{"id":1617029,"date":"2022-08-20T02:33:14","date_gmt":"2022-08-20T06:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1617029"},"modified":"2022-08-20T02:33:15","modified_gmt":"2022-08-20T06:33:15","slug":"supreme-court-blocks-elections-for-georgia-public-service-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/supreme-court-blocks-elections-for-georgia-public-service-commission\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Blocks Elections for Georgia Public Service Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsupreme-court-blocks-elections-for-georgia-public-service-commission%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1617029&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>High court sides with district judge who found the current method of election discriminates against black voters<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court issued an emergency order Aug. 19 blocking upcoming elections for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-georgia\">Georgia<\/a>\u2019s Public Service Commission, upholding a lower court ruling that found the election rules currently in place discriminate against black voters.<\/p>\n<p>The order is unusual because in recent years the Supreme Court has generally been reluctant to side with voters over state officials in disputes over election rules, especially when the court has been asked to act in an emergency posture.<\/p>\n<p>The state\u2019s Public Service Commission (PSC) regulates electric, natural gas, and telecommunications companies. There are five elected commissioners. Since 1906, commissioners have been elected on a statewide at-large basis.<\/p>\n<p>Elections for two of the five seats were scheduled for Nov. 8. If the legal dispute is not resolved soon, those elections may not proceed.<\/p>\n<p>On Aug. 5, Judge Steven D. Grimberg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia issued a 64-page ruling (<a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.gand.279066\/gov.uscourts.gand.279066.151.0.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) finding that statewide at-large elections for the PSC were racially discriminatory because this method of election \u201cunlawfully dilutes the votes of Black citizens under Section 2 of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-voting-rights-act\">Voting Rights Act<\/a> of 1965.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The system \u201cmust change,\u201d added Grimberg, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. The challenge to the PSC elections was brought by Georgia voters, one of whom, Richard Rose, is president of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP.<\/p>\n<p>Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act \u201cprohibits voting practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in one of the language minority groups identified\u201d in the statute, according to a U.S. Department of Justice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/crt\/section-2-voting-rights-act#:~:text=Section%202%20of%20the%20Voting%20Rights%20Act%20of%201965%20prohibits,)(2)%20of%20the%20Act.\">summary<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost of the cases arising under Section 2 since its enactment involved challenges to at-large election schemes, but the section\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Supreme Court issued an emergency order Aug. 19 blocking upcoming elections for Georgia\u2019s Public Service Commission, upholding a lower court ruling that found the election rules currently in place discriminate against black voters. The order is unusual because in recent years the Supreme Court has generally been reluctant to side with voters over state [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1617029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1617029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1617029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1617029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1617029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1617029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}