4th Circuit Panel Strikes Down North Carolina’s Gerrymandered Congressional Districts

4th Circuit Court of Appeals building, Richmond, Virginia.

With its base shrinking due to (i) the dying off of aging white voters, (ii) the growing minority population, and (iii) the toxicity with which the GOP is viewed by growing numbers of younger voters, the Republican Party has  relied on gerrymandered districts dating from eight years ago to cling to control of many state legislatures and the House of Representatives.  Here in Virginia, these districts have been struck down at the state level and several congressional districts have been ruled unconstitutional.  Now, for a second time all of the congressional districts in North Carolina have been ruled as unconstitutional and, depending on the ultimate outcome, could change voting districts for the 2018 midterm elections and help shift control of the House to Democrats.  The Washington Post looks at the unanimous ruling handed down by a three judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (the opinion can be viewed here).  Here are excerpts:

A panel of three federal judges held Monday that North Carolina’s congressional districts were unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans over Democrats and said it may require new districts before the November elections, possibly affecting control of the House.

The judges acknowledged that primary elections have already produced candidates for the 2018 elections but said they were reluctant to let voting take place in congressional districts that courts twice have found violate constitutional standards.

North Carolina legislators are likely to ask the Supreme Court to step in. The court traditionally does not approve of judicial actions that can affect an election so close to the day voters go to the polls.

But the Supreme Court has just eight members since Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s retirement last month; a tie vote would leave the lower court’s decision in place.

The North Carolina case is a long-running saga, with a federal court in 2016 striking down the legislature’s 2011 map as a racial gerrymander. The legislature then passed a plan that left essentially the same districts in place but said lawmakers were motivated by politics, not race.

The Supreme Court told the three-judge panel to take another look at the North Carolina case in light of the high court’s June decision in a Wisconsin partisan gerrymandering case, in which the justices said those who brought that case did not have legal standing.

But Judge James A. Wynn Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, writing Monday for a special three-judge district court panel, said plaintiffs did have standing under the decision in Wisconsin’s Gill v. Whitford, which he said reinforced the judges’ earlier views that the congressional districts were drawn with improper partisan goals.

He proposed several unusual ideas: appointing a special master to draw new districts, holding general elections without party primaries or even turning the November elections into a primary and holding the general election sometime before the new Congress convenes in January. . . . . Wynn and his fellow judges called for immediate briefing from the parties about which remedy to pursue. Wynn said it should be clear that such partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional.

“A common thread runs through the restrictions on state election regulations imposed by Article I, the First Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause: the Constitution does not allow elected officials to enact laws that distort the marketplace of political ideas so as to intentionally favor certain political beliefs, parties, or candidates and disfavor others,” he wrote.

Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Irvine, said the case has national implications.

“If the lower court orders new districts for 2018, and the Supreme Court deadlocks 4-4 on an emergency request to overturn that order, we could have new districts for 2018 only, and that could help Democrats retake control of the U.S. House,” he wrote on his blog.

The combined cases are Common Cause v. Rucho and League of Women Voters of North Carolina v. Rucho.

Gavin Grimm's Fight Isn't Over

Deirdre and Gavin Grimm

One of the things that I have enjoyed through my blog - and opportunities it has opened - and my activism is meeting wonderful people.  Be it my network of LGBT blogger friends who I first met in December 2008 at a Mircosoft/Progressive Insurance sponsored LGBT blogger summit in Washington, D.C., or friends that I have made through HRBOR, HR Pride, or friends first met through other activism, I have build an amazing circle of friends and activists who continue to work to create change for the better.  Two of this group of people are Gavin Grimm and his mother Deirdre Grimm who I first met at an event in our home.  The two have become true champions for equality for all Americans and had little idea of what they were going to experience when Gavin's saga began. Now, Deirdre has an op-ed in the Washington Post about the continuing efforts needed to move the clock forward.  Here are highlights:

We teach our children to be kind. We teach them to love and to live life to the fullest. We teach them countless things to help them become better people, because as parents we all want the best for our children. And we demand that these values be taught in our schools so that when our kids graduate, they are open, compassionate people who understand that we all bleed the same blood and that everyone deserves to be treated with equality, dignity and respect.

My son, Gavin, will graduate from high school on Saturday. But he did not get the opportunity to learn those values at school. Instead, he learned them despite his school board treating him with the opposite of those values.

By now, my son’s story has spread to communities all across this country, because he stood up for himself as a transgender boy who wanted only to fully participate in his high school. He fought a policy that singled him out by forcing him to use a restroom separate from his peers. That fight took him all the way to the Supreme Court. Along the way, he helped people learn about the importance of treating transgender people fairly and equally.

Time magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential People of the year. During the Grammys, actress and activist Laverne Cox implored viewers to “Google ‘Gavin Grimm’ ” to learn about his fight. Countless people around the world began to #StandWithGavin on social media.

 

When Gavin came out as his true self, I honestly didn’t even know what it meant to be transgender. I spent days and nights reading as much as I could. I read a study that said some 50 percent of transgender teenagers had seriously considered suicide. That was all I needed to know.

As a parent, you are terrified for your child’s safety. You expect there to be some tough times, especially in high school, but you tend to imagine it coming from other students. You don’t expect the parents to be the bullies.

These parents then attacked him at a public meeting, humiliating him and our family in front of our community. This led to the school board requiring Gavin to use a private restroom.

Some may think this was a reasonable compromise, but this fails to appreciate how difficult such stigmatizing treatment can be, even just on a practical level. My son faced being late to class because he had to use a restroom on the other side of the building. 

So, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, we sued. It hasn’t been an easy fight, but it eventually brought us all the way to the steps of the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, just weeks before Gavin’s case was to be heard, the Trump administration withdrew the Obama administration guidance that had clarified that Title IX protects trans kids. The Supreme Court sent Gavin’s case back to the lower courts to be reargued in light of this new reality.

Make no mistake: Gavin’s fight is not over. We are about to have the case reheard. No administration has the ability to change the meaning of Title IX. I look forward to seeing the rights of my son and other trans people recognized.

But the fact that we did not settle this while Gavin was still in school will be like an asterisk on his graduation. He won’t be able to remember his high school experience the way his classmates will, but he doesn’t think about that. Instead, he thinks about all the trans kids still out there who are being treated as less than everyone else. Gavin knows that this fight is about much more than him, just as it is about much more than restrooms. It’s about dignity and respect.

Gavin wasn’t looking to be on the front lines of a major civil rights battle. But he had the courage to stand up — because he knew deep down that it was right. His bravery has made all of us better and stronger people. My kid is truly awesome.

This week, Gavin will cross the stage at his high school graduation. I will undoubtedly feel the same emotions that mothers throughout the country with graduating seniors will be feeling: pride, love, excitement and so much more. But I am also inspired. I’m inspired by my son’s unyielding courage and determination. And I’m so thankful for all those who stand with Gavin as his fight — our fight — continues.

Kudos to both Gavin and his parents who have had his back throughout this saga.  And shame on the parents - especially those who pretend to be "godly Christians" who have led the efforts to persecute Gavinn and other LGBT individuals.

4th Circuit Rules 10-3 Against Trump Muslim Ban

Donald Trump ranted against the 9th Circuit when his first attempt at a ban against Muslims went down in flames. Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has struck down Der Trumpenführer's second attempt at banning Muslims from entering America.    In its ruling, the Court recognized the motivation behind the executive order: religious based  intolerance and animus. The ruling will not sit well with Christofascists but ought to be encouraging for those who continue to believe in true religious freedom - not the perverted Christofascist version - and the First Amendment.  Salon looks at the ruling which will likely push the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Here are highlights:

Yet another federal court ruled against President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from six majority-Muslim nations. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the so-called Muslim travel ban executive order “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.” The court refused to lift a nationwide injunction blocking the ban.  

In a 10-3 ruling, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, noted that President Trump’s power to deny entry to immigrants, while “broad,” isn’t “absolute.”

[A]n Executive Order that in text speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination. Surely the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment yet stands as an untiring sentinel for the protection of one of our most cherished founding principles—that government shall not establish any religious orthodoxy, or favor or disfavor one religion over another. Congress granted the President broad power to deny entry to aliens, but that power is not absolute. It cannot go unchecked

Trump’s revised ban “cannot be divorced from the cohesive narrative linking it to the animus that inspired it,” Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote.

Trump’s revised ban was announced in March after the first version of the ban was shot down by federal courts. But the ban on people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days never got off the ground because federal courts blocked it just hours before it was set to go into effect.

Federal Judges Hail Gavin Grimm as Human Rights Leader

When I received my "Outstanding Virginia" award early in the month, I stood on the stage next to another honoree - Gavin Grimm, the truly amazing transgender teen from Gloucester County, Virginia.  Sadly, Gloucester has proven itself to be a bastion of backwardness and religious extremism that will do little to advance the county economically or socially.  In contrast, Grimm, whom I have known for several years now, shows the bravery and willingness to put one's self in the spotlight that is too often missing in today's society.  The consequence of such cowardice, as has always been the case, is that cowardice becomes complicity and bad things happen to people.  Some of the judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently noted Gavin Grimm's courage and unsought status as a civil rights leader.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

Federal appeals court judges on Friday hailed the Virginia transgender teen fighting to use the boy’s restroom at his high school as a courageous civil rights leader even as they lamented that the school year would end without a resolution of his case.

The praise for Gavin Grimm came from two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, who could have issued a short, unsigned order but instead chose to post a five-page memo.

The Supreme Court in March put off a ruling in Grimm’s case after the Trump administration revoked federal guidelines that directed schools to allow transgender students to use a bathroom consistent with their gender identity. The high court sent Grimm’s case back to the Richmond-based 4th Circuit. The appeals court earlier had sided with the teen and deferred to the federal guidelines on transgender rights that had been in place under the Obama administration.

The 4th Circuit announced Friday that Grimm’s case against the Gloucester County School Board would not be heard before he is scheduled to graduate. But Judge Andre M. Davis, a senior judge appointed by Barack Obama in 2009, used a separate court order issued the same day to passionately express his support for Grimm’s legal journey and state his dismay that the legal system sometimes lags behind the realities of people’s lives.

Grimm’s case “is about much more than bathrooms. It’s about a boy asking his school to treat him just like any other boy. It’s about protecting the rights of transgender people in public spaces and not forcing them to exist on the margins,” wrote Davis, who was joined by Judge Henry F. Floyd, another Obama appointee.

Davis said Grimm would be remembered alongside of other “brave individuals,” including Dred Scott, Fred Korematsu and Mildred and Richard Loving, who “refused to accept quietly the injustices that were perpetuated against them.”

“Today, hatred, intolerance, and discrimination persist — and are sometimes even promoted,” Davis wrote, referring to Grimm by his initials, G.G.

“But by challenging unjust policies rooted in invidious discrimination, G.G. takes his place among other modern-day human rights leaders who strive to ensure that, one day, equality will prevail, and that the core dignity of every one of our brothers and sisters is respected by lawmakers and others who wield power over their lives.”

An attorney for the school board, David Corrigan, declined to comment on the court’s order.

Grimm, who was on spring break this week, said he was honored to be compared to men and women whose names feature prominently in civil rights fights.

The Trump Regime Unleashes a War on Transgender Americans

This is the man who loves to bully, body shame, and strip away the rights of others for who they are - disgusting!

Two news stories today underscored the reality that the Trump regime intends to wage an all out war on LGBT Americans.  As so often is the case, individuals comprising the "T" in LGBT have been the first to be targeted, but I am waiting for the other shoe to drop either in the form of (i) a rabidly anti-LGBT executive order disguised as a "religious freedom" protection or (ii) the passage of the heinous First Amendment Defense Act that will grant right wing Christians the right to discriminate against and mistreat those who do not conform to their vicious religious beliefs.  The first blow deals with the Trump regime's withdrawal of opposition to North Carolina's vile HB2 which targeted transgender individuals but also rolled back civil rights protections and negated municipal non-discrimination protections for LGBT citizens.  The second was the Supreme Court's remand of Gavin Grimm's case back to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in light of the Trump regimes reversal of the Obama administrations interpretation of Article IX as it applies to sex discrimination.  The Charlotte Observer looks at these actions.  Here are highlights:

The Trump administration is taking steps to drop the federal government’s legal fight against House Bill 2.

The Justice Department wrote in a motion last week that it needs time to rethink its 2016 request to halt North Carolina’s requirement that transgender people use restrooms in many public buildings corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates. The federal judge responded on Friday with a stay that freezes efforts started by lawyers working under President Barack Obama to block the law with a preliminary injunction.

The Justice Department’s move was foreshadowed last month by the Trump administration’s reversal of guidelines that transgender students nationwide should be able to use school bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity.

Despite the Justice Department’s reversal, North Carolina residents challenging the law can press ahead with a separate lawsuit, but they’ve lost the dual punch provided by federal lawyers.

The fate of North Carolina’s law will also be heavily influenced by a separate Virginia case involving a transgender student seeking to use the boys’ bathroom. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court returned that case to a federal appeals court in Richmond.

The now-rescinded Obama administration guidelines formed the basis for a key argument that North Carolina [and Gloucester County, Virginia] was violating the federal Title IX law with the measure commonly referred to as House Bill 2. The state law also excludes gender identity and sexual orientation from statewide antidiscrimination protections.

Chris Brook, legal director for the North Carolina chapter of the ACLU, has said his legal team was preparing for the likelihood that the new Republican administration would pull out of the North Carolina case or rewrite the federal guidelines.

The Title IX argument is one of several by the ACLU, but it was the decisive factor in an August ruling that the state’s university system must allow three plaintiffs to use restrooms matching their gender identity while the case is pending.

But federal judge Thomas Schroeder indicated that he wasn’t convinced by the ACLU’s arguments that House Bill 2 violates the U.S. Constitution. In response, the ACLU asked the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond to take another look at their constitutional arguments; the appeals court has scheduled a May hearing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the North Carolina case is on hold, pending the outcome of the Virginia transgender case that’s now back before the 4th Circuit.

For "friends" who voted Republican and/or for Trump, take a good look at your handiwork.  Your  self-serving statements that "I don't feel that way" truly mean nothing as discrimination is press forward and likely soon legalized.  What enrages me the most is the fact that your white skin, nominal Christian affiliation and heterosexuality will protect you from the most vile and cruel consequences of your selfish and/or unthinking act at the polls. 

SCOTUS Slaps Anti-LGBTQ Groups for Misgendering Gavin Grimm

As I have said many times over the last decade and a half and longer, no one lies as consistently or viscous as the "godly Christians" and their "family values" organizations.  The truth, scientific and medial knowledge mean nothing to these people who are most motivated by hatred towards others and who seemingly only feel happy about themselves when attacking and denigrating others be it through spokesmen such as Tony Perkins of Family Research Council who has documented ties to racist and white supremacist groups to the briefs that these purported non-profit, "educational" organizations file in federal law suits where LGBT rights issues are at play.  Indeed, I still believe that some of the insane and vicious briefs filed by these groups in the Lawrence v. Texas case may have actually helped the LGBT cause because their were so vile, dishonest and unhinged.  Now, in G.G. v. Gloucester County, as Slate reports, we may be seeing a similar phenomenon where these groups have revealed the deep animus that motivates them.  The myth is that conservative Christians are kind and decent when in reality, they are not whatsoever. One can only hope the Supreme Court moves forward notwithstanding Der Trumpenfüher' effort to undermine the appeal from the 4th Circuit which had ruled in Grimm's favor. Here are article excerpts:

