Posted on 12/13/2022 4:08:58 AM PST by Eleutheria5
Redrawing districts has played a part in the recent midterm elections, and questions as to how districts may be redrawn as well as other issues are about to begin to define the individual state’s rights when it comes to federal elections. Some districts across the country have grown and need to be realigned, but gerrymandering, or manipulating the boundaries of a constituency so as to favor one party, is a concern.
Last week saw the debate in court, as North Carolina’s closely-watched election is underway before the U.S. Supreme Court. North Carolina legislative leaders are appealing a ruling from the North Carolina Supreme Court striking down the state’s congressional map and want more power in drawing the state’s district lines, saying that only the state has the power to set those rules.
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(Excerpt) Read more at republicbrief.com ...
Yep, disheartening isn’t it?
For the record, I’m on the train heading into Shitcago for meetings today and conceal carrying. Violating at least 5 laws in doing so.
Also for the record, if I get shot, rest assured I’ll do everything in my power to make sure the bastard shooting goes down and dies first.
I hate Shitcago, everyone who lives there and that lesbian cunt that’s ruined a once great city.
That is all.
“Mi and NY gerrymandered their own safe districts and were not challenged”
In the case of NY, the NY Supreme Ct. found the new House districts in 2022 were unfair to Repubs and had a commission redraw them. Repubs won 11 out of 26 after the redraw, instead of the 4 they were favored to win before the Court stepped in.
Double edged sword if the SCOTUS allows state legislatures complete authority. In CA & NY the legislatures could eliminate just about all Repub districts.
You need to bail from that horrid city in that horrible state with that hideous weather AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.
If you can do your job remote, that means you need to be out by Tuesday.
They want to……get this…..read the plain words of the constitution.
WOW! What an obscure and radical “theory”!
The LEGISLATURE makes elections laws like it makes all other laws.
Someone has to draw the district lines. There is no general formula save that each district must have a certain number of people. Using census data, districts are redrawn every 10 years. Some states gain districts while others lose them. There are 435 districts nationwide, a number that is fixed.
There is no magic bullet.
Agreed. Some counties even have to be split. I think there should be a requirement to keep the district as geographically concise as possible. Computers could do that rather easily.
Making the Districts less overtly partisan, IMO, would do a lot to force our political parties back close to the center.
“An argument can be made that an unconstitutional drawing of representative districts is within power of courts to rule on.”
The issue here is not gerrymandering, it is the legislature having the obviously Constitutional authority to set rules for presidential elections.
No, that it not correct.
It is a concept directly from the U.S. Constitution with reapportionment of representatives after each census to individual states, with the purpose of giving each state as equal a number of representatives as their population as practical, with some low population states getting just a single representative for the entire state, the minimum number that can be allotted.
That concept of representation at the state level is a continuation of the practice at the federal level.
“It is a concept directly from the U.S. Constitution with reapportionment of representatives after each census to individual states, with the purpose of giving each state as equal a number of representatives as their population as practical, with some low population states getting just a single representative for the entire state, the minimum number that can be allotted.
That concept of representation at the state level is a continuation of the practice at the federal level.”
Reapportionment is a separate issue from representation. Reapportionment simply determines the number of representatives a state would have, but has nothing to do with WHO the representatives represent. That was up to the legislatures to decide, that is, until the Supreme Court ruled that every representative must represent the same number of people.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a representative representing an individual town (or county), and by extension, all the people within that particular piece of land.
This goes against the liberal hive-mindset, however. For they want representatives to represent “communities” (i.e. communes), groups of people, not plots of land. They want black representatives, hispanic representatives, gay representatives, women representatives, to represent different peoples. Where the American tradition has been “that particular plot of land gets a representative.”
Neither is particularly wrong, but you can see the hive-mind when you read stores about how the US Senate is “un-democratic” because it’s members represent land rather than people. They don’t like that. So this Supreme Court case returning redistricting power to legislatures is very worrisome to them.
To draw the districts: counties first, then natural boundaries like rivers, then zip codes—zip plus 4. If I’m not mistaken, these are divided up so a single carrier can deliver, so populations are probably similar. Just have to eliminate the business addresses.
