Supreme Court allows severe partisan gerrymandering to continue

[uptower]

Because they don't have any business in deciding how those districts get drawn. Its entirely a state matter.

No because it works for their side, otherwise it wouldn't have been a 5-4 partisan split that is very convenient for the GOP.

Slavery and segregation were once defended with the same excuse. States are trying to undermine the electoral process and rob the people's votes of meaning.

Republicans don't like it when they can't get a seat in California. With this ruling they never will. Perhaps the GOP-led SCOTUS is willing to let some states go so it can cement one-party rule in others. It's not a viable long term strategy.

 

[Jay59]

The current system now allows politicians to ruthlessly gerrymander. You are just making **** up to defend a system which allows politicians to pick their voters.

They should be allowed to gerrymander. It's a tool usable by either side and of limited consequence. It's not valid to object just because the other side is better at using the tool than yours.

 

[Jay59]

No because it works for their side, otherwise it wouldn't have been a 5-4 partisan split that is very convenient for the GOP.

Slavery and segregation were once defended with the same excuse. States are trying to undermine the electoral process and rob the people's votes of meaning.

Republicans don't like it when they can't get a seat in California. With this ruling they never will. Perhaps the GOP-led SCOTUS is willing to let some states go so it can cement one-party rule in others. It's not a viable long term strategy.

With slavery and segregation the powers of the state are in conflict with the rights of the individual. That is not the case here.

 

[OpportunityCost]

No because it works for their side, otherwise it wouldn't have been a 5-4 partisan split that is very convenient for the GOP.

Slavery and segregation were once defended with the same excuse. States are trying to undermine the electoral process and rob the people's votes of meaning.

Republicans don't like it when they can't get a seat in California. With this ruling they never will. Perhaps the GOP-led SCOTUS is willing to let some states go so it can cement one-party rule in others. It's not a viable long term strategy.

Good try to equate the 3. Drawing districts within the state is accorded to the state per the Constitution. Perhaps you would quit trying to make everything the will of the fed and let states decide some things for themselves.

 

[bomberfox]

It's not cheating or anything else. It's just exercising the system as designed.

You are telling me theres supposed to be districts shaped like cartoon characters, make absolutely no sense, and only benefits the party in power? Mmmkay...

 

[Athanasius68]

No because it works for their side, otherwise it wouldn't have been a 5-4 partisan split that is very convenient for the GOP.

Slavery and segregation were once defended with the same excuse. States are trying to undermine the electoral process and rob the people's votes of meaning.

Republicans don't like it when they can't get a seat in California. With this ruling they never will. Perhaps the GOP-led SCOTUS is willing to let some states go so it can cement one-party rule in others. It's not a viable long term strategy.

And Congress passed laws and constitutional amendments addressing slavery and segregation.
They can do the same thing here.

 

[maxparrish]

No because it works for their side, otherwise it wouldn't have been a 5-4 partisan split that is very convenient for the GOP.

Slavery and segregation were once defended with the same excuse. States are trying to undermine the electoral process and rob the people's votes of meaning.

Republicans don't like it when they can't get a seat in California. With this ruling they never will. Perhaps the GOP-led SCOTUS is willing to let some states go so it can cement one-party rule in others. It's not a viable long term strategy.

I'm not going to show much outrage over presumptively constitutional gerrymandering by Republicans while Democrats defend presumptively constitutional counting of illegals for apportioning representation.

When the Democrats stop importing aliens to through "packing" their districts, I'll start supporting district gerrymandering.

Get back to me if that happens before the sun burns out.

 

[Jack Hays]

You are telling me theres supposed to be districts shaped like cartoon characters, make absolutely no sense, and only benefits the party in power? Mmmkay...

The creation of such districts is fully within the states' Constitutional rights.

 

[Athanasius68]

The problem is the Supreme Court has been making laws left and right -- it's just the right-wingers don't see that, because they like the laws. There was no Constitutional basis for the Bush v. Gore ruling, for example. It was just a partisan operation to name their preferred candidate president. There was no Constitutional basis for ruling that corporations are people and money is speech, but that was seen as helping the GOP, so the court's conservatives pulled it out of their collective asses.

The 'right' has been screaming for years that the Supreme Court has been making law, while the 'left' had been screaming that it should (as seen on this very thread).

