and the states are not democracies, nor did the Founding Fathers intend them to be. To stop and reverse the slide toward democracy from constitutional republicanism, legislators would be wise to limit or end their states’ respective ballot-initiative processes.

By educating our state legislators and fellow citizens, and being active in our communities, we can stop ranked-choice voting and other anti-election-integrity schemes.

REPORT: 1 MILLION VOTERS JUST SWITCHED PARTIES. MANY WILL #GUNVOTE

The firearm industry isn’t surprised and the trend is ongoing. Progressive soft-on-crime policies and gun control pushes are leaving Americans feeling unsafe. Millions are making a change and they’re embracing the Second Amendment.

It’s another harbinger of a possible political wipeout for gun control-supporting Democrats who have pushed policies that fail to hold criminals accountable for their crimes yet punish law-abiding Americans. The Associated Press reported on new analysis showing more than 1 million Americans have already joined the Republican Party. The shift is touching all areas of the country.

“It’s more so a rejection of the Left,” Ben Smith of suburban Denver said. Smith added he registered as a Republican earlier in the year in part because he “became increasingly concerned about Democrats’ inability to quell violent crime.”

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Los Angeles DA George Gascon Recall Campaign Hits Ballot Signature Requirement, Urges Voters to Stay Focused

Recall Gascon Campaign co-chair Kathy Cady said on Thursday she is confident that the effort to oust Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon will happen after hitting a signature milestone.

The campaign told Fox News it received over 30,000 petitions over the past few days in an effort to gather the 567,857 needed by July 6. The group said it hit the target Wednesday but is working toward collecting 650,000 signatures as some will likely be deemed invalid by Los Angeles County officials……

Republican Who Flipped Blue House Seat in Texas Says Her Victory Sends ‘Strong Message’ to Democrats

Republican Rep.-elect Mayra Flores says Democrats should take her victory in a special congressional election in Texas as a warning sign to stop taking Hispanic voters for granted.

Flores, who won a contest Tuesday for an open seat House seat along the nation’s southern border in the Rio Grande Valley, made history as the first Mexican-born congresswoman. And she’s the first Republican to win in the heavily Hispanic district since it was created a decade ago………

South Carolina Incumbent Tom Rice Who Voted to Impeach Trump Has Lost His Seat

On Tuesday, South Carolinians went to the polls to decide if incumbents, including Rep. Tom Rice, could withstand a primary after invoking the wrath of former President Donald Trump. Rep. Rice, who represents South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District, lost his seat, after Russell Fry, the Trump-backed challenger, earned more than 50 percent of the vote, avoiding a runoff.

Rep. Rice had earned the former president’s ire as one of 10 Republican House members who had voted to impeach Trump in January of last year, just as he was about to leave office.

When even one of the proggiest, leftist cities in the U.S. finally has had enough of their own medicine……..

Voters oust Chesa Boudin as district attorney in San Francisco

San Francisco voters fired their headline-grabbing reformist district attorney Tuesday, NBC News Projects, after rising crime rates proved intolerable even for the famously progressive city.

Chesa Boudin, the son of left-wing radicals who was elected on a Black Lives Matter-aligned platform to reform the criminal justice system, faced a successful recall effort as voters grew frustrated with the perception that his office is not willing to do much about crime.

The outcome was rebuke of the left as Democrats retreat from calls to defund the police in the face of polls nationally showing growing concern about public safety, especially from people of color.

Mayor London Breed will appoint a temporary successor to fill the DA’s office — formerly occupied by Vice President Kamala Harris — until an election can be held…………….

demoncraps weren’t worried about voters being suppressed.
They were worried about fraudulent votes being suppressed.

The Big Lie About Georgia Voting Has Been Shredded.

To its credit, the Washington Post didn’t memory-hole the long freak-out about Georgia, running a story headlined “Voting is surging in Georgia despite controversial new election law.” A better headline would have been “Voting is surging in Georgia despite allegations about new election law.”

A thread throughout the Post story chronicles how Democratic activists have changed their strategies in reaction to the law. But if you can defeat alleged voter suppression with ease by registering people and getting them out to vote in massive numbers, it’s a good sign that there wasn’t any voter suppression to begin with.

The Post report ends with an anecdote about Patsy Reid, a 70-year-old, African-American retiree who was surprised that she could vote early with absolutely no issue. “I had heard that they were going to try to deter us in any way possible because of the fact that we didn’t go Republican on the last election, when Trump didn’t win,” she told the Post. “To go in there and vote as easily as I did and to be treated with the respect that I knew I deserved as an American citizen — I was really thrown back.”

That’s the voice of someone who had been lied to — repeatedly and at great volume.

It was often said that SloJoe never had a chance, so Lieawatha Fauxcahontas bears watching.

Democrats Already Trying to Position Themselves for 2024.