Then the area should be as compact as possible, with the perimeter as small as possible. Those two things together would eliminate gerrymandering.
1. Eliminate House districts. That sounds radical today, but in the early days of this country many states operated this way -- electing at-large House members who represented the entire state. I believe South Carolina was the last state to change to a district-based representation system (sometime in the 1830s). If your state gets 12 representatives in the House, then simply put a bunch of names on the ballot on Election Day ... and all those who finish in the top 12 go to Washington to represent your state.
2. Expand the House of Representatives. We have had the same number of House members (435) for more than 100 years. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, George Washington resisted a measure to set the maximum population per House member at 40,000. He wanted to limit this to one House member for every 30,000 people. That would translate to more than 11,000 House members today. That may seem ridiculous by today's standards, but let's set that number at 100,000 people per House member and have 3,000+ seats in the House of Representatives. It would certainly be more "representative" than the fiefdom-like system we have in place now.
Which is why they won’t ever do it. They want power. They want to hold onto power. In this, demonrats and republicrats only differ as to how far they’re willing to go. Sad fact of life.
"The Court held that although North Carolina's reapportionment plan was racially neutral on its face, the resulting district shape was bizarre enough to suggest that it constituted an effort to separate voters into different districts based on race."The districting was outrageous and blatent. O'Connor's opinion included a classic passage:
One state legislator has remarked that " `[i]f you drove down the interstate with both car doors open, you'd kill most of the people in the district.' " Washington Post, Apr. 20, 1993, p. A4. The district even has inspired poetry: "Ask not for whom the line is drawn; it is drawn to avoid thee." Grofman, Would Vince Lombardi Have Been Right If He Had Said: "When It Comes to Redistricting, Race Isn't Everything, It's the Only Thing"?, 14 Cardozo L. Rev. 1237, 1261, n. 96 (1993)
I have not heard that one before. That's hilariously funny.
Globally organized crime, front-ending itself in the US with corrupt, constitutionally undefined political parties, has no intention of surrendering state powers that the unconstitutionally big federal government has stolen, and continues to steal from the states, back to the states.
But more specifically, the ongoing fight for control of DC is all about who controls unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that the corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification Congress cannot reasonably justify under its constitutional, Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
That's why "street fighter" Trump 47 needs to finish draining the swamp, which hopefully also means working with states to surrender stolen state powers back to the states.
"10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]." —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Correct me if I am wrong.
Demonkkrap organizations sued in state court that the GOP-legislative House maps were unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. The (voter, partisan elected) NC Supreme Court, with a slight demonkkrap majority held previous legislature drawn map unconstitutionally gerrymandered and ordered / approved non-legislative district map. NC demonkkraps picked up Congressional seats in 2022 based on district maps not drawn by the legislature.
If US Supreme Court finds for NC Legislature, then the 2022 judicially “drawn” House district map is unconstitutional under the US Constitution’s “Elections Clause”. This does not involve a Presidential election question.
It’s too bad that those of us who pointed it out 20+ years ago were treated as pariahs and kooks. Perhaps you could have educated yourself much sooner.
I have no clue why you are hung up on gerrymandering. This case has nothing to do with it.
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE N.C. ELECTIONS CASE BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT NEXT WEEK
The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 7 will hear oral arguments in the Moore v. Harper case, which could lead to massive changes in the U.S. elections process by giving more power to state legislatures to oversee federal elections.
The proposal could overturn longstanding election practices and laws, warns Asher Hildebrand, a Sanford School associate professor of the practice.
The case arose of the efforts by Republican leaders of the N.C. state legislature to promote the “independent state legislature” theory. It holds that state legislatures — and only state legislatures — have the power to regulate federal elections in their states, irrespective of the constraints imposed by state constitutions or the efforts of state courts to enforce state laws...
I understand what you're saying, and that is the way that it's generally looked at, but really, how much commonality do that rural district and the urban one have? I'd argue that by just using raw numbers to group them together, that both groups are ill-served.
Make the law to say that every election district may have no more than 6 sides, with natural boundaries like rivers counting as 1 side.
Poof! Redistricting issues go away.
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