Posted on 06/17/2019 7:36:09 AM PDT by SMGFan
Supreme Court hands Virginia Democrats a win in gerrymandering case © Greg Nash The Supreme Court has ruled against the Virginia House of Delegates in a racial gerrymandering case that represents a victory for Democrats in the state.
In the 5-4 ruling, the justices found that the House didn't have the standing to appeal a lower court ruling that found that the new district maps must be used ahead of the 2020 election. Those new maps are already in use.
Democrats claimed that the districts were unlawful because they featured too many black voters, and diminished their power across the state and in other districts.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the majority opinion, and was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Neil Gorsuch.
Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Stephen Breyer and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Correct if I’m wrong but this entirely procedural ruling doesn’t matter if the main redistricting case goes our way in a week or 2. Right?
That said it’s super weird to see this configuration of judges. Thomas and Gorsuch with the libs, Breyer’s ice cream with the conservatives.
Democrats must be kept out by any means necessary. This is war. Everything the government does is political and all politics is partisan.
There is no such thing as “fairness” in drawing lines on a map. Packing all Blacks into the Blackest seats you can get so the other seats are more Republican is the only thing that makes sense for us.
I don’t know. We’ll have to see.
“Correct if Im wrong but this entirely procedural ruling doesnt matter if the main redistricting case goes our way in a week or 2. Right?”
Unfortunately, that is not correct. The two redistricting cases the decisions on which SCOTUS will be announcing in the next couple of weeks deal with claims that partisan gerrymandering violates the U.S. Constitution. The Virginia redistricting case deals with race-based redistricting, particularly, whether the use of race for the creation of legislative districts that are 55%+ black is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause and/or the Voting Rights Act because it dilutes the black voting percentage in adjoining districts. Even if SCOTUS rules that the Constitution does not prohibit partisan redistricting (as I’m cautiously optimistic that it will), such decision will have no bearing on cases involving the use of race in redistricting.
The irony of the VA case, and most of the other race-based redistricting cases of the past four or five years, is that for most of the past quarter century courts were striking down legislative districts because their electorates were not at least 55% black, and therefore did not give black voters the opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice as guaranteed by the Voting Rights Act. But back then blacks had much lower turnout rates, and now Democrats figured out that so long as districts are 40% black that they’ll win those, and those “extra” black voters that would be placed in adjoining districts will help them win those other districts as well, so Democrats and black groups such as the NAACP now make the exact opposite argument that they made in court 10 or 20 years ago.
Read the opinion. The appeal was brought by the House of Delegates, while Virginia law gives the responsibility for redistricting to the General Assembly, not just the House of Delegates. The appeal failed on grounds of lack of standing to bring the appeal.
Goldwater, Big Fan of your occasional posts. I just read your very educated post five times but still have to ask: are you certain what is right will prevail over evil? They no longer seem to care about rule of law, precedence or morality. All about the rule of sheer power to to he detriment of we people.
I know exactly what Ginsburg’s opinion says. Yes, the issue before the Court was standing, not the merits, but the question before *me* was whether in the end the standing issue wouldn’t matter because once SCOTUS rules for NC in the Rucho case and for MD in Benishek the lower courts would have to follow that precedent (presumably when someone with standing makes the claim). My point is that whatever is decided by SCOTUS in Rucho and Benishek would be irrelevant to the question on the merits in the VA case, which is related to race-based redistricting, not partisan redistricting.
I’m certainly not *sure* that SCOTUS will rule the right way on partisan redistricting, but, as I said earlier, I am cautiously optimistic that five Justices will do so. And if SCOTUS doesn’t do so, bar the door, Katie, because Leftists will control district lines for eternity.
As for whether the judiciary “no longer cares” about the rule of law, I would posit that the judiciary cares more about it now than at any other time in the past 60 years. There’s still a lot of work to do, but the future certainly is brighter given President Trump’s past, pending and future judicial appointments.