Have you noticed that Elizabeth Warren keeps putting herself in front of every new current thing? When Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter was the hot story, she put herself front and center, then did the same thing with abortion.

Do you think this is a coincidence, or is it more likely that Warren is trying to remind Democrat voters that she is standing by, ready to jump in when they drop Biden?

It’s not just Warren who’s doing this. Bernie Sanders has recently said that he is prepared to run again.

This report from NBC News is very revealing:

Top Democrats jockey for 2024 presidential campaign position

In recent months, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ political team has noticed a marked shift in the 80-year-old former presidential candidate: His campaign fires are burning hot.

On Thursday, Sanders, I-Vt., will travel to Pittsburgh to headline a rally for Summer Lee, one of a half-dozen hard-core progressives he has endorsed in contested Democratic congressional primaries. He also plans to meet with Starbucks workers in the city to show solidarity in a store-by-store unionization push…

All of that might be unremarkable if Sanders were shadow boxing himself against the backdrop of an inevitable Biden re-election bid.

Instead, he is just the most openly ambitious of an emerging field of Democratic hopefuls who are positioning themselves to run if Biden doesn’t, more than a dozen Democratic insiders said in interviews. Most of them weren’t authorized to speak on the record or insisted on anonymity to avoid upsetting one or more of the potential candidates.

The set of would-be contenders is widely viewed as including Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to Democratic sources…

The top adviser on a past presidential campaign said potential hopefuls are inflicting damage on fellow Democrats, most notably Biden.

“It looks like Warren, Newsom and some of the others are looking to run down Biden and the party, which is unhelpful,” he said. “It’s like they’re on the Titanic and they’re sending out for more icebergs.”

In Warren’s case, people have noticed her increased visibility.

Axios recently reported:

Elizabeth Warren grabs center stage

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is eclipsing President Biden with endorsements and, at times, as the Democrats’ leading voice on major issues, including abortion and canceling student debt.

Why it matters: The progressive’s prominence is pressuring the incumbent president and White House to move left. It’s also raising questions about her ambitions, especially as the Democratic Party faces electoral apocalypse this fall and questions about whose voice — and issues — are best to rebound.

– While Warren has ruled out another campaign for president in 2024, her high profile would buttress any bid should Biden himself not run for a second term.

Warren will deny she is running in 2024, right up until she is running in 2024.

The minute it becomes clear that Biden can’t or won’t run, Warren and other Democrats will all scramble to fill the void and become the party’s standard bearer.

Start Planning For 2024, 2026, And 2028 Now

While Second Amendment supporters have their eyes on the 2022 midterms (justifiably), these vital elections will not be the only ones that should have the attention of loyal Ammoland readers. The fact is, to avoid poor performance in future elections, proper prior planning and preparation are needed, starting now.

The fact is, if you wait for candidates to announce their runs, you’ve probably waited too long to be ready to have a decisive impact on the primary elections. The real effect Second Amendment supporters can have is by volunteering with political parties at the precinct and county level for starters, as well as being poll workers and poll watchers. Just that involvement alone can help bring Second Amendment issues to the fore.

2024

This is, of course, a presidential election year. Second Amendment supporters have the chance to get the Biden-Harris regime’s anti-Second Amendment extremism out of office, and to replace it with a pro-Second Amendment president, vice-president, and the other appointed offices that affect our rights.

There will also be gubernatorial and other state races in several states, plus the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate seats last up for election in 2018. This is a chance to replace disappointments like Jon Tester which should not be missed.

2026

If all goes well, Second Amendment supporters will be in the position of figuring out how to minimize the usual midterm losses that happen due to the election of a pro-Second Amendment president. Whether it’s Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, or someone else, the task of maintaining control of Congress will be crucial.

One place that could be tough is Maine: Susan Collins may call it a political career after 30 years. Yes, she has been the source of frustration, but her first vote in this most recent Congress was NOT for Chuck Schumer as Senate Majority Leader. It will also be a chance to reclaim the Senate seat held by Jon Ossoff, who thinks Second Amendment advocacy is a form of corruption.

2028

In this election, Second Amendment supporters will have to try to maintain the Senate seats we gain this year – and figure out how to pick up seats we didn’t. If you were disappointed with having Doctor Oz as an option in Pennsylvania, this is the year to find a better one.

It will also be another presidential election year, so Second Amendment supporters ideally will be in the position of trying to keep control of the White House as opposed to trying to take it from an anti-Second Amendment extremist.

One other thing: 2028 also will be a long time from now, so build up a good bench, because a lot can happen between now and then. After all, six years ago, Ron DeSantis was just another Congressman, Doctor Oz was a daytime TV fixture, and Second Amendment supporters were bracing for the very real chance of a Hillary Clinton Administration.

