SCOTUS: Partisan Gerrymandering is a Non-Justiciable Political Question

[Badger]

So Roberts and Company decide that this is a matter left to the legislature in the States. And how are the legislators chosen? By a horribly gerrymandered system in States a b c d and e Etc. So the cure to the disease is warded by the disease itself. Brilliant.

Congratulations Republicans. You can't deal with democracy being on the perennially losing side of public opinion and the future, so you stole denomination of a moderate replacement to ensure your undemocratic cement on power.

2nd. Amendment. Remedies. Looks more necessary everyday I'm sorry to say

The U.S. Constitution specifically leaves Congressional redistricting solely to the State LEGISLATURES, not the Federal courts, absent instructions from Congress (which, outside of the VRA and ban on multi-member districts, don’t exist). That is a political question. The Constitution doesn’t require any specific rule for how states are to be redistricted - nor should any court impose one by fiat.

Your beef is with the state legislatures and Congress - both of which could impose standards if they wish.

What about Baker v. Carr, which explicitly held that cases involving redistricting were justiciable? That decision specifically placed the one man one vote rule on redrawing legislative districts.

One-man one-vote is a justiciable standard. What’s a “fair” map is not. That’s in the eye of the beholder.

There are any number of standards which have been advanced by scholars in recent years.

Which is precisely the problem - there are a number of standards, none of which are particularly more “fair” than the others. It’s up to the state legislatures and/or Congress to decide which is best - not the federal courts.

The legislators and Congress are directly constituted by the problem of gerrymandering. Do you not see this as a self-perpetuating issue?. Beyond that, please read the very well-reasoned descent. This is absolutely a justiciable issue. Let's not pretend that Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito or not dyed-in-the-wool partisans.

[Badger]

So Roberts and Company decide that this is a matter left to the legislature in the States. And how are the legislators chosen? By a horribly gerrymandered system in States a b c d and e Etc. So the cure to the disease is warded by the disease itself. Brilliant.

Congratulations Republicans. You can't deal with democracy being on the perennially losing side of public opinion and the future, so you stole denomination of a moderate replacement to ensure your undemocratic cement on power.

2nