The modern Republican party, and the conservative movement that gives the party its only real energy, never has been down with this whole right-to-vote business—except, of course, as an equal-protection dodge in Bush v. Gore. The current Chief Justice, John Roberts, kick-started his rise in conservative politics by working to undermine the Voting Rights Act as a lawyer in Ronald Reagan's Justice Department.

(Roberts's immediate predecessor, William Rehnquist, got his start as a voter-intimidation specialist in Arizona. As a clerk, Rehnquist argued against the majority in Brown v. Board of Education, writing in one memo: "I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by "liberal" colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed. To the argument that a majority may not deprive a minority of its constitutional right, the answer must be made that while this is sound in theory, in the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minority are." Oy.)

You really have to admire how they've done it. First, they turn our elections into a plutocrat's playground (Citizens United, McCutcheon). Then they uphold in the main voter-suppression tactics designed by the candidates the newly corrupt system produces out in the states (Crawford). Then, they gut any remedy that the people against whom these new laws discriminate have in federal court (Shelby County.) And now, it appears, the day of Jubilee having been declared, the circle may be closing for good.

The court's ruling, expected in 2016, could be immensely consequential. Should the court agree with the two Texas voters who brought the case, its ruling would shift political power from cities to rural areas, a move that would benefit Republicans. The court has never resolved whether voting districts should have the same number of people, or the same number of eligible voters. Counting all people amplifies the voting power of places with large numbers of residents who cannot vote legally, including immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens, illegal immigrants, children and prisoners. Those places tend to be urban and to vote Democratic. A ruling that districts must be based on equal numbers of voters would move political power away from cities, with their many immigrants and children, and toward older and more homogeneous rural areas.

(Obviously, a decision in this case would have widespread repercussions. Won't someone please think of Yakima?)

And who are the two ordinary folks from Texas whose names are on this action? Glad you asked.

But in their 2014 lawsuit, lawyers for Titus County GOP chairwoman Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger of Montgomery County argued that only the number of eligible voters, not total residents, should count when deciding how to draw a voting district. Those ineligible to vote — children, immigrants, felons and the mentally incapacitated — shouldn't count, they said. "The equal protection right secures more than ballot access," their lawyers argued. "It also ensures that the vote of any one voter once cast is accorded equal weight relative to every other voter."

Back when Roberts was a rising young lawyer, the Republican party didn't have a problem with what "one man, one vote" meant. Then, the country started to brown up a little bit and the Republican party found itself trapped within the strategy whereby it had allied itself with the remnants of American apartheid. It couldn't appeal to this changing demographic because its base would go indiscriminately bananas. So, instead, it committed itself to a long campaign to dilute the power of the new voters to whom it could not fundamentally appeal. And it's now damned close to enshrining in law the principle that any electoral disadvantage—self-inflicted or not—that conservatives face is prima facie unconstitutional. It really is quite something.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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