The Berkshire Eagle (Mass.), April 4:

The concept of “one person, one vote” has long been a cherished one in the United States, and on Monday an unusually united U.S. Supreme Court solidified it.

Two residents in Texas had argued that in drawing legislative boundaries to create districts with roughly equal populations, states should count the voting population, not the total population. This was widely interpreted as an effort to dilute strong Democratic districts by weeding out voter blocs, in Texas’ case Hispanics, that traditionally have low voter registration.

Revealingly, the two Texans were represented before the Supreme Court by the Project on Fair Representation, one of those increasingly common organizations whose title is the antithesis of what they advocate. This group was behind a challenge to the Voting Rights Act that led to its gutting by a narrow vote of the Supreme Court three years ago.

In this case, even the court’s four conservatives, down from five because of the death of Judge Antonin Scalia, would have none of it. The concept of “one person, one vote” means that everyone, regardless of their age, legal status, voting history, and so on, is represented by their elected officials. It’s a basic principle that until Monday the top Court in the land had not weighed in on definitively.

Writing for the unanimous Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg declared that “Adopting voter-eligible apportionment as constitutional command would upset a well-functioning approach to districting that all 50 states and countless local jurisdictions have followed for decades, even centuries.” Judge Ginsburg added that the challengers “have shown no reason for the court to disturb the long-standing use of total populating.” In short, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

The “reason,” of course, was political mischief. There will be plenty of that in the months ahead, as there was in 2012, when Republican officials in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio tried to enact voting laws supposedly addressing non-existent “fraud” that were instead designed to keep blacks, Hispanics, the poor and other likely Democratic voters away from the polls. The courts shot down these efforts for the most part and they will have to be vigilant again.

In her decision, Judge Ginsburg got to the essence of “one person, one vote” when she wrote that “Nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates, and in receiving constituent services.” They do have that stake – and voters also have an important stake in getting to the polls without politically motivated interference. It is incumbent upon the legal system to assure that they are able to in this heated national election year.

(Meriden) Record-Journal (Conn.), April 7:

Marriage equality is the law of the land, but opponents of same-sex unions are not going away quietly.

Over the past several days, two governors signed into law so-called religious freedom bills, which – all sugarcoating aside – make discrimination against members of the LGBT community legal.

Of course, those governors, Pat McCrory of North Carolina, and Phil Bryant of Mississippi, feign shock at such a notion, but the bills are what they are.

In Mississippi, the legislation prevents state government from punishing people who refuse to provide services to others because of a religious opposition to same-sex marriage, extramarital sex or transgender people.

And in North Carolina, the new law mandates that all bathrooms at state facilities be separated by sex as assigned at birth, and prohibiting local governments from creating their own anti-discrimination ordinances.

The blowback against McCrory and Bryant from both the business community and laypeople has been intense, and rightfully so.

Gov. Dannel Malloy jumped into the fray as well, signing an executive order banning state-funded travel to North Carolina.

Commenting on his decision – just days before Mississippi followed North Carolina’s lead and okay-ed its own anti-LGBT law – Connecticut’s governor said: “When we see discrimination and injustice, we have to act. This law is not just wrong, it poses a public safety risk to Connecticut residents traveling through North Carolina … This law endangers the welfare not just of North Carolina’s citizens, but of all people visiting that state.”

Malloy continued, “We need to do what we can to stand up and act against laws that encourage – as a matter of public policy – discrimination and endangerment of our citizenry. It’s unacceptable, and Connecticut is acting.”

While Malloy’s gesture is largely symbolic, his message is an important one: Bigotry, no matter how cleverly disguised, is still bigotry.

Recently, another religious freedom bill, this one in Georgia, made its way to the desk of Gov. Nathan Deal, and he, wisely, vetoed it.

Deal said, “If indeed our religious liberty is conferred by God and not by man-made government, we should heed the ‘hands-off ’ admonition of the First Amendment to our Constitution.

“I do not think that we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia.”

Amen to that.