Law [Partisan Gerrymandering News] Florida appeals court reverses ruling on DeSantis’s congressional maps

[Arkain2K]

 

[Quipling]

For those who are interested, the gerrymandering cases currently before SCOTUS are

Gill v Whitford, the Wisconsin partisan-gerrymandering challenge. Arguments were in October, not yet published
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gill-v-whitford/

Benisek v. Lamone, a partisan-gerrymandering challenge to a Maryland district. Arguments scheduled for March
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/benisek-v-lamone/


SCOTUS has not yet agreed to hear the cases from NC, TX, or PA. Notably, TX had SCOTUS reject one case outright, but the other is still pending approval.

Abbott v. Perez, a race-based challenge in Texas (Scotus passed on a different texas challenge).
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/abbott-v-perez/

NC challenges:
Harris v. Cooper
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/harris-v-cooper/
Rucho v. Common Cause and League of Women Voters
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/rucho-v-common-cause/

League of Women Voters v. Pennsylvania
https://www.brennancenter.org/legal-work/league-women-voters-v-pennslyvania
Note: Scotus just rejected this appeal. PA ruling striking down partisan gerrymandering is now law in that state.

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[zebby23]

I absolutely love that this issue is finally being taken seriously. Maybe we can thank Arnold the Governator but the Republicans have been at this for a long long time and it's time for the cheating to end and actual American Democracy to being.

According to an article in the NY Times

The open 15th District, vacated by the retiring Charlie Dent, could easily move to the left. Democrats already have a good chance to win the district, and they might even be considered favorites on a new map. But the Lehigh Valley will be a battleground district no matter how the map is drawn.

Either the 16th or the Sixth District, which both stretch from Philadelphia’s western suburbs to the countryside, would probably drift somewhat to the left but would remain competitive. Whichever district does not drift left might even move to the right, making it hard for the Democrats to gain another advantage.

The Eighth District could move slightly to the left if it takes in more of northeast Philadelphia, but the effect wouldn’t be very large.

Other districts might move to within striking distance for Democrats — like the open 11th District or Mike Kelly’s Third District — but Republicans would still be considered favorites.

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

How to Kill Partisan Gerrymandering
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court just gave state courts a blueprint to strike down political redistricting.
By Mark Joseph Stern | Feb 11, 2018

On Wednesday night, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court finally released its majority opinion explaining why Republicans’ gerrymander of Pennsylvania’s congressional districts violates the state constitution. (On Jan. 22, the court had issued a brief order directing the Legislature to redraw the illegal districts without fully explaining its reasoning.) Justice Debra McCloskey Todd’s 139-page opinion for the court is thorough and persuasive—and, critically, its reasoning isn’t entirely limited to Pennsylvania. Instead, Todd illustrates how dozens of other state constitutions may be interpreted to protect voting rights more robustly than the U.S. Constitution does. Her decision will arm activists in every state with a powerful new tool in the fight against political redistricting.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether partisan gerrymandering runs afoul of the First and 14th amendments. But, as Todd explained, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had no obligation to wait for SCOTUS’s decision in Gill v. Whitford, because the Pennsylvania Constitution provides rights independent from the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, the state constitution—which actually predates its federal counterpart—declares that all elections “shall be free and equal.”

Nearly 150 years ago, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that this provision requires all votes to be “equally potent” in any election. In 1914, the court reiterated that this clause guarantees that “every voter has the same right as every other voter,” and “each voter under the law has the right to cast his ballot and have it honestly counted.” And in 1986, the court clarified that any law that “dilutes the vote of any segment of the constituency” infringes upon the Free and Equal Elections Clause.

In 2018, then, the question for the court was whether political redistricting—drawing congressional lines to entrench a certain party’s electoral power—impermissibly dilutes certain voters’ ballots. Todd easily concluded that it did. “Partisan gerrymandering,” she explained, “dilutes the votes of those who in prior elections voted for the party not in power to give the party in power a lasting electoral advantage.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics...t-to-strike-down-partisan-gerrymandering.html

 

[Hog-train]

No way the Republican controlled Supreme Court disallows gerrymandering.

The Court is not supposed to be partisan, but just interpret the law. But that's not the case.

