The Supreme Court just ‘tipped the scales’ for House Republicans

good evening from New York I'm Chris Hayes we are in a race against the clock ticking ever closer to election day as Donald Trump desperately tries to delay any effort to hold him accountable for his actions now at least in New York it looks like his efforts have been unsuccessful with a Manhattan judge ruling this week that Trump's hush money election interference trial will start on April 15th although the ex-president continues to put up a fight attacking the judges daughter continuously now

challenging the gag order imposed on him we will talk about all of that tonight and yet in the other three crial criminal cases against him our legal system continues to move in slow motion crucially in the most serious and most important case about Donald Trump's attempted coup leading up to January 6th in that case the Supreme Court has basically suspended any Forward Motion while they take up Trump's extremely dubious claim that he is immune from any potential prosecution because he was presi

dent at the time whether Donald Trump will face trial for trying to overthrow our democracy before the next election is now let me be clear here entirely up to the court and the majority of the court and how quickly they move the key thing to understand and this cannot be emphasized enough is that when the Supreme Court wants to move fast they move fast and when they want to move slow they move very slow in both circumstances they know exactly what they're doing and what the effects will be they

're not not idiots and by they I mean the conservative majority of the court that controls such matters this week we saw a stark example of that when the Supreme Court tipped the scales in the race for control of the house towards Republicans by sitting on their hands and just doing nothing this comes in a case out of South Carolina it may have escaped your notice hasn't gotten a lot of attention where the Republican C control legislature in that state Drew this map in 2022 drastically changing

the makeup of two congressional districts the first district and the sixth district and early last year a three judge federal district judge Court panel ruled the map was unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered having moved over 30,000 African-American voters from the first district to the 6th as you can see with these lines the voting population of the first district was just 17.4% black versus 4 6.9% in the sixth district now to be clear here this gets confusing with the map the purpose was

to make the district safer for yes the trumpy Republican incumbent Congresswoman Nancy mace this was a Nancy mace salvation project South Carolina Republicans who found their map struck down by federal judges were not going down without a fight of course they appealed to the Supreme Court asking the Maga majority to allow their map to stand now let's be clear this is nothing new in fact we've seen a lot of these fights over racially gerrymander districts in recent years particularly after the Su

preme Court struck down sections of the Voting Rights Act so one case was in Alabama where that State's Republican controlled legislature passed this Congressional map in 2021 you can see just one District the seventh in blue was majority black in early 2022 a federal court blocked the map ruling that it likely violated the Voting Rights Act by deliberately splitting black voters across four districts meaning that there was only one majority minority District they told Alabama that wasn't good e

nough that the Alabama legislature had to redraw the map with a second majority black District Republicans took this case to the Supreme Court as well where the court put it on pause back in 2022 saying it was oh too close the election it change the map we don't want to mess with things now mind you that was in February of 2022 the prime wasn't held until late May and so what happened well back in 2022 the state of Alabama used the racially Jerry Mander maps with disenfranchised black voters and

cost Democrats the ones that had already been struck down by the lower court as unconstitutional they used those maps and to no one's surprise Republicans benefited because they won every District except the sole majority black District helping to secure Republicans tiny majority in the house now here's the kicker after the election was over the Supreme Court got around to ruling on the case and ruled 5 to4 that oh wow look at that Alabama's map did violate the voting right Rights Act and would

have to be redrawn the state of Alabama did discriminate against its black voters and they held a whole election using the discriminatory map because the Supreme Court would not make a decision nearly four months ahead of any votes being cast okay this happened 2022 in Alabama so that brings us back to South Carolina the current litigation in that case the Supreme Court did actually hear arguments on that case all the way back in October October 11th that was more than five months ago that was

when the court heard the South Carolina case at that point the 2023 World Series had not yet begun yesterday was the opening day of the 2024 season when the court heard the South Carolina case Santos remember that guy he was still a member of Congress remember they move quickly when they want to move quickly when they wanted to strike down covid restrictions or end the Biden administration's moratorium on evictions or make sure that student borrowers didn't get Deb relief they moved at lightning

speed but in this case well they've just been sitting on this case about South Carolina's Maps no word from them making no decisions for 5 months now and the Congressional primary is fast approaching on June 11th so guess what is going to happen we are following some breaking news at this hour a United States circuit court judge has made an important ruling on the first congressional District's political boundaries the judge has ruled that the current boundaries will be used for this year's ele

ctions now the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court where we are still waiting on a decision meanwhile opponents asked a judge to hold this year's elections using the pre-2020 boundaries the judge rights it would be highly inconvenient and unusual to try to change District boundaries ahead of the June primary you get that they didn't make a decision the Supreme Court they just ran out the clock they just didn't do anything and then it got so close to the election that they're going to g

o ahead and use the South Carolina map the map that the lower court judges evaluated and said was racist and unconstitutional because the Supreme Court just couldn't get MO motivated enough to hit any deadlines and rule on the case the Supreme Court knows what it's doing the justices know what they're doing these aren't freshmen in their first few weeks of college overwhelmed by assignments trying to figure out how to get it all done this was not an oversight the justices know that if they don't

act the maps stay in place and the conservative majority knows that the current map will favor the Republican party and that if it's changed it will will favor the Democrats so by not acting they have acted by delaying they have made something in the world happen they think they are very clever they think they can get away with it because no one is paying attention but we are paying attention we see what they're doing we know the conservative majority of this Supreme Court decided to let black

voters continue to be discriminated against in South Carolina this year in violation of the Constitution it seems to me that this is exactly parallel to what they are right now as I speak to you trying to do with Donald Trump's case they waited two whole weeks after Trump petitioned to announce that they would take the case they then scheduled the case for the last possible day of oral arguments April 25th and then if they sit on it long enough well it could basically just go away it could be to

o late to hold the trial before the election and then once the issue is moot the court could come out and rule on the merits and get credit for making the right call he's not immune too late for it to really matter just like they did in the Alabama case after the election after the Republicans had already secured a house majority by a very narrow number maybe they will do the same thing in South Carolina too who knows find the map actually did violate the constitution actually was an illegal rac

ist gerrymander after it's too late maybe they will find Donald Trump is not immune but not in timey to try him before the election if I sound frustrated and angry it's because I am there's not a lot of recourse here with this court the only recourse we have with this court is to do this to shine a light on their behavior and make sure they know that we know exactly what they are up to hey everyone MSNBC has a new and improved app you'll get real time alerts and Analysis live blogs in-depth essa

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