Posted on 06/29/2019 6:20:09 AM PDT by centurion316
The Supreme Court made a painfully flawed decision yesterday on partisan gerrymandering. In fact, the decision has only one point in its favor: It is better than the alternatives. There was no good answer, but the Court chose the least bad one.
If that sounds like a reluctant endorsement, it is. Like nearly every sentient American nowadays, I think partisan gerrymanders have gone too far. In the case before the Court, North Carolina Republicans gerrymandered their purple state so that in 2018 they won only half the statewide vote, but nine of 12 congressional districts. At least they were explicit about their motives. “I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” David Lewis, a Republican member of the North Carolina general assembly, told a redistricting committee. “So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.” In a second instance before the Court, Maryland’s Democrats did something comparable.
Extreme partisan gerrymanders are unfair, because they distort the result of elections to produce legislative bodies that do not accurately reflect the party leanings of the voters. Extreme partisan gerrymanders are also unhealthy for democracy, because they allow politicians to choose their voters, rather than the other way around. I won’t belabor those points.
The question is not whether there is a problem, but how to solve it. Yesterday, in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court said: Don’t look at us. In a 2004 decision, the Court had declined to strike down a partisan gerrymander, but it dangled the possibility that it might overturn a more extreme gerrymander in the future. Encouraged, reformers had no trouble finding outrages to challenge. In Rucho, the Court slammed the door against such challenges and locked it...
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
The Left had a response ready and the directions went out from the Central Committee to counter a decision that they don't like. Over there in the House of Representatives, that Champion of Freedom and Liberty, Zoe Lofgren introduced a bill to require States to adopt a "non-partisan" commission to decide redistricting for the U.S. Congress rather than the representatives of the people, the State Legislature.
Jonathan Raush was ordered to publish his little piece to help set the stage to put the control of redistricting in the hands of the elites, in other words, the Democrats and Republicans who already own and operate the Administrative State in Washington. The Central Committee solution is to extend the Deep State control to the manipulation of federal elections through redistricting.
The people are not cooperating with their schemes and it must be stopped.
The State of Florida where I live like most states had a real problem with Gerrymandering, but a ballot initiative a few years back attempted to remedy the situation.
The Constitutional Amendment required that Congressional Districts had to be compact and follow a regular shape using natural boundaries
One district on North Florida had been constructed for the sole reason to elect a minority...that minority for years had been Corrine Brown who is not in prison for financial fraud....
After the district was redone another minority still won the Congressional seat but the district is now shaped like a rectangle instead of a wondering district that went from Jacksonville in the North to Orlando in the South and in some areas was a city street wide....
Not saying this solved all the problems, but the point is the situation was made much better by the Citizens of Florida not some nameless, faceless Federal Judge or bureaucrat in Washington...
Dem held territory will use Polka Dots to make their Districts ,LOL
And that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work, which is why the Court sidestepped the issue. Political questions are inherently non-justiciable. They can only be answered by the political process itself.
Bump
The State Legislature have the power and the authority to implement such a solution. The problem will come when someboby doesn’t like the outcome. They can’t go to the federal courts anymore, but they can and will go to the State courts to get what they can’t get through the legislative process. At this point, the federal judiciary should hobble the state courts in the same way that they have limited them selves. It remains to be seen.
It flipped the Arizona Representatives from 2 Democrats to 4.
This is exactly why the Democrats intend to establish this process throughout the land. It works (for them).
If you want to read deep into the article, sure, but who does that? Stick with the title and the first paragraph and he's right. If he were under orders to advance the cause, he'd have put a call to arms earlier on in the article.
The Left is counting on that behavior.
State-controlled Gerrymandering is a firebreak against the federal government coercing the states to vote as the feds see fit.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/politics/os-another-florida-special-session-20150728-story.html
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