The gerrymander issue is an issue where the court did not make any law-- it declared it lacked the authority to rule on the subject. One would hope all those who oppose "legislating from the bench" would support it.

 

[maxparrish]

The 'right' has been screaming for years that the Supreme Court has been making law, while the 'left' had been screaming that it should (as seen on this very thread).

The gerrymander issue is an issue where the court did not make any law-- it declared it lacked the authority to rule on the subject. One would hope all those who oppose "legislating from the bench" would support it.

Most who actually oppose legislating by the courts also support the court's opinion. But, unlike my peers, I am undecided on that issue. There are definitely 14th amendment implications that need sorted out (in my mind). Why the court's should be involved "sometimes" and not others in redistricting issues is not a question that I know the answer to.

 

[Taylor]

No because it works for their side, otherwise it wouldn't have been a 5-4 partisan split that is very convenient for the GOP.

Slavery and segregation were once defended with the same excuse. States are trying to undermine the electoral process and rob the people's votes of meaning.

Republicans don't like it when they can't get a seat in California. With this ruling they never will. Perhaps the GOP-led SCOTUS is willing to let some states go so it can cement one-party rule in others. It's not a viable long term strategy.

The ruling has no bearing on California. They came up with a solution for gerrymandering on their own, despite the protestations and opposition of the California Democratic Party.

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Partisan gerrymandering allowed to continue by Supreme Court - CNNPolitics





Hope you guys like severely gerrymandered states such as North Carolina and Maryland, which were the two states at issue here, because the SCOTUS yet again makes a 5-4 ruling that absolves the federal government of further corrosion of our electoral process.

I hope that California will respond to this by gerrymandering itself so hard that they will send a single-digit number of Republicans to the House starting in 2021. Time for the Democrats to stop playing nice with a party that is openly hostile to voting rights.

I don't think that that is quite logistically possible, but it would, however, be logistically possible to define an electoral area by specific reference to residential addresses (and to put 100% of the "Registered __[fill in the blank]__s" into that electoral area).

Then, of course, if you only had one polling location for that electoral area, that would further decrease the impact of the votes of the "Registered __[fill in the blank]__s".

Worked correctly, this would result in there being around 17 Democrat senators and around 83 Republican senators while the House of Representatives would be around 70% Republican and 30% Democrat REGARDLESS of the popular vote.

And, of course, since the method of selection of the Electors of the Electoral College is a "State Right", that would likely mean that the President of the United States of America would be a Republican until well into the 3000s.

Welcome to "Democracy in Action - American Style".

 

[TU Curmudgeon]

Why not just say every state?

Because Republican states do not "gerrymander" - they "scientifically assign rational electoral district boundaries"?

 

[JasperL]

You've said it, but your stated philosophy on it says differently.

I am not telling you what you think, you told me, I just put it more bluntly.

No it doesn't actually. If you want to quote me, we can discuss where you went wrong with your reading comprehension, because it's not what I believe.

 

[pamak]

A few posts back you were mocking the Republicans who apparently are having a difficult time with the California procedures. They would just have to do better, was the conclusion.

But you don't offer the Democrats the same advice with the difficulty they presently have. Instead, the call is for system to be overhauled.

You diid not get it!

Somebody tried to blame the procedure in the redistricting commission when ithe republicans in the region themselves pushed the commission to do something which supposedly went against their interests. You compare apples to oranges again! You try to compare apples to oranges again!

 

[uptower]

With slavery and segregation the powers of the state are in conflict with the rights of the individual. That is not the case here.

I would say that is very much the case when redistricting effectively silences voters. That infringes upon the first amendment, since their 'voice' is silenced.

Besides the states will not fairly decide for themselves when one party has undemocratically seized power. The dems cannot realistically roll back some of that gerrymandering because as above, they'll never have a majority to redraw boundaries. If they did, SCOTUS has made so they could do it equally unfairly if they wished. That's not good for Republicans either.

What is good for Republicans is the false 'majorities' they have already cemented: In Michigan, the GOP got only 47% of the vote but hold 53% of seats; in NC they got 48% but hold 54% and in Wisconsin, they got only 45% of the vote and hold 64% of the seats.

