EXTREMIST COURT HEARS CASE TO GREENLIGHT RACIAL GERRYMANDERING, FURTHER UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (October 3, 2022) — Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Merrill v. Milligan. As Take Back the Court lays out in a new fact sheet, the Court’s right-wing supermajority has given itself the opportunity in this case to strike down yet another core provision of the Voting Rights Act and open the floodgates to racial gerrymandering of congressional maps.

Take Back the Court released the following statement on behalf of its executive director, Sarah Lipton-Lubet, in anticipation of the case:

“The Roberts Court has spent the past decade on a mission to systematically dismantle the Voting Rights Act piece by piece. In Merrill, the Court’s right-wing despots will go after their crown jewel: making it easy for states to racially gerrymander congressional maps in order to deny Black and Brown Americans equal voting power. The conservative justices know that in order to enshrine minority rule and enact their wildly unpopular agenda, they must silence us. They must make it impossible for Americans to access our fundamental right to vote. We cannot let them continue to endanger our democracy — we must expand and rebalance the Supreme Court immediately.”

To learn more about the stakes in Merrill, check out Take Back the Court’s new resource: https://www.takebackthecourt.today/merrill-v-milligan-factsheet

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Take Back the Court raises awareness about the urgent need to expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court to address the theft of the court by Senator Mitch McConnell during the Obama Administration. Without adding seats, Congress will not be able to restore the right to vote, ensure reproductive freedom, protect workers, halt our climate emergency, or pass new legislation. Court expansion, which can be accomplished without a constitutional amendment, is the only reform that enables the un-rigging of the system and the restoration of democracy. Learn more: https://www.takebackthecourt.today/