McConnell Blasts Leftist Outrage over SCOTUS Ruling

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) released a statement on Thursday following the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Arizona’s ban on ballot harvesting, concluding that Democrats’ negative reaction shows they are “trying to protect themselves from the voters.”

“Today, the Supreme Court affirmed that protections of the right to vote remain strong, and that states are rightly empowered to administer and protect America’s elections,” McConnell said following the Supreme Court’s Thursday ruling.

“For decades, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act has protected Americans from discrimination at the ballot box. Thanks in large part to Section 2, it is easier for Americans to vote today than it has ever been,” he continued, calling Section 2 a “strong and crucial safeguard against racial discrimination” and adding that SCOTUS was “right to reject its attempted use by activists to eliminate commonsense voting laws in Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee”:

“Democrats who try to equate laws limiting the influence of political operatives on state elections to Jim Crow-era repression make their real aim even clearer: not to protect the voters from discrimination, but to protect themselves from the voters,” McConnell said, slamming his Democrat colleagues, many of whom are outraged over the Court’s decision:

The Court also confirmed today what decades-old legal precedent already tells us: that associational privacy is a fundamental American right. As the NAACP argued forcefully more than half a century ago, the defense of First Amendment rights is especially important in places where citizens’ views cut against those of governing majorities.

As such, the ruling in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta is a stern warning to those corners of the Left where naming and shaming is treated like a routine political tool. It should also serve as a cautionary tale for any elected Democrat still hoping to codify dragnet disclosure and tip the scales of our electoral system.

“Today, the Supreme Court discharged its duty to uphold the rights and protections underpinning our system of representative government, and our nation can be rightly proud,” the Kentucky Republican added.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s statute banning ballot harvesting in the Grand Canyon State.

“In light of the principles set out above, neither Arizona’s out-of-precinct rule nor its ballot collection law violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.

“The Court holds that Arizona’s out-of-precinct policy and its ban on ballot harvesting do not violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and the ban on ballot harvesting was not enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose,” he continued.