The Republicans benefit way too much to do away with gerrymandering. And don't tell me the Dems do it too - yes they do to a certain extent, but it has overwhelmingly helped the GOP a lot more.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...ia-gerrymandering_us_5a8d8885e4b03414379c2155

Pennsylvania Republicans again asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block Pennsylvania’s new, court-ordered congressional map on Wednesday, marking the latest in a series of attempts to halt a plan that would make congressional elections more competitive in the state by reducing the impact of gerrymandering.

In an emergency application, Pennsylvania House Speaker Michael Turzai (R) and Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati (R) asked the Supreme Court to prevent the new map from going into effect. They say the state Supreme Court overstepped its authority by drawing a new congressional map.

The GOP challenge comes just two days after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a new congressional map for the state to be used in 2018 and 2020 elections. In January, the court said the congressional map in place since 2011, drawn by Republicans, so severely benefited the GOP that it violated the state’s constitution.

The court gave lawmakers three weeks to reach an agreement on a new map, and when the parties couldn’t do so, the court stepped in to draw its own. Several analyses showed the court’s map will make elections more competitive and give Democrats a better chance of winning seats in districts currently held by the Republicans.

In the emergency application, lawyers for Turzai and Scarnati wrote that the court did not give the lawmakers a “meaningful” chance to draw a new map. The timeline was so compressed, they say, that it “ensured that the
court would get to draw the map it wanted, instead of being crafted through the
legislative process.”

“At all stages, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court set this case on a path whereby only it would draw Pennsylvania’s new congressional districts—a task delegated to the “Legislature”—in violation of the Elections Clause,” they wrote.

“At the risk of repeating ourselves, there was no good argument three weeks ago, and there is no good argument now for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and undo a final judgment and remedy issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,” R. Stanton Jones, a lawyer with Arnold & Porter, who helped represent the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “Legislative leaders should stop wasting taxpayer funds and accept that Pennsylvania voters will finally get to cast ballots in free and fair congressional elections this year.”

Republicans have tried several maneuvers to try and put off implementing a new map for this year’s midterm elections. They argued that the new plan should be put off until 2020 because implementing a new map would cause confusion this year.

They also unsuccessfully moved to disqualify the vote of a Democratic justice on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court because, as a candidate for the state’s high court, he said he was opposed to gerrymandering. Some Republicans have also called for the impeachment of the five Democrats on the state Supreme Court over their votes against the old congressional map.

J.J. Abbott, a spokesman for Gov. Tom Wolf (D), who supported the challenge to the 2011 map, said in a statement Wednesday evening that the governor was complying with the state Supreme Court’s order by making sure preparations for the state’s May 15 primary were running smoothly.

The party of Murkan fascism knows it cant win a fair, competitive election, which is why they are fighting to the death to defend this gerrymandering bullzhit.

 

[Trotsky]

In principle, I think that gerrymandering should be left as an unregulated exercise of the political sphere.

However, the founding fathers and architects of our system could never have foreseen the level of disenfranchisement that new technology and analytics have allowed for gerrymandering. It's a science that exceeds previously marginal advantages. It's completely routine now for Democrats to get strong majorities in popular vote only to get like a third of actual seats.

 

[D3thr0n3d K1ng]

In principle, I think that gerrymandering should be left as an unregulated exercise of the political sphere.

However, the founding fathers and architects of our system could never have foreseen the level of disenfranchisement that new technology and analytics have allowed for gerrymandering. It's a science that exceeds previously marginal advantages. It's completely routine now for Democrats to get strong majorities in popular vote only to get like a third of actual seats.

If you truly believe in democracy it has to go. Theres nothing democratic about gaming the system so unpopular candidates can get elected.

 

[Trotsky]

If you truly believe in democracy it has to go. Theres nothing democratic about gaming the system so unpopular candidates can get elected.

Personally, I think getting rid voter ID laws are the priority as far as preserving democracy. They are not (EDIT) bogged down by complex Supreme Court precedent, and there is overwhelming, irrefutable proof that the evil they purport to prevent doesn't exist in anything even approaching a meaningful capacity.

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Madmick]

I'm against gerrymandering, but Democrats do it, too.

