The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on an Arizona election law sent the left into a tailspin. The right hailed it as the rule of law prevailing.
Summary
A 6-3 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law that banned “ballot harvesting” and threw out ballots if they were cast in the wrong precinct.
- Mainstream media, President Biden, and other Democrat elected officials “condemned the Arizona decision” calling it a “broad assault against voting rights.”
- Experts say the ruling jeopardizes the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state of Georgia for their supposedly restrictive new election reform law.
- The Supreme Court also ruled on a charity donor disclosure case, overturning a California law that required 501(c)3 non-profits to make their donor lists public, even though organizations affected were not engaged in political activity.
- Earlier in the week, the court’s ruling on a federal eviction moratorium “rejected a plea by landlords” to overturn the moratorium, which is expected to end on July 31st.
- Vox’s Ian Millhiser (whose history of embarrassing hot takes is endless) lamented the ruling, and characterizes concerns about voter fraud as “phantom fears.”
- According to the liberals at Huffington Post, the ruling is part of a years-long assault on the Voting Rights Act, which Chief Justice John Roberts started in a ruling eight years ago overturning the requirement certain states (but not all) get federal approval of their redistricting.
- In a review of all of the Supreme Court’s cases this term, The New York Times started their coverage by critiquing the Court’s latest appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, as having stripped away power from Chief Justice Roberts, who has been a thorn in conservatives’ sides on several major cases since he became chief justice.
- OANN’s coverage on the Supreme Court focused on an obscure case that received no major publicity: The Court ruled in favor of eminent domain for pipeline companies.
- Washington Examiner highlighted the reactions of top Democratic lawmakers, who apparently believe it is “gutting” the Voting Rights Act (Author: It’s not).
- Townhall collected the reactions of cable news, liberal Twitter, and progressive politicians who beclown themselves with their screeds about a return to “Jim Crow” discrimination laws.
- The Editors of National Review called the charity donor case and Arizona case a victory for free speech and free elections, noting the broad coalition of liberal and conservative groups in the charity donor case that did not support disclosing donor lists.
Author’s Take
The left’s response is predictable and eye-roll-inducing. But the headlines and phrasing used by even “middle of the road” publications shows just how deep liberal bias runs in media. These laws don’t “gut” anything. Dozens of states restrict or prevent ballot harvesting. The media calls any new election laws “restrictions”, and that characterization is almost always a result of media bias. It also almost universally incorrect. But for liberal media, they can’t let facts get in the way of a good outrage-driven news cycles and ad revenue.
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