In March, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board, a case about transgender bathroom access. Gavin Grimm, the plaintiff—who has legally and medically transitioned from female to male—argues that under Title IX, his high school must let him use the men’s bathroom. The case has drawn a great deal of interest from both liberal and conservative advocacy groups, many of which have filed amicus briefs in support of either Grimm or his school. Three of these briefs caught my eye this week—one filed by Liberty Counsel, and two filed by the National Organization for Marriage together with the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. These briefs, which argue against Grimm’s right to use the men’s bathroom, identifies him this way in their front-page captions (emphasis mine):

G. G., BY HER NEXT FRIEND AND MOTHER, DEIRDRE GRIMM

But the Supreme Court, as well as all lower courts, identify him this way:

G. G., BY HIS NEXT FRIEND AND MOTHER, DEIRDRE GRIMM

That slightly odd formulation reflects the formal way that federal courts style a juvenile litigant’s name. (Grimm is 17.) It also obviously necessitates a gendered pronoun use. Did these anti-LGBTQ groups misgender Grimm by mistake? I posed the question to Liberty Counsel on Wednesday, and the organization confirmed that it used a female pronoun because “Gavin Grimm is a biological girl who now says she subjectively ‘identifies’ as a ‘boy.’ ”

These groups may passionately believe that Grimm is a girl—but unfortunately for them, they aren’t entitled to change his gender in the caption of their amicus briefs. The court has very specific rules governing these briefs, and Rule 34 of the Rules of the Supreme Court requires that each brief “shall bear on its cover ... the caption of the case as appropriate in this Court.”

On Thursday, I asked the Supreme Court’s press office whether the clerk of the court considered the altered pronoun in the briefs’ captions to be “appropriate.” And on Friday, a spokeswoman for the court informed me that the clerk, Scott S. Harris, had sent out letters reprimanding the groups that misgendered Grimm and demanding that they comply with the rules moving forward. You can read the letters here and here

[This should] effectively disqualify these amicus briefs from serious consideration. By misgendering Grimm, these briefs clearly reflect the kind of animus that moved the school board to bar Grimm from the correct bathroom in the first place. The briefs reject the very validity of Grimm’s identity in a manner that is both offensive and petty. Indeed, these organizations are so eager to deny Grimm this basic dignity that they intentionally flouted the rules of the Supreme Court of the United States. It is difficult to imagine a justice citing anything these groups’ briefs say—even those who vote against Grimm. Liberty Counsel, NOM, and the CCJ have given the game away, revealing that while they claim to care about bathroom predators, they are really attempting to repudiate trans people’s identity.

And to think—they might’ve convinced a few justices to cite their bigoted illogic if they had only put aside their animus for a moment and followed the rules of the court.

Again, in my experience, especially in the political realm, conservative Christians have been afforded undeserved deference from the media and others who have fabricated the myth that these people are kind and decent.  They are not.  They willingly embrace ignorance, bigotry and hatred of others.

Millennials seem to have recognized this truth, hence the massive exodus of Millennials from organized religion, especially Christianity. 

Note: The husband and are personal friends wit Gavin Grimm and his amazing mother Dierdre Grimm.  Gavin is being honored on April 1, 2017. along with me at Equality Virginia's Commonwealth Dinner in Richmond, Virginia, where Governor McAuliffe is the keynote speaker.  

Gloucester County Asks Supreme Court to Deny Transgender Rights

The anti-LGBT Gloucester County school board - a study in ignorance, bigotry and cowardice

As noted in previous posts, Gloucester County, located on the periphery of the Hampton Roads area is for the most part an utter backwater where ignorance and bigotry flourish, especially among the members of the Gloucester County school board. Indeed, the ignorance of the board members is exceeded perhaps only by its spinelessness in the face of the demands of local Christofascist who seek to vilify anyone and anything that challenges (i) their ignorance based beliefs, and/or (ii) their ability to inflict their beliefs on all members of society.  Thankfully, Gloucester County is letting the world know that it is a place that decent people and progressive business should avoid through its war against Gavin Grimm, a transgender high school student.  After receiving a equivalent of a spanking from the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the school board has now petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take an appeal from the 4th Circuit.  BuzzFeed looks at the appeal.  Here are highlights:

The [Gloucester County] Virginia school district seeking to limit restroom use to people’s biological sex — effectively barring transgender students from using the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity — on Monday asked the US Supreme Court to hear its appeal.

The Gloucester County School Board asked the high court to take the case and reverse an appeals court decision that sided with a transgender student and the Obama administration.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court issued an order allowing the school to keep its policy in place while the justices decide whether to hear the appeal. If the justices agree to hear the appeal, per the earlier order, the court’s order allowing the policy to stay in place will remain in effect until the justices reach a decision in the case.

