High Court Weighs Minority Voting Rights

Associated Press ^ | Apr. 29, 2003 | GINA HOLLAND

[Dubya]

WASHINGTON -The Supreme Court grappled Tuesday with the issues of politics, race and elections in a case that will decide what states must do to protect minority voting rights.

The justices are considering how states can redraw election districts that previously had dense minority populations without violating a federal voting law. States and local governments must draw boundaries every 10 years if needed to reflect population changes

The high court's decision, expected before July, will affect states that are subject to the 1965 Voting Rights Act because of past discrimination.

Georgia's attorney urged the court to permit some flexibility in line drawing.

"Politics should be open and integrated," said David Walbert, pointing to what he called progress in that state that "no one would have dreamed of in 1965."

Many black leaders supported a contested plan to reduce the number of minority voters in several heavily black Senate districts, because shifting some minority voters to neighboring districts would help Democrats beat Republicans.

A lower court rejected those boundaries under the Voting Rights Act. Congress must decide in 2007 whether to renew part of the law which justices are interpreting in this case.

"Maybe if we make it bad enough, they'll think about repealing it," Justice Antonin Scalia said to laughter in the court.

The case came before the court as the state was embroiled in a dispute over displaying a Confederate symbol on its flag. Voters last year defeated the Democratic governor who orchestrated a change in the 1956 state flag to reduce the size of a Confederate emblem hat had dominated the old design.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, who became the state's first GOP governor in 130 years in part because he promised a vote on the flag, had tried to stop justices from hearing the redistricting case.

The politics of the case are unusual. The Bush administration, along with Perdue, contend that the Democratic-controlled Legislature went too far in reducing minority voting strength in those heavily black districts. The Voting Rights Act discourages dilution of minority voting strength.

Malcolm Stewart, arguing for the Bush administration, said that the state could not dramatically alter districts, making it tougher for minority candidates to win. He said the federal government objected to Georgia's plan because of a history of racial polarization in several districts.

Several justices commented on the politics involved. Scalia said that it made sense that blacks would want to spread around minority voters to avoid a "lilly white district ... so they won't get some redneck discriminatory" representative.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy questioned what a state was to do if it were "frozen" with districts with large black populations.

Redistricting often leads to court fights. Georgia's line-drawing also was disputed after the 1990 census in a case that prompted a 1995 Supreme Court ruling that race cannot be the predominant factor in the drawing of district lines.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg inquired about an earlier court fight between the new Georgia governor, Perdue, and state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a black Democrat. Perdue sued and lost in an effort to get Baker to drop his efforts to restore the contested districting plan. Baker is appealing the federal district court ruling that rejected the contested plan.

The case is Georgia v. Ashcroft, 02-182.

ON THE NET

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/

[Kuksool]

Just when we thought redistricting was done, the RATS have to start over again. Typical RATS, if they can't win at the ballot box, they take you to court to win. I'm getting real sick of this.

[DannyTN]

Someone ought to be able to come up with a formula that redraws the lines without paying attention to race. Then let the chips fall where they may.

Gerrymandering is wrong whether it's done by the Democrats or the Republicans. But with no guidelines, anything you do is subject to being called gerrymandering regardless of how fair.

[expatpat]

In my opinion, a little math should be brought to bear. For example, it could be ruled that no district with an area of A sq. miles could have a perimeter that was more miles long than 5 times the square root of A. That would stop gerrymandering.

[edwin hubble]

"In my opinion, a little math should be brought to bear. "

Yes. Perimeter < (5 * (area)^.5 )

Why because the politically biased courts can't interpret the word "compact".

[DannyTN]

Yeah, something like that. Any formula that divides the state up into equal population blocks by a logical but consistent method that's not manipulatable would work.

[expatpat]

Yes, it defines clearly what is gerrymandering and what isnot.

[El Gato]

Someone ought to be able to come up with a formula that redraws the lines without paying attention to race. Then let the chips fall where they may.

