Posted on 06/18/2018 8:08:14 AM PDT by 11th_VA
The Supreme Court on Monday sidestepped a decision on when partisan gerrymandering goes too far, ruling against the challengers of a Republican-drawn map in Wisconsin and a Democratic redistricting in Maryland.
The decisions in the separate cases once again puts off a decision on when courts can find that partisan efforts to keep parties in power goes so far as to be unconstitutional.
It was a technical resolution of what has seemed to hold the promise of being a landmark decision about whether extreme efforts to give one party advantage over another were unconstitutional.
While the court routinely polices the drawing of electoral maps to combat racial gerrymandering, it has never found that partisan eforts went too far. It has never settled on a test that judges could use to determine how much politics was too much.
There is a pending challenge of North Carolina’s redistricting efforts that could provide another case for the justices to consider the issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Does this apply to the PA one?
No surprise here. The drawing of Congressional Districts is the province of the State legislatures.
PA was decided by the PA courts. Not a Federal matter.
I was thinking the same thing. I believe the supremes allowed the Dhimmicrat ‘fixing’ of districting in favor of the dhimmicrats but disallowed the same complaints by the GOP in leftists states like Maryland
The worst possible outcome would be to give the power of political districts to the courts or (even worse), a “non partisan” panel. At least with the acts of Legislature, the voters have a remedy, called an election. This nonsense of sanctioned gerrymander to give a favored racial class has to end. Both political parties and their professional politicians endorse this because it can benefit their party and certain politicians who are granted an office for life. The voters, however, are screwed.
The question is: can states adopt laws that constrain the Legislature? For example, can you mandate a process that is based on existing political boundaries (county, city, township, precinct) and that forces a district that has a mathematical compact shape.
In February the SCOTUS refused to touch the decision by the democrats decision to redistrict Pennsylvania, thus in affect making the decision FOR the dhimmicrats.
An affected party can sue
Repealing the ill-conceived 17th Amendment would put a major dent in reducing problems associated with political parties and voting district maps imo.
The 16th Amendment can disappear too.
and the 19th
Ann Coulter advocates that too
For those not in the know, PA Supreme Court judges are elected. The Democrats worked hard to get their guys in while the republicans didn’t. So the Dems dominated the court and then they immediately declared that the legislatures’ drawing of congressional districts was bad and that they ... the court! ... would make a good one. One gGood for democrats, that is. The legislature has to act: impeach, censure, do something or begin kneeling when the judges come into the room. It seems they are all hurriedly purchasing kneepads as we speak.
My understanding is, the PA Judges are elected ‘State Wide’ giving Democrats an advantage because of Philly and Pittsburgh. The GOP just passed an article, that the district judges be elected by district. If they pass it in two successive assembly years, it goes to the voters for ratification. And the governor can’t veto. This should filter out the Philly and Pittsburgh voters and result in more conservative judges.
Very appropriate response given that the judges have decided to be political animals. Even the Pittsbugh Democrats aren’t a whacko as their Philadelphia counterparts.
Have you seen the Maryland map? If the Supreme Court won’t overturn that, they’re not going to anything about gerrymandering anywhere, anytime. MD-3 and MD-2 are particularly egregious. Even the most influential black political committee in the state, the Fannie Lou Hamer PAC, was opposed to this disaster.
All the more reason to re-elect Governor Hogan. Having a Republican governor will rein in the Democrats a bit on the next redistricting.
“Even the Pittsbugh Democrats aren’t a whacko as their Philadelphia counterparts.”
The leaders are as wacko as they come. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of union types in this area that will only vote Democrat. Trump made some inroads, but there is a *long* way to go :-).
Since many women now support themselves, many women also heads of household for single parent families, we’ve got to keep 19A imo. We don’t want taxation without representation.
“It’s ‘gerrymandering’ when *they* do it” :-)
Old saying, dating back to early/mid 1800’s.
Both sides do it every chance they can as effectively as they can. Always have, always will, regardless of left or right.
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