The student, Gavin Grimm, is represented by the ACLU. The Obama administration, through interpretation of existing laws and regulations, has determined that the sex discrimination ban in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 includes a ban on anti-transgender discrimination.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the administration’s interpretation was a permissible interpretation, leading the district court in Grimm’s case to issue an injunction against Gloucester schools. The Supreme Court’s order, however, stayed that injunction for the time being — meaning Grimm, and any other transgender student, could not use the restroom that accords with their gender identity.

The lawyers for the school district frame the case as one not about transgender rights, but rather one about “agency behavior” in setting policies such as the Title IX interpretation advanced by the Obama administration.

In addition to the Virginia lawyers from Harman, Claytor, Corrigan & Wellman — which has been representing the school district — the legal team representing Gloucester schools now has expanded to include some of the leading national lawyers fighting the administration’s pro-transgender policies. Kyle Duncan is listed as the counsel of record in the case, and he is joined on the brief by his law partner, Gene Schaerr, as well as St. Louis lawyers from the James Otis Law Group, Jonathan Mitchell and D. John Sauer.

Once briefs are filed responding to the school board’s Monday filing, the justices generally schedule a private vote on whether to hear the case.

The current composition of the Supreme Court — it has operated with only eight justices since Antonin Scalia’s death in February — could become a key factor in what happens next with the case.

It takes four justices to grant the certiorari petition and hear an appeal. It takes five votes, however, to reach a majority opinion. If the court accepted the case, and split down ideological grounds 4–4, the lower court’s decision in favor of Grimm and the administration would be left in place — but no national precedent would be set by the case.
 

The GOP’s Cynical Election Strategy is Imploding

4th Circuit Court of Appeals

As if Donald Trump's bizarre behavior isn't enough to rattle Republicans who support his Neo-Fascist approach to governance and open racism, last week several federal court rulings could torpedo the GOP plan to win swing states by disenfranchising voters.  As noted many times, these GOP backed laws purport to protect against voter fraud - even though such fraud is virtually non-existent - while the real goal is to limit minority voting so that the dwindling white voter base that is critical to GOP wins can still prevail not withstanding significant demographic change across the nation.  A piece in Salon looks at how this despicable plan seems to be imploding thanks to the federal courts.  Here are excerpts:

As Donald Trump enmeshed himself in a bitter fight with the parents of an American Muslim military hero — and Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and John McCain looked to put distance between themselves and their party’s presidential nominee — there’s actually worse news for Republicans.

Several important court victories for voting rights since Friday could dramatically remake the campaign for Congress and the White House, and this time, GOP leadership may have a harder time distancing themselves from un-American tactics.

When an outraged 4^th Circuit Court struck down several North Carolina voting restrictions on Friday — including a stringent voter-ID provision, tough limits on early voting and an end to same-day registration — the panel of federal judges wrote that these “new provisions target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.” The judges stopped just short of calling the Republican legislators who crafted the laws racist, but condemned the racist result in unusually direct language. “We cannot ignore the record evidence that, because of race, the legislature enacted one of the largest restrictions of the franchise in modern North Carolina history.”

Meanwhile in Wisconsin, a federal judge issued a similar ruling Friday and struck a similarly appalled tone as he invalidated several recent efforts by the state legislature to tighten voter-ID requirements, limit absentee voting and shorten the windows for early voting. Judge James Peterson called the provisions a “wretched failure” and ruled, “A preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement.”

These judges — as well as those who knocked down similarly restrictive provisions in Kansas and Texas in recent days — might well have been ruling on the GOP’s very electoral strategy this decade. It is a concerted effort to grab control of state legislatures and the House of Representatives by the minority party, and it has been staggeringly effective.

First, Republicans used their big win in 2010 to radically gerrymander the House of Representatives and state legislatures nationwide during the decennial redistricting, using dark money and cutting-edge mapmaking technology to create a majority of districts that were whiter and more conservative, even as America as a whole becomes less white and less conservative.

Then these gerrymandered legislatures — unearned supermajorities in states like North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, for example, where Republicans drew such effective and unbeatable lines that they took veto-proof control of chambers despite winning fewer overall votes — pushed for new laws designed to make it even harder for minorities to vote and, ultimately, for Democrats to win.

These judges — as well as those who knocked down similarly restrictive provisions in Kansas and Texas in recent days — might well have been ruling on the GOP’s very electoral strategy this decade.

It is no coincidence that 17 states have enacted new voting restrictions just in time for the 2016 presidential election — or that 22 states have toughened access to the ballot box since 2010. Here are those 17 states: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

In North Carolina — home to perhaps the most gerrymandered legislature in America — the judges were even more emphatic as they connected the dots between the GOP-implemented voter-ID laws and the desire on behalf of Republicans to tamp down the turnout of minority voters unlikely to cast ballots for conservatives. Their ruling painstakingly dismisses any problem with voter fraud in North Carolina, and compiles voluminous evidence that “the ‘problem’ the majority in the General Assembly sought to remedy was emerging support for the minority party.” The legislature, according to the ruling, “unmistakably” sought to “entrench itself” by “targeting voters who, based on race, were unlikely to vote for the majority party.”

[I]n the last two weeks, the GOP’s crafty and cynical strategy of both remapping America’s legislative districts and suppressing minority votes officially imploded.