So, Second Amendment supporters should ask those running for local, state, or federal office the right questions. With proper prior planning and preparation, they will be able to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box.

Arizona Judge Dismisses Lawsuits Aimed at Disqualifying Reps. Gosar, Biggs

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

An Arizona judge has tossed lawsuits that attempted to disqualify Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) from holding office.

The suits, which also took aim at state Rep. Mark Finchem, a Republican, failed because the U.S. Constitution does not provide for private action to enforce Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury ruled.

The section, known as the Disqualification Clause, says that no person shall hold a federal office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the government.

Two groups linked to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-described socialist, filed the complaints, claiming that Gosar, Biggs, and Finchem violated the clause because they “helped facilitate” the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

But the clause clearly states that Congress is the body that has the power to enforce the section, a determination also outlined in one of the few cases that deal with it, Coury said.

“Congress has not created a civil private right of action to allow a citizen to enforce the Disqualification Clause by having a person declared to be ‘not qualified’ to hold public office,” the judge ruled.

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The story too tough to die

Arizona attorney general: Election fraud in Maricopa ‘raises questions’ about 2020.

A blockbuster review of Maricopa County’s mismanaged 2020 election by Arizona’s attorney general is raising new questions about the final vote in a state former President Donald Trump was expected to win but lost to Joe Biden by 10,457 ballots.

“We have reached the conclusion that the 2020 election in Maricopa County revealed serious vulnerabilities that must be addressed and raises questions about the 2020 election in Arizona,” said an “interim report” issued today by Attorney General Mark Brnovich.

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Supreme Court Decision on Redistricting Leaves Democrats Reeling

Republicans were down a touchdown with one play left and half the field to go in Wisconsin regarding redistricting for the state legislature, but thanks to a shocker of a decision from the Supreme Court, overtime has just been forced.

Previously, Wisconsin’s highest court had decided to use maps drawn by the Democrat governor after a months-long battle with Republican lawmakers. In doing so, the process hurdled past several legal issues that the Supreme Court decided were improperly ignored. Yet, the bigger story here isn’t actually about Wisconsin, and we’ll get to that in a moment.

As expected, the wailing and gnashing of teeth began immediately.

I’m not a lawyer, and this decision is in the weeds a bit, but here is a good explainer from a left-wing Supreme Court analyst. Ignore the consternation in the writing because the actual details are solid as to what occurred.

The majority decision essentially says this: there was an impasse between the Democratic governor and the Republican legislature over drawing district lines. So the court had to draw lines in the first instance. It set forth criteria which essentially said that parties should propose maps that make the least change from the maps of the last decade.

The court adopted the Governor’s maps, and those maps added another majority-minority district around Milwaukee. The governor added this district saying it was required by the Voting Rights Act because the failure to draw the district would violate Section 2 of the VRA.

When the state supreme court adopted the Governor’s maps, it left open the possibility that they could be challenged later as violating the VRA or as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander (a Shaw claim), violating the Constitution’s equal protection clause. There was no full airing of either issue in this fast-track litigation to draw the district lines.

The Supreme Court’s opinion today says either the Governor or the Supreme Court misapplied the Supreme Court’s VRA and racial gerrymandering precedents, in part by elevating just one of the VRA Gingles factors (proportionality).

It said that the VRA should be read in light of the racial gerrymandering cases and require the drawing of a majority-minority district only when a certain kind of strict scrutiny analysis is applied. The state supreme court should have considered under strict scrutiny “whether a race-neutral alternative that did not add a seventh majority-black district would deny black voters equal political opportunity.”

To summarize, Democrat Gov. Tony Evers drew up another majority-black district in his redistricting submission, elevating proportionality above all other factors. In adopting that map, the state’s high court failed to analyze whether the district could have been drawn in a neutral fashion without resorting to racial gerrymandering. The case will now be sent back down to be re-evaluated and properly adjudicated.

This decision is just the latest step by the Supreme Court to limit the ability of the Voting Rights Act to serve as a partisan tool for Democrats to racially gerrymander for their own political gain. For decades, Democrat officeholders have used the VRA test of proportionality to ensure they retain power in predominately urban areas while ignoring all other factors. The conservatives on the Supreme Court are not keen to let that continue and have been chipping away at such practices for several years now.

That has the left panicking because the VRA has represented a primary resource in retaining power. So, while I don’t know how this Wisconsin case will ultimately turn out, that’s actually a secondary concern here. What’s far more noteworthy in all this is that the Supreme Court is continuing to scrutinize the VRA and its application, specifically in cases where it is being used as cover for partisan redistricting.

In the end, Democrats aren’t freaking out because of the possibility of losing a single, state-level district in Wisconsin. No one, including Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, actually cares about that. Rather, they are freaking out because this decision is much farther reaching and could completely nuke the left’s “cheat code” regarding redistricting in the future.