Even a broken clock is right twice a day, as the saying goes. Surprisingly, the same one-sided right-wing Supreme Court that has since June 2022 toppled old precedents to abolish a federal abortion law, gun controls, clean water guarantees, and now affirmative action has also ruled twice recently to strengthen voting rights and fair elections.

Even more shocking, one of those decisions, the court’s ruling Allen v. Milligan

early last month

actually gives the Democrats a head start on retaking control of the House in the 2024 election.

You read that correctly. And that landmark ruling isn’t the only way the court, albeit unintentionally, may have benefited Democrats in next year’s White House and Congressional elections.

His 5-4 decision in Allen, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Judge Brett

m

Kavanaugh joined their three liberal colleagues in the court rejecting Alabama Republicans’ plea that the justices overturn the surviving pillar of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits voting procedures, including legislative cards that discriminate on the basis of race.

Instead, the court upheld the law and ordered Alabama to reorganize its House districts in a way that means one district is now owned by a Republican

want

almost certain to elect a black Democrat.

A similar effect could spill over to other states where Republicans have gerrymandered maps to limit the influence of black voters, that is, Democrats, given the region’s racially polarized voting.

Impartial analysts

goods

agree: The new Supreme Court ruling could help Democrats flip the house in 2024, which was the headline on FiveThirtyEight.com. A huge victory for the Democrats, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. His House analyst, Dave Wasserman, immediately changed the electoral outlook for five counties in Alabama, Louisiana and North Carolina,

they now rate as competitive for Democrats.

A net loss of five seats would cost Republicans the slim majority they won last year.

Perhaps the unexpected and casting votes of Roberts and Kavanaugh reflected the outrageous outreach of Alabama Republicans, who seemed emboldened by their otherwise well-placed confidence in the Republican-engineered Supreme Court supermajority. They gerrymandated Alabama’s seven House districts to secure last November’s election results: six Republican winners and one Democrat from a single majority-black district. Now comes a second majority black neighborhood,

and one less favorite for Republicans.

By concentrating so many black voters in one district and diluting them everywhere, Alabama had made a group possible

more than

one-fourth of the states population to have a realistic chance of just one-seventh the clout of the state house.

Louisiana Republicans did much the same when mapping six House districts; they too will likely be forced by the court ruling to add a second majority black district. Also, North Carolina’s governing Republicans could be nurturing plans this year to reform House districts that are now evenly distributed (as the state’s electorate generally is) with seven Republicans and seven Democrats to make their party as many as 11 -3 lead.

Given the Allen ruling, it is doubly regrettable that last year conservative justices allowed Alabama (and Louisiana) to use contested maps for the midterm elections, the one that gave Republicans control of the House. Still, with this court, progressives just have to take a general feeling that it could have been worse, and hope for the rare victories.

In that vein, more on the political bright side: with his Moore vs. Harper ruling

last week

the court shot down the so-called independent state legislature theory, the fringe idea that state legislatures can dictate voting and election laws without fear of scrutiny by state courts.

That theory gained a foothold among Republicans as agitator Donald Trump tried to reverse his 2020 election loss, and it loomed large ahead of the 2024 election amid fears the Supreme Court would bless it and grant state lawmakers unchecked power over the details of voting.

But common sense and true constitutionalism carried the day, and Democrats in states with extremist Republican legislators trying to suppress their votes can breathe easier.

Here’s another big unintentional way the right-wing Supremes have put a thumb on the Democratic side of the scale for 2024, and not just for House races: through their precedent-defying decisions, most notably in overthrowing Roe vs. Wade, they’ve driven public support from the courts to an all-time low

,

urging progressive voters to view court makeup as an election issue, just as conservatives have done for decades.

For the Democrats, a new rallying cry is and should be that the party that controls the White House and Senate also determines, through judicial nominations and confirmations, which party dominates the judicial branch of government. It worked for Republicans.

The argument is especially powerful given that the court’s two rightmost members are also the oldest: Clarence Thomas, 75, and Samuel Alito, 73. If Republicans win the White House and a majority in the Senate in 2024, either man could decide to retire, confident that like-minded and much younger nominees would get their seats and strengthen an ultra-conservative Supreme Court for decades to come.

For Democrats and progressive voters, it’s time to focus on the legal victories and whatever electoral advantage the Supreme Court has provided. Remember: it could be worse.

@jackiekcalmes