A computer program could easily be written to do just that. Probably has been already. Even if not, the same principals would apply as designing sales districts, or warehouse locations, or many other tasks, and programs that do those kind of tasks could easily be adapted. Stuff in the census data, counts and geographic data only. Let 'er rip and as you say, let the chips fall where they may.

Of course Gerrymandering is not exactly new, it predates the Constitution in fact. It's named after one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Elbridge Gerry while governor of Massachusetts, who was also a member of Congress under the Articles of Confederation, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention (first supporting then opposing the new Constitution, the latter in part because of vagueness and lack of a Bill of Rights). Also a Congressman under the first Congress under the Constitution, which wrote and passed the Bill of Rights. Also served as Vice President under Madison, when he collapsed and died in the first year in office at the age of 70, while on his way to preside over the Senate. Word is that Gerry opposed the redistricting scheme that coined the word, but he did sign the bill implementing it while Governor of MA.

The Original Gerrymander

Here it is on the left, beside a modern computer generated district from NY state. (obviously the computer wasn't programed to produce compact districts, but rather for some other criteria.)

Here is just such a proposal to eliminate gerrymandering once and for all and describing algorithmically one way to go about it.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Yup.

A simple algorithm should do it.

For each district in the state, the algorithm is calculated (border length ratio, longest linear dimension, etc.) and there can be no more than a 0.xx factor between max and min.

Frankly, any objective/random measure should be fine, and let a computer optimize the result.

There should also be something about not "busing" folks from one population center to another district via articulated borders. The principle should be that if you are near a population center, you are in the district as that center.

[CurlyBill]

Watch this very closely! The Democratic Party relies on voter fraud in order to get elected in many areas in my opinion. Think about it, they have STRONGLY resisted every attempt to curtail voter fraud. Redistricting effects these efforts. If there was a way to ensure that every election was completely free of all voter fraud ... including illegal aliens voting, we would be all for it. But you would see the likes of Hillary Clinton, Tom Daschle and others saying that it is nothing more than an intimidation tactic. Translated, that means..."we want to commit voter fraud, and we will use the PC arguement to hold on to our only real way to gain power."

[muawiyah]

Just let folks pick which Congressional district they'd like to be in - kind of like the way government was provided in the Middle Ages in Iceland.

Simply de-link the House from geography and toss it fulltime into a world of popular democracy and selection.

We probably ought to double the size of the House anyway, up to about 1,000 Representatives. With 280 million people, each district would be alloted 280,000 "members". You would sign up. People who liked Barney Frank would select his district while those who preferred Tom Delay would select his district.

Or, let's say we knew a Representative's popularity was declining, and she was down to 50,000 members - an "opposition" could sign up and toss her out in favor of someone better qualified for the job.

With the coming power of broadband communications there's no reason we couldn't maintain constant elections going, with a mandatory election within two years. Every member of Congress would be someone who really was "wanted" by his or her electorate.

The Senate could be dealt with similarly, or maybe just return Senatorial elections to the most numerous house in each state.

[Blood of Tyrants]

We could just repeal the 17th Amendment.

[Doctor Stochastic]

What does the 17th amendment have to do with gerrymandering?

[Doctor Stochastic]

This wouldn't work on states with either a coastline or river for a border. However, one could make such requirements for land borders.

[supercat]

This wouldn't work on states with either a coastline or river for a border. However, one could make such requirements for land borders.

For purposes of calculating the perimeter of, e.g. a congressional district within a state, rule that the border may be drawn to include land or water area outside the state, even though that land or water area would not be part of the district.

BTW, I came up with awhile ago an idea similar to the one at the link: each party comes up with a redistricting plan in secret, then both parties put their plans on the table: and the one which has the lowest Gerrymander Quotient is adopted.

[expatpat]

Good point. However, the coastline/river part of the border could be taken out of the total perimeter, and the multiplier changed from 5 to 3 (say).

[Doctor Stochastic]

One could just replace rivers and coastlines with a simple average border and do a Voronoj partition using population as the measure. Of course, one would like to follow "natural" political dividers such county boundaries or city limits. This complicates things.

