The Law Will Not Save Us

JOSEPH MARGULIES

Cornell law professor Joseph Margulies reminds us that the rule of law exists in the United States primarily to conceal politics; that is, one cannot rely on having “the law” on one’s side if politics are opposed. Margulies illustrates this point by replacing “the lawyers reviewed the law and decided” with “the high priests studied the entrails and decided”—a substitution that ultimately yields the same results.

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The Democratic National Committee v. Hobbs

Docket: 18-15845

Opinion Date: January 27, 2020

Judge: William A. Fletcher

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Election Law

The en banc court reversed the district court's judgment for defendants in an action brought by the DNC and others. The DNC challenged Arizona's policy of wholly discarding, rather than counting or partially counting, ballots cast in the wrong precinct. The DNC also challenged House Bill 2023, a 2016 statute criminalizing the collection and delivery of another person’s ballot. The en banc court held that Arizona’s policy of wholly discarding, rather than counting or partially counting, out-of-precinct ballots, and H.B. 2023's criminalization of the collection of another person's ballot, have a discriminatory impact on American Indian, Hispanic, and African American voters in Arizona, in violation of the “results test” of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The en banc court further held that H.B. 2023's criminalization of the collection of another person's ballot was enacted with discriminatory intent, in violation of the "intent test" of Section 2 of the VRA and of the Fifteenth Amendment. The en banc court did not reach the DNC's First and Fourteenth Amendment claims.