I agree, but perhaps for a slightly different reason. It could be that the Court is trying to avoid any argument on the merits. I guess that we will find out on Thursday or Monday.
WAR BETWEEN THE GOOD GUYS (CONSERVATIVES) AND THE REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD GUYS (LIEBERALS)!
When LIEberals are elected to public office they LIE TO, CHEAT AND STEAL FROM the We the People!
A vote for ANY LIEberal, whether it be in a local, state or federal election, is a vote against America!
America cannot survive a LIEberal victory in 2020!
We must insure that our FRiends, relatives, neighbors, business associates and random strangers ALL know how important it is to vote AGAINST ALL LIEberals in 2020!
Phuck.
But hope is not lost if someone else has standing to overturn this garbage?
In your opinion, should the House of Ds have standing?
I don’t wanna wig out on Gorusch and Thomas but.....Breyer’s ice cream. I’m sure Breyer would not be with us on the merits on the case.
But haven't you heard? The mere fact a judge is MARKETED as having a "judicial philosophy" of "originalist" will magically make them a rock solid pro-life conservative Scalia-clone. Absolutely nothing else matters. That "originalist" stuff is to judges what super solider serum is to Steve Rogers.
It's worked out so awesome for our side over the last 40+ years. Remember just how great all those "strict construction" Nixon appointees turned out to be? And Sandra Day O'Connor, and David Souter, and...
WHOOPS!
Useless 98 pound weakling
+
"Super Soldier Serum"
=
BADASS UNSTOPPABLE AVENGER!
Squishy right-of-center, Bush crony, Anothony Kennedy clerk who happily attends ultra-liberal "social justice" church
+
"Originalist Judicial Philosophy"
=
SCALIA MACH 2!!! (POSSIBLY EVEN MORE CONSERVATIVE THAN THE ORIGINAL ONE!)
Haha, I knew you’d go off on Gorsy.
But what about Thomas?
I think another FReeper nailed it in predicting you're probably going to see the Roberts court make a lot of 5-4 decisions that hand a victory with the RATs, with Roberts, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh being the "lone GOP dissenter" in various cases that rotate to the bloc of 4 commies as needed.
Why in the HELL would the SCOTUS do this!!!
FYI, just saw this on facebook today:
Yehoshua Jason Bedrick
25 mins
Writing for the majority and joined by the Courts four liberals, Justice Neil The Best Justice Gorsuch strikes down a criminal statute for being unconstitutionally vague:
In our constitutional order, a vague law is no law at all. Only the peoples elected representatives in Congress have the power to write new federal criminal laws.
And when Congress exercises that power, it has to write statutes that give ordinary people fair warning about what the law demands of them. Vague laws transgress both
of those constitutional requirements. They hand off the legisla- tures responsibility for defining criminal behavior to unelected prosecutors and judges, and they
leave people with no sure way to know what consequences will attach to their conduct.
I predict the “any judge Trump appoints with an R next to his name is a Scalia clone” crowd on here will continue to defend Gorsuch and Kavanaugh tooth-and-nail UNTIL one of them joins the 4 RAT judges in a “landmark” case involving some important left-wing precedent. Then they will say they are shocked and outraged by his betrayal and can’t believe he would vote that way.
Good thing Harriet Miers was offered the job during the George W. Bush era and not the Trump era or she’d be Justice Miers now and also touted as an outstanding “proven orginalist” judge by most of FR.
Big rulings coming in the morning (redistricting and census citizenship question).
Hopefully we won’t need become murderous towards any of the Fab Five.
Given the opinions for the term (and for the March and April sittings) that already have been announced, I think thaf Roberts will author the majority opinions for the two partisan redistricting cases (maybe in a joint opinion) and for the Census case. I am optimistic that he will reject the notion that legislatures can’t take politics into account when drawing districts, but am a little more wary about how he’ll rule on the Census question. We’ll find out in about three hours.
“Partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”
Hell yes, Bob Roberts!
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