Utah Congressional districts.
As long as a district isn’t drawn to discriminate against people on the basis of race, sex, gender, national origin, or other unconstitutional reasons, political party is perfectly okay..................
Utah Congressional districts.
First of all, this isn’t gerrymandering, at least in the original sense, because they aren’t drawing strongly irregular and amorphous shapes.
However, I get why it could construed as ‘gerrymandering’ under the political sense, because they have observed a contiguous area or voting demographic and targeted it for division.
Still, maps like that can actually backfire.
For example, if Salt Lake city is your dominant population center and it’s population votes heavily one way, you could actually try to split it up and combine it with few enough voters of the opposite party in order to get more seats out of that city.
In other words, the democrat strategy to get more seats by expanding out the influence of salt lake city could be very similar to a republican strategy to dilute salt lake city’s influence.
In this day of fair housing mandates, why are drawn districts even a concern? People can live wherever they want and can afford.
In the U.S., gerrymandering is generally o.k. By Congressional law, districts must be contiguous and furthermore, by reason of the VRA as most recently interpreted by the Supreme Court, if some districts can reasonably be drawn to be majority-minority, they must be (the Court is soon to issue further guidance).
By STATE law, some states are required to draw districts that respect local communities of interest (effectively, counties and municipalities) (meaning, you’re supposed to minimize the splitting of counties and cities) and possibly to be “compact” (whatever that means). Also, some states have “non-partisan commissions” that draw districts (versus having the legislature draw districts).
Turning to Utah, the state legislature dismissed its commission and drew Congressional districts directly that split Salt Lake City and its near suburbs into all four Congressional districts. The resultant map looks pretty smooth. No districts creeping in and out of other districts. But, this smoothness hides the four-way split of Salt Lake County.
This particular form of gerrymandering, by the way, is called “cracking” or “bacon stripping,” and sometimes it’s done for the advantage of the Rs and sometimes for the advantage of the Ds.
Utah is so overwhelming Republican, it shouldn’t be difficult for the Republicans to split Salt Lake County only once (not four times) and still wind up with four districts that at least lean Republican. The masterful job done by the state legislature made all four districts about as Republican as the state as a whole, but the state legislature didn’t obey state law.
Okay...how? It doesn’t make any difference where the voter is standing when they cast votes. It is if the message of the party is good and is the decision of the voter to go with it. And this is falling into the same strategy the liberals have used for over a century to just vote democratic and not for the need or even a decided agenda they think they can control.
Look at the 2024, Trump collected votes from among everyone and Harris only from democrat and sure things they concentrated on. So what did Harris lose? Her own party and those she thought they had in the bag. And it was because they had no message. So while they were trying to demonize Trump, he was allowing them to self destruct. And it hasn’t gotten any better since last November. Factly, it’s gotten worse.
And as the voters in these same locations continue to worry about themselves going under due to failed liberals agendas, standing in the same situation they had before with the improved life they are living, is it really about party or success? And that’s what got the liberals beat in 2024. They couldn’t make Trump worse than their failures and punishing of the voters.
wy69
“state lawmakers ignored an independent commission”
What an ass judge. Maybe the lawmakers didn’t ignore the commission but instead considered its positon and then rejected it. Unless the law says the lawmakers MUST follow the commissions recommendations this judge is abusing her authority. The lawmakers are elected by the people, the commission is not.
Federal Judge - State Law. I don’t see the connection.
Understand how this works.
If a Republican state gerrymanders, IT IS BAD AND MUST OVERTURNED.
If a Democrat state gerrymanders, IT IS GOOD AND MUST BE UPHELD.
Didn’t the Supreme Court rule that Federal Judges have no business in this?
This has to be the 3rd state that had a ruling like this. Looks like the democrats are going to get other states to offset TX, the usual way. Have judge’s order them to create democrat districts.
Even if the judge rules that the current map is in violation, the judge cannot impose a 30 day limit to redraw the map.
This order strikes me as an unconstitutional violation of separation of powers. The judge can order the legislature to draw a new map, but it cannot tell the legislature how to conduct its business. What if there is other business currently on the calendar, in conference, in debate? The judge has no authority to tell the legislature how to operate.
Regular order looks like this:
It takes time for the House committee to draw the map, for the committee to vote it out of committee, for the floor debate over the map, for amendments to the map sent back to the committee, for the committee to revote the amended map back to the whole House, for the House to vote to pass the map, and then send the map to the Senate where it starts all over again.
There is no requirement that a new map must be ready for the 2026 mid-term election, as that is a political timing and not a functional one. A blind court shouldn't issue overreaching orders just to give Democrats an advantage in 2026 when they proper thing to do is let the legislature follow regular order to comply.
-PJ