Republicans remain overwhelming favorites to retain the House for the rest of the decade. But suppressing the minority vote in 2020 — a presidential election year when more Democrats turn out, and also the next key year for redistricting — was essential to the GOP strategy of holding on to these gerrymandered gains for another decade.

Democrats still have to win, state by state, a majority of seats in districts algorithmically determined to ensure their defeat. That already uphill task, however, seems slightly less Herculean when these voter-ID bills are systematically thrown out by courts and seen for what they are: One party standing in front of the polls and trying to block minorities from exercising their most basic and essential American right to vote.

 Yes, Virginia is one of the states where voter ID laws were passed to depress minority voting.  Indeed, the Virginia GOP has become so racist that at times I have wondered when KKK robes would be handed out before the beginning of every city and county committee meeting. 

Anti-Transgender Gloucester County Appeals to SCOTUS

The anti-transgender Gloucester County School Board - the face of hate and ignorance

Having been rebuffed by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals three times now, the Gloucester County School Board has appealed its losses on the issue of the treatment of transgender students to the United States Supreme Court.  In addition, it has asked the high court to stay the 4th Circuit's ruling in favor of 17 year old Gavin Grimm pending the Court's decision of the case.  I'm hoping that SCOTUs both refuses the stay and refuses to take the case - a possibility heightened by the Court's current 8 justice membership.  The bottom line issue driving this case is the school board's desire to pander to Christofascists who began lobbying the board when it was learned that the board planned to accommodate Grimm's needs. Take away the religious extremists and the case would never have occurred.  The Washington Post looks at the board's latest effort at self-prostitution to the forces of hate.  Here are excerpts:

A school board that has been ordered to allow a transgender student to use the boys’ high school bathroom has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the order, arguing that it will cause “irreparable harm” and violate the privacy of students.

The Gloucester County, Va. School Board, which is being sued for passing a policy that barred a transgender student from the boys’ bathroom, said it hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on the matter. In the interim, it is asking the high court to allow it to continue banning the transgender boy from the boys’ room while attorneys prepare a writ of certiorari to the nation’s highest court. Currently, the court’s order would mean transgender students could use the bathroom corresponding with their gender identity when school returns for the coming academic year.

Gavin Grimm, a 17-year-old rising senior at Gloucester High filed a lawsuit against the School Board last year after the board passed a policy requiring students to use bathrooms based on their “biological gender.” Grimm alleged that the policy barring him from the boys’ bathroom violated his civil rights and ran afoul of Title IX, which bans sex discrimination in public schools.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit sided with the teen in April, deferring to the Obama administration’s position that transgender students are entitled to use bathrooms that match their gender identity under Title IX. It was the highest court to rule on the question of how to accommodate transgender students in public schools. A federal judge later granted Grimm a preliminary injunction ordering the School Board to allow Grimm to use the boys’ bathroom while the case proceeds.

In a filing to the high court Wednesday, the School Board again asked for the case to be paused — and to keep Grimm out of the boys’ bathroom — until the case concludes.

Joshua Block, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, also has disputed the notion that allowing Grimm to use the boys’ bathroom would cause the sort of harm the school board describes.

“The only thing this injunction does is let Gavin use the boys’ restroom,” Block said last week. “The notion that simply allowing one boy to use the restroom during his senior year of high school would cause the sky to fall is impossible to take seriously.”

To the Christofascists the sky will fall because they will lose the ability to punish transgender students who fail to conform to the hate and ignorance based beliefs of the "godly folk." 

4th Circuit Bitch Slaps Gloucester County Yet Again

Gavin Grim

As this blog has noted on numerous occasions now at this point, the Gloucester County School Board is obsessed with prostituting itself to local Christofascist and squandering tax payer dollars in the process.  After losing twice before before U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the school board had the gall/idiocy to ask that court to stay its ruling against the school board and in favor of Gavin Grimm, a transgender high school student while the school board prepares to appeal the case to the United States Supreme Court.   Today, the 4th Circuit said no - basically, hell no.  Unless the U.S. Supreme Court (i) takes the appeal and (ii) stays the 4th Circuit order, come September, 2016, the Gloucester County schools must accommodate the restroom need of Gavin Grim and any other transgender students, like it or not. The summary ruling of the 4th circuit is here via Equality Case Files.

As noted previously, it is a shame that the school board members are not required to personally reimburse the school division for all of the taxpayer dollars squandered in this effort to grant special deference to the animus of Christofascists.  The entire episode demonstrates why Gloucester County, Virginia, remains a backwater where ignorance and bigotry are celebrated by far too many citizens. 

Gloucester County School Board Continues Self-Prostitution to Anti-LGBT Bigots

Click image to enlarge to better see the face of bigotry

There seemingly are no limits to the lengths that the self-prostituting members of the Gloucester County, Virginia school board (pictured above) will go to in order to appease anti-LGBT Christofascists in the battle to institutionalize the bullying of transgender students.   Having been smacked down twice by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and now under a District Court order compelling the school division to accommodate a transgender boy, the school board is now dishonestly claiming that such accommodations will cause other students to leave the school division.  My response? Good.  Good riddance.  Let them.  Remember, that there were no problems with accommodations until a local "holy man" - as Bob Felton would call such parasites - got wind of the situation and whipped the county simpletons into a furor. The Washington Post looks at the continued lies and batshitery from the board and its always sleazy counsel from Alliance Defending Freedom ("ADF"):

A Virginia school district claims that allowing one transgender student to use the boys’ bathroom would cause community uproar and could force some parents to pull their children out of school.