For a price, I can deiver a program that works with any such constraints by next fall.

[Dan Zachary]

I am confused by many points in the article. Maybe I am misunderstanding things.

The high court's decision, expected before July, will affect states that are subject to the 1965 Voting Rights Act because of past discrimination.

Are not all states subject to the Voting Rights Act?

A lower court rejected those boundaries under the Voting Rights Act.

From what I have read in the act (link) it states that you have a right to vote and no one can stop you. How does redistricting affect your right to vote? I agree that it has been used as a tool by certain parties (El Gato shows in post #8 a vivid example of this), but you still can vote.

The Voting Rights Act discourages dilution of minority voting strength.

I have not been able to find that part of the act.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy questioned what a state was to do if it were "frozen" with districts with large black populations.

The same thing they would do with districts "frozen" with large white populations.

Maybe I am missing some things or not fully understanding, but this does not make sense to me.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Actually, nothing. But what it DOES do is made the Senate nothing more than a redundant House or Representatives where the Senators sell out to the various special interest groups instead of representing their state like they are supposed to.

I also have a plan to divide the country into 100 equally sized areas (each about 35,000 sq miles it think) without regard to the number of people in that area or state borders. My reasoning is that the 50,000 people who live in rural Alaska have at least as much interest in how the land is used than the 7,000,000 in New York City or 15,000,000 in Los Angeles.

I would also word the law to prevent the politicians from making up areas that include parts of LA with the Mojave Desert so that the cities do not get undue power over land (and people) they have little interest in.

As it is, people in large cities, who have little in common with rural people, have unequal influence over the rural people. For example, if you separated NYC from New York, New York would have only ONE liberal senator. Not only that tiny states like Rhode Island would not be given equal voting power over the usage of land in Montana.

[AuH2ORepublican]

To play Devil's advocate, why should state legislators be forced to only take geography, and not demographics, into account when drawing districts? A condo-dwelling retiree in southern Broward County may live closer to a young family in Miami than to another condo-dwelling retiree furhther north the Gold Coast (such as Palm Beach County), but he probably has a lot more in common with the people who live in condos in Palm Beach County. Doesn't it make sense to allow legislatures to take people's cultural and socioeconomic attributes into account when drawing districts? What should be forbidden is the use of race as a sine qua non for drawing districts---that is, including in a single district blacks (or Hispanics, or Asians, or whites) from many different backgrounds living in geographically dispersed areas. There is nothing wrong with having a black-majority district in Prince George's County, MD, since Prince George's is a black-majority area (the same holds true for black-majority districts in Atlanta and DeKalb County, GA), but racial gerrymanders that take in only black neighborhoods spread out over several cities (there are many examples of this) are clear evidence that race wasn't just one factor out of many, but *the* factor, in drawing the district.

But at the end of the day, every attempt at redistricting is arbitrary, and asking a legislature not to take politics into account when drawing districts is like asking a businessman not to take profits into account when establishing prices. So long as we have 435 Congressional districts (and thousands of state senate and house districts) we'll run into this problem. And this problem leads to Congress being less representative than it could be. For example, one could have redistricted Ohio to produce 14 Republicans and 4 Democrats, or to produce 13 Democrats and 5 Republicans, or many other combinations and permutations. While, based on voting patterns, Ohio should send, on average, 9 or 10 Republicans and 8 or 9 Democrats to Congress, redistricting by the legislature assures that this target is only met by sheer luck or legislative incompetence (or both). I think a better way is to set up a system of proportional representation, tempered with measures that would not allow for fringe candidates to get elected nor geographic and cultural links to be lost. For example, Ohio could be carved up into 4 multi-member districts, three of which would elect 5 Representatives and one of which would elect 3 Representatives. No matter how you slice or dice these districts, it would be impossible to come up with a map in which Democrats or Republicans could elect less than 8 members not more than 10 members. This would also allow large constituencies (such as pro-lifers, or gun-rights advocates) to elect one of their own even if they are not a majority in a district, which would greatly reduce the number of RINOs. This is something that deserves a closer look.