It's also funny to see this instant movement marshaled to rid ourselves of the Electoral College (that's what we're really talking about) when liberals were gleefully reveling in its projected boon to Hillary's delegate vote in relation to the popular vote in all the major polls over the campaign trail. Meanwhile, Trump supporters hated it and talked about how unfair it was. Then, election night comes, and beliefs flipped overnight.

Root your beliefs in principles rather than results, and I'll come along, but I expect to see you crying bloody murder when there is gerrymandering by the Democrats such as there has been in California. Principles, not results.

 

[Higus]

I'm against gerrymandering, but Democrats do it, too.

It's also funny to see this instant movement marshaled to rid ourselves of the Electoral College (that's what we're really talking about) when liberals were gleefully reveling in its projected boon to Hillary's delegate vote in relation to the popular vote in all the major polls over the campaign trail. Meanwhile, Trump supporters hated it and talked about how unfair it was. Then, election night comes, and beliefs flipped overnight.

Root your beliefs in principles rather than results, and I'll come along, but I expect to see you crying bloody murder when there is gerrymandering by the Democrats such as there has been in California. Principles, not results.

FWIW, a lot of liberal leaning posters on this board will also denounce it when the democrats do it to. The reason it comes up more often about the GOP is because their party abuses it more frequently.

 

[Falsedawn]

I'm against gerrymandering, but Democrats do it, too.

It's also funny to see this instant movement marshaled to rid ourselves of the Electoral College (that's what we're really talking about) when liberals were gleefully reveling in its projected boon to Hillary's delegate vote in relation to the popular vote in all the major polls over the campaign trail. Meanwhile, Trump supporters hated it and talked about how unfair it was. Then, election night comes, and beliefs flipped overnight.

Root your beliefs in principles rather than results, and I'll come along, but I expect to see you crying bloody murder when there is gerrymandering by the Democrats such as there has been in California. Principles, not results.

Did California not pass a law creating an independent commission for redistricting?

I've seen you levy this charge more than once, yet when I look at 538, dems have a built +3 statewide lead when an outright gerrymander would put them at +9 right out the gate.

Care to elaborate where this gerrymandering is happening? I'm just not seeing anything remotely close to Texas-35.

For the record, i've long been a vehement opponent against any gerrymandering, so we can do without those accusations. Is your issue that races just aren't competitive enough, or do you have a particular district in mind?

 

[panamaican]

It's an interesting argument. I can see the validity in arguing that 3 weeks is insufficient to get the job done. It's also interesting that they're not challenging the need to redraw the map.

 

[Konquest]

Gerrymandering is a topic wherein "bothsideism" is problematic. Looking at the Princeton project, Fivethirtyeight, and other objective studies with maps and data, it is not a case of "both sides do it." In fact, the primary beneficiaries of districts drawn in bad faith (Republicans) would prefer the practice to be dismissed with the "both sides do it" or "the other side would do it if they were in power" excuse, since they can't outright deny it anyway. I remember a recent election in Wisconsin where Democrats got like 200K more votes but lost 11 seats. There's not even plausible deniability there.

 

[Falsedawn]

Gerrymandering is a topic wherein "bothsideism" is problematic. Looking at the Princeton project, Fivethirtyeight, and other objective studies with maps and data, it is not a case of "both sides do it." In fact, the primary beneficiaries of districts drawn in bad faith (Republicans) would prefer the practice to be dismissed with the "both sides do it" or "the other side would do it if they were in power" excuse, since they can't outright deny it anyway. I remember a recent election in Wisconsin where Democrats got like 200K more votes but lost 11 seats. There's not even plausible deniability there.

That's exactly why I asked Mick why he uses Cali as an example of this extreme gerrymandering. Lopsided races or a built in disparity aren't necessarily a bad thing if the demographics of the state bear that out in the election results. Obviously Democrats do gerrymander at times (I think @Edison Carasio posted a bunch of maps of Illinois and we were rolling over Chicago), but we're seeing in some states where it's painfully obvious and without fail, they're turning out to be Republican states. We've been playing whack a mole with the TX GOP for years now, i'd fucking kill for an independent commission. If California is the worst the Democrats can pull off, then bully for them.