It would take a massive demographic shift to overturn some of those, or a massive turnout. Maybe the Dems should do what the conservatives are always threatening and take up arms against the 'gubmint'. Without legal recourse there's almost no other way. they certainly cannot vote their way back in through a normal contest when their votes have effectively been rendered invalid.

 

[pamak]

Technology doesn't matter. What is happening is merely the proper exercise of Constitutional authority. As always.

Technology matters and legal thought is adjusted as we face the challenges of technology's bad applications

As always, you make statements which have nothing to do with the world in which we live

 

[Jack Hays]

Technology matters and legal thought is adjusted as we face the challenges of technology's bad applications

As always, you make statements which have nothing to do with the world in which we live

Sorry, but no. Technological advances have no relevance to the Constitution's distribution of rights and authorities, and the exercise thereof.

 

[uptower]

Perhaps you would quit trying to make everything the will of the fed and let states decide some things for themselves.

Again, the same excuse was used for slavery and segregation. It is no coincidence that some of the most heavily gerrymandered states are in the deep south or that they are the worst culprits for other voter suppression methods.

 

[pamak]

By that logic, Voter ID laws are constitutionally mandated. Guess what...

I did not say anything about mandated in my quote
Also, if we had an election where the Democrats won a House by exploiting excessive illegal voting, I am pretty sure that the legal thought regarding what is considered minimum but adequate requirement to vote would have changed. And I do not think anybody would have objected to that except hacks

 

[pamak]

Do you not understand that a popular vote is meaningless that we do not have a national election but 50 individual elections
that determine the presidency?

this is civics 101.

Do not tell me it is meaningless!

It is you who is clueless about 101!

Popular vote is meaningless in tyrannies not in republics!

 

[pamak]

What? I'm not interested in the twisted propaganda that keeps Socialist Progressives clueless.

How many states have you been instructed to believe have been gerrymandered by Republicans.

And still, nobody of all the republicans here dare to answer when was the last time Democrats won the House even though they lost the popular vote. Come back to me after you answer the question!

 

[Taylor]

I did not say anything about mandated in my quote

True, you said "MUST" in capitals. Same thing.

 

[pamak]

Seriously, the extent of the gerrymandering is your concern rather than it happening at all? Because that seems to be what you are saying.

Not that Demos do it but this example is so bad that you object. So, lets get this straight, how much does someone need to steal before you take notice?

Get a new moral compass.

Seriously, you are only concerned about if gerrymandering happened rather than examining its extend?

Unless you deliberately want to convince us that we should only strive for an ideal world where there is NO crime, no corruption, no wars and do not care at all about the things we should do to reduce any of the above. Is this the best you can say about gerrymandering?
And yes, regardless of what the people say (ands of them proved that they do not even have a clue about what they talk) Democrat powerhouses lie CA has a process which is much better for redistricting.

As for the answer of how much somebody needs to steal in the elations through redistricting has already been answered by computer scientists who use statistical models to show that the maps partisans use are 1% outliers regarding the level of advantage they give to one party and that t99% of redistrict maps can give a much better representation of the will of the people!

 

[Mina]

The 'right' has been screaming for years that the Supreme Court has been making law...

Yes, indeed. They don't have much in the way of talent, but one area they excel is at "working the refs." Even with courts that were packed as much as 8-to-1 in favor of Republicans, they continued to shriek themselves hoarse about the Supreme Court supposedly "making law" for the left. Then they'd fall silent the moment the court went back to pulling brand new legal principles out of the air for the benefit of the right. It's similar to how they work the corporate media. Even with the mainstream press being entirely controlled by large for-profit corporations in the hands of ultra-rich oligarchs, the right still acts as if it's subversive lefty propaganda. The goal, as when a crowd heckles a ref, is to make them err far in the desired direction.

The gerrymander issue is an issue where the court did not make any law-- it declared it lacked the authority to rule on the subject.

Yes, and that was bull****. There is ample history of federal courts ruling on similar election matters. If the conservatives were going to take a principled stance against taking on novel election authority, they'd have done it in 2000, when the five arch-conservatives broke with all precedent to interfere in a state's recount, on the basis of a radically wide new reading of "equal protection"... which they framed as a one-time principle, never to benefit anyone else. They gladly legislate from the bench when it helps the Republicans, then pretend they're minimalists when well-precedented intervention would help the Democrats.