Gloucester County Public Schools is seeking to reverse a judge’s order that requires Gloucester High to let senior Gavin Grimm use the bathroom that matches his gender identity, rather than his biological sex.

If Grimm is allowed to use the boys’ bathroom, the district argued in a filing this week, “parents may decide to remove their children from the school system after reaching the understandable conclusion that the school has been stripped … of its authority to protect their children’s constitutionally guaranteed rights of bodily privacy.”

It was one of several arguments the school district made in the 14-page filing, part of an ongoing case regarding Grimm’s challenge of a school board policy that prevents transgender students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. A federal appeals court ordered a lower court to hear Grimm’s case, and the school district says it would like the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in. In the meantime, the courts have ordered the school district to let Grimm use the boys’ room while the case is pending.

Joshua Block, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Grimm, said that the fear of a negative reaction from some parents isn’t a legitimate reason to violate Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination, and that — according to the ACLU and guidance from the Obama administration — protects transgender students’ right to use facilities matching their gender identity.

The school system has said it plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, given the national interest in resolving questions about whether Title IX protects transgender students’ right to use bathrooms that match their gender identity.

In its June 28 motion, the school system asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to stay its earlier decision, arguing that Grimm can use a bathroom in the nurse’s office, or one of three other single-occupancy restrooms that are available to all students, while litigation proceeds.

It seems unlikely that the district court would reverse its own ruling. But the school system made clear in its filing that it intends to take the issue to the nation’s highest court.

The district says that within 10 days, it will ask the Supreme Court to rule on whether Gloucester High must let Grimm use the boys’ bathroom as the litigation unfolds — or whether it may keep him out.

Reading some of the comments to the Post story underscores something that have concluded for some time now:  few people are as foul and self-centered than the "godly folk."  Only their rights - and most importantly, their hate and fear based religious beliefs - matter and everyone else is supposed to forfeit their rights so that the knuckle draggers can continue to feel self-satisfied and  falsely pious.  It is far past time that they start being treated like the scum of the earth that they are.  Sexual orientation and gender identity are not a choice, but embracing ignorance, clinging to childish fairy tales and advocating bigotry are all choices these folks have made.  Let them begin to pay the consequences.  

As for ADF, Human Rights Campaign has accurately described ADF as follows:

ADF is one of the United States’ most dangerous organizations working to prevent equality for LGBT people across the globe.  An enthusiastic leader in defending the unconscionable “right” to discriminate against LGBT people, ADF is a worldwide exporter of hate. With offices in many places around the world, ADF uses their global reach and budget of over 54 million dollars to promote discriminatory legislation, and foster anti-LGBT initiatives. ADF bills itself as an “alliance-building legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith”—unless of course that faith contradicts with their own anti-LGBT version.

Federal Court Rules Against Anti-LGBT Gloucester County School Board

After squandering who knows how much taxpayer money and made their county look like a bigoted backwater to the rest of the nation and the world, the Gloucester County school board went down to final defeat in its war against transgender students.  Today, U.S. District Court judge Robert Doumar - who got a spanking himself by the U. D. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit - ordered the Gloucester County school board to allow transgender boy, Gavin Grimm to use the school system's male restrooms.  Would that the board members who proved spineless when confronted by spittle flecked cranks and Christofascists   had to personally reimburse taxpayers for the wasted funds which might just as well have been placed in a trash can and set afire. BuzzFeed looks at today's much deserved defeat,   Here are highlights:

In the country’s most watched case over transgender student rights, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Doumar ordered a Virginia school district to let a transgender boy use the boys restroom when he returns to high school classes in September.

 “I am elated to hear that I’ll be able to attend my senior year of high school with my full rights restored,” Gavin Grimm told BuzzFeed News in a statement. “After nearly two years of humiliation and intense struggle, equality has finally prevailed. Now hopefully other transgender individuals will not have to face this type of discrimination.”
 Grimm had sued the Gloucester County School Board in 2015, challenging a policy that bans transgender students from using school restrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

Represented by the ACLU, Grimm alleged the rule violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
 Judge Doumar had initially thrown out the Title IX claim, despite the U.S. Education Department’s interpretation of the law — that Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination also applied to transgender discrimination. Overturning Doumar on that point, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Education Department has the authority to establish that interpretation of Title IX.
 [O]n Thursday, Doumar issued a preliminary injunction in Grimm’s favor, stating, “This Court, pursuant to Title IX, hereby ORDERS that Gloucester County School Board permit the plaintiff, G.G., to use the boys’ restroom at Gloucester High School until further order of this Court.”
 Joshua Block, a staff attorney for the ACLU who is representing Grimm, said of the injunction, “The writing is on the wall how this case will ultimately end in Gavin’s favor.”
 Lawyers for the school board did not immediately answer a question BuzzFeed News about whether they would attempt to appeal the preliminary injunction order.

