Is Anthony Kennedy Ready to Put an End to Partisan Gerrymandering?
The Supreme Court’s swing voter will decide the future of American elections.
Say what you will about Justice Samuel Alito, but the man always thinks ahead.
On Monday, Alito dissented in Cooper v. Harris,
the landmark 5–3 ruling that united Justice Clarence Thomas !!!!! and the Supreme Court’s liberals
to strike down North Carolina’s racial gerrymander.
Frustrated by the progressive result, Alito penned a 34-page broadside lambasting his colleagues for accusing the state of race-based redistricting.
North Carolina, Alito insisted, had gerrymandered along partisanlines, not racial ones, in an effort to disadvantage Democrats, not blacks. And partisan gerrymandering, Alito reminded us, does not violate the Cons ution.
In fact,
the cons utionality of partisan gerrymandering is a matter of extensive debate—and
the Supreme Court will almost certainly decide its fate next term in a blockbuster case called Gill v. Whitford.
five justices agreed that partisan gerrymanders can violate the Cons ution, one of those five—Kennedy—wasn’t ready to invalidate them.
In his concurrence, he asserted that nobody had yet presented a consistent method of identifying and fixing uncons utional political redistricting
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/05/is_anthony_kennedy_ready_to_put_an_end_to_partisan _gerrymandering.html
Damn Uncle Thomas ruled against the GOP?
a comical take on it
http://abovethelaw.com/2017/05/4-lib...errymandering/
New Brennan Center report details just how strongly redistricting maps favor the GOP nationwide
The Brennan Center for Justice published a major new report last week that uses multiple statistical measures to examine how congressional maps around the country mete out partisan advantages to one party or the other. The study provides detailed mathematical evidence for what redistricting-watchers have long known: The redistricting plans passed in the wake of the 2010 census give Republicans a monumental and consistent advantage nationwide.
states with single-party control over the redistricting process stand out as having the worst disparities between the popular vote and seat counts.
(For instance, Donald Trump won Michigan by 0.2 percentage points, but Republicans hold 64 percent of the state’s congressional districts.)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/5/23/1665216/-New-Brennan-Center-report-details-just-how-strongly-redistricting-maps-favor-the-GOP-nationwide?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&u tm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos% 29
Voter Suppression Works
A new memo from Priorities USA and Civis Analytics provides evidence that voter ID laws successfully disenfranchised voters in 2016.
Civis and Priorities also find that these laws disproportionately harmed black voters, by examining how black turnout changed at the county level between 2012 and 2016.
As the table shows, turnout out in counties with a high black population share dropped by 2.2 points in states where ID laws did not change, compared to a 5 point drop in states where a strict ID law was implemented.
Finally, Civis and Priorities compared turnout changes in counties in Wisconsin (which passed a strict ID law) and Minnesota (which did not, and has demographics similar to Wisconsin), by the percentage of African Americans in the county.
As the chart shows, turnout in highly black counties declined dramatically more in Wisconsin than in Minnesota. Civis estimates that the turnout decline attributable to voter ID in Wisconsin was enough to swing the state from Clinton to Trump.
This analysis builds upon other academic research suggesting that voter ID laws have dangerous implications for democracy.
Voter ID is only one way in which policymakers suppress votes of people of color.
Felon disenfranchisement, poll closures, early voting cuts and onerous registration deadlines also suppress votes.
Collectively, these practices can suppress millions of votes, leading to a less equitable democracy and shifting election outcomes.
http://www.demos.org/blog/5/9/17/voter-suppression-works
Yes. North Carolina's Republican party has engaged in many of the same tactics as that of Iran's government, as noted in the report.
Do you think that one party government is healthy?
North Carolina Dems now have a 5-2 majority on the State Supreme Court. Court ordered redistricting and voter suppression rollback is a possibility.
Republican shenanigans may have backfired this time.
So democracy wasn't literally destroyed
I never thought so.
this is the paradox of it:
How is disenfranchising voters through partisan gerrymandering NOT a Federal issue?
America is structurally ed and un able. The Cons ution is the main culprit.
The inevitable? Cons utional Convention by the red/slave states, all owned by the oligarchy, will destroy the Cons ution and the American myth of democracy.
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