The Supreme Court temporarily blocks Georgia’s election law designed to harm black voters

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily halted an election in Georgia, reviving a federal judge’s decision that the state had enacted voting rules that discriminated against black voters in violation of a federal civil rights statute.

In an unsigned order with no dissenting opinions noted, the judges wrote that an appellate court’s reason for staying the judge’s ruling – that it came too close to the November election – was flawed because state officials told the judge that enough was enough Allow time for the necessary adjustments. The Supreme Court lifted the stay and referred the case back to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration.

The court’s order was an exception to what legal experts are calling a growing trend: an almost categorical ban on subsequent changes to the state election process, even if those changes were deemed necessary to address unlawful violations of voting rights. But the exception was based on an unusual concession by state officials, so it may not have a major impact.

The case involved elections for the Georgia Public Service Commission, which sets utility fees and has five members. A 1998 law divided the state into five counties, each with a commissioner. But the commissioners continued to be elected in national elections.

About a third of Georgians are black, but black voters are in the majority in District 3, which consists of wards in the greater Atlanta area. Four black voters from that district sued to contest statewide elections for commissioners, saying the practice violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting their power to elect candidates of their choosing.

Atlanta Federal District Court Judge Steven D. Grimberg, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, agreed, ruling that elections for the two commission seats could not proceed in November until lawmakers eliminated statewide elections for them. The current commissioners, he said, would remain in their positions in the meantime.

An unsigned majority order of the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta granted a stay of Judge Grimberg’s decision. The members of the majority — Justice Adalberto Jordan, appointed by President Barack Obama, and Justice Robert J. Luck, appointed by Mr. Trump — relied on a version of an appealed 2006 Supreme Court ruling, Purcell v. Gonzalez, that prevailed came to be understood as opposed to changes in voting procedures near elections.

Richard L. Hasen, law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, coined a term for this interpretation of the decision in a 2016 Law Review article: the Purcell principle.

A twist in the new Georgia case was that attorneys for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger had urged Judge Grimberg to proceed slowly and had repeatedly promised not to raise the Purcell principle on appeal if they lost.

“We will not be appealing on the basis of Purcell,” an attorney for Mr. Raffensperger told the judge.

In contrast, Justice Robin S. Rosenbaum, appointed by Mr. Obama, wrote that the clarity of the admission was striking.

“State Secretary Raffensperger expressly and consciously refrained from this argument,” she wrote. “He couldn’t have done without that argument if he’d tried.”

In its unsigned order, the Supreme Court agreed. The appeals court, the order said, “applied a version of Purcell’s principle that the defendant, given his previous representations to the district court that the timetable followed by the district court was sufficient to provide an effective discharge, was unreasonable.” advance to the November elections should the candidates win in court.”

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled, state officials withdrew their request for a stay before the Court of Appeals, saying it would be too late to hold the election even if they won. They said they would file an expedited appeal of Judge Grimberg’s decision on the matter.

In her rejection of the appeals court ruling, Judge Rosenbaum wrote that the state law, which requires statewide votes for commissioners representing certain counties, was strange and troubling.

“If everyone in the United States could vote on who Georgia’s US senators would be,” she wrote, “I don’t think anyone would think the system was fair to Georgians.”

Attorneys for Mr. Raffensperger only marginally discussed the Purcell Principle in his request for a stay by the Circuit Court of Appeals while the state’s appeal was considered. But majority opinion said the principle required a postponement that would allow the elections to proceed.

The statement said the concession was limited to addressing voter confusion and other issues that late changes in the election process posed to the electoral administration, leaving open the argument that the state was entitled to a full appeals review before the Judge Grimberg’s decision came into effect.

“If we’re wrong on this point,” is the majority view, “the Supreme Court can tell us.”