No doubt we will hear the usual rants about judicial tyranny by ignorance embracing Christofascists even as they strive to force their beliefs on all of society.   Meanwhile, thinking Virginians are embracing the 21st century as opposed to wanting to live by a 12th century version of "natural law."

4th Circuit Rejects Petition of Anti-Transgender Gloucester County School Board

After having been firmly bitch slapped by a panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the spineless Gloucester County School Board petitioned the Court for a "hearing en banc" - i.e, a reconsideration by all the judges on the court - in the hope that the board's anti-transgender policies would be upheld.  Today, the 4th Circuit rejected the requested rehearing leaving the political whores on the board who have prostituted themselves to Christian extremists with nowhere to go except for the U. S. Supreme (the denial is here).  Given the current 4-4 split on the Supreme Court thanks to GOP obstructionism, there is a significant chance that an appeal to the Supreme Court would be refused.   The one down side is that to date, the school board members are not personally liable for the litigation costs.  The Augusta Free Press has details.  Here are excerpts:

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will not rehear the case of a Gloucester County transgender high school student suing his school board over discriminatory bathroom policies. 

The court today denied the Gloucester County School Board’s request for an en banc review of an April decision which held that Title IX protects the rights of transgender students to use school restrooms consistent with their gender identity.

“Now that the Fourth Circuit’s decision is final, I hope my school board will finally do the right thing and let me go back to using the boys’ restroom again,” said Gavin Grimm, the high school junior who is the plaintiff in the case. “Transgender kids should not have to sue their own school boards just for the ability to use the same restrooms as everyone else.”

In an en banc review, cases are reconsidered by every active judge, of which there are 15 in the Fourth Circuit. In April, a three-judge panel ruled two-to-one in favor of Mr. Grimm in his challenge to Gloucester High School’s discriminatory restroom policy that segregates transgender students from their peers by requiring them to use “alternative, private” facilities. In order to hear an en banc review, a majority of the judges must vote to do so; however, none of the judges in this case requested a vote, according to the court order denying the request.

The April ruling marked the first time a federal appeals court has determined Title IX protects the rights of transgender students to use sex-segregated facilities that are consistent with their gender identity. The Fourth Circuit remanded the case for the district court to reevaluate Gavin’s request for a preliminary injunction under the proper legal standard.

Fact Checker Takes Down Cruz's Attacks on the Transgendered

As noted before, with the delegate math against him, in a desperate and disgusting last ditch effort to rally evangelicals - many of whom have defected to Donald Trump - Ted Cruz has joined the Christofascists in attacking trans gendered individuals and fanning the lie that they are would be sexual predators lurking in bathrooms for victims.  It's a sleazy and disgusting tactic, but then again, few people are more sleazy and utterly disgusting that Ted Cruz himself.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the lies behind Cruz's latest effort to prostitute himself to the less than "godly folk." Here are excerpts (Disclaimer: I count both Gavin Grimm and the head of the Virginia ACLU as friends):

The bathroom issue has pitted advocates of transgender rights against those who believe expanding transgender access to bathrooms threatens individual right to privacy. Cruz supports the latter.

What further complicates this issue is that when Cruz and others who oppose transgender rights refer to the person’s biological sex, not the one with which the person identifies. “Transgender” is the umbrella term for people who identify with a gender that does not match their biological sex. A transgender boy is born as a girl. A transgender girl is born as a boy.

It’s important to note that it is Cruz’s opinion that transgender teenagers should be referred to by the gender that matches their chromosomes — even though this is not the norm with transgender labels. So when Cruz says “teenage boys,” he is talking about high school students who look, dress, identify and live as girls and are treated as girls by their families, classmates and administrators.

The Facts

In 2014, the Obama administration declared that students can use sex-segregated spaces (i.e., bathrooms, changing rooms, locker rooms with shower facilities) based on their gender identity. Transgender students and their advocates cheered this decision, but it drew a fierce backlash from opponents who say it jeopardizes privacy.

At question is Title IX — a federal civil rights law designed to prevent discrimination on the basis of gender in schools that receive federal funding — which is enforced by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Since 2014, there have been challenges to the Obama administration’s interpretation and most have been unsuccessful.

The case that advocates and opponents are watching right now is that of Gavin Grimm, a 16-year-old who was born a girl and identifies as a boy. . . . .  Cruz’s spokesman Brian Phillips said the candidate was referring to this case. . . . . Phillips said that because Grimm’s suit was based on the agency’s interpretation of Title IX, the Education Department’s arguments in support of Grimm extends to similar legal cases involving sex-segregated facilities like bathrooms and locker rooms.

Cruz says schools are forced to allow teenage boys to shower with teenage girls. When referring to non-transgender students, this is a highly questionable assertion.

When Cruz says teenage boys are forced to shower with teenage girls, he uses slippery language. He is referring to transgender girls (born as boys) showering with non-transgender girls (born as girls). The Obama administration’s interpretation does support that: giving transgender boys and girls access to the bathrooms of the gender with which they identify. But this could also be interpreted by the public as if Cruz is referring to non-transgender boys showering with non-transgender girls.

This is a classic case of a politician using rhetoric to obfuscate and simplify a complex issue, earning him Two Pinocchios.