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Posted on 06/29/2015 8:21:22 AM PDT by BuckeyeTexan
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Arizona’s voters were entitled to try to make the process of drawing congressional district lines less partisan.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 decision. She was joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, No. 13-1314, concerned an independent commission created by Arizona voters in 2000. About a dozen states have experimented with redistricting commissions that have varying degrees of independence from the state legislatures, which ordinarily draw election maps. Arizona’s commission is most similar to California’s.
The Arizona commission has five members, with two chosen by Republican lawmakers and two by Democratic lawmakers. The final member is chosen by the other four. Republican lawmakers have complained that the commission’s latest efforts favored Democrats.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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OF course this should have gone the other way. You can tell by the partisan hacks on the court who voted for this that this is not good.
Yep
It’s either Kennedy and/or Roberts who hold the political sway
This Court is a joke
TOTALLY disagree. I am, quite frankly, stunned that the supposed “conservatives” on the Court didn’t uphold this one. This is one of those few things that I expected to come down around 8-1. This is a HUGE victory for the people.
The people voted for this. They should have it. All too often (as we should) we scream about “activist judges” thwarting the will of the people. Seems 4 of those judges wanted that.
GREAT ruling!!
I understand your point. My guess though is that the original intent of this process was to avoid partisan gerrymandering, which is almost exclusively abused by the democrats, so that you don’t end up with districts that look like Barney Franks, Corrine Brown, or Austin TX. However, the democraps have once again polluted this too.
What makes anyone think these commissions want be partisan. Who decides who sits in these commissions?? REALLY non partisan. HAHAHAHA!!! Can you tell I am skeptical??
True, true. I so get your point.
But who abuses it most shouldn’t matter. It was passed by the voters. In fact, we had the same thing pass here in CA much to the chagrin of many Dims.
I’m not often disappointed in the Conservative Judges on SCOTUS but I am in this one. If the people vote for it, almost always that should be it.
My Az. congressional district is so gerrymandered that it is about 2 blocks wide and 300 miles long. It snakes across the state like a drunken rattler hitting every known dumbocrat stronghold.
“CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA, JUSTICE THOMAS, and JUSTICE ALITO join, dissenting.
Just over a century ago, Arizona became the second State in the Union to ratify the Seventeenth Amendment. That Amendment transferred power to choose United States Senators from “the Legislature” of each State, Art. I, §3, to “the people thereof.” The Amendment re- sulted from an arduous, decades-long campaign in which reformers across the country worked hard to garner ap- proval from Congress and three-quarters of the States.
What chumps!
Didn’t they realize that all they had to do was interpret the constitutional term “the Legislature” to mean “the people”? “
Must be frustrating to have 4 justices that do whatever they want and one that does whatever he feels.
The theory of the “non-partisan” commission doesn’t nearly match the application (and likely never will), and it sure as hell did not in Arizona in 2010-11. This nominally Republican state was gerrymandered beyond belief by the liberal partisan hacks who controlled the commission and the map heavily favors the Democrats and will for the next 3 election cycles.
Now you know why the radical left faction of the Supreme Court gleefully supported the plan. In Arizona, and in any other state which may adopt “non-partisan” redistricting, the result will almost certainly be the same — a major boost for the Rats.
You’ll notice that no Rat-controlled state legislature will ever forfeit their chance to screw Republicans; only in so-called “red” states will this alleged non-partisan bullshit ever happen.
Again, I TOTALLY agree with you ... however. The people voted for it and it should stand.
For me, that overrides everything else in this case.
“Constitution be damned!”
Typical.
The reason the conservative justices didn't uphold this one is contained in the U.S. Constitution.
Article I, Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.Logic does not permit one to conclude that "the Legislature" in AIS4 could be interpreted to mean "the People." This is not, as some might argue, a States' Rights issue because the Constitution specifically instructs on elections.
The Democrats pulled a fast one with this. The AZ voters approved the plan, sponsored by Republicans based on the idea of fairness.
A third of the commission was to be Republican, a third Democrat, and a third “Independent”. But the Democrats changed their party affiliation to Independent, so now two thirds of the commission is Democrat, in a majority Republican state.
And the commission gerrymanders like crazy to take power from the Republicans and give it to the Democrats.
Andrew Cuomo wants NY to have such a “non-partisan” redistricting commission. Yippee.
When the Constitution grants a specific power to a specific entity, it overrides a vote by the people of a state to assign said power to another entity, especially an unelected one.
That's how it should be anyway.
While in principle, I actually think the idea of someone other than partisan political hacks doing redistricting (is there such an animal?), I was reading through the decision, and the logic of the dissenters is almost exactly the same as that argued against the recent obamacare decision. In that case, just because the majority wanted the wording "by the state" to mean "by the state or federal government", does not make it true. In this case, the Constitution specifies that redistricting be done by the legislature. Just because it might be a good idea to have a commission do the job, doesn't mean it is Constitutional to do so. The solution is to amend the Constitution to make it legal, not just redefine "legislature" to mean "legislature or the people".
I thought it was interesting that Roberts authored this dissent, given that he voted the other way on SCOTUSCare.
Irony much?
As I understand it, the commission consists of two Republicans, two Democrats, and a chairman elected by those four.
Thank you for confirming my suspicions that democraps/liberals poisoned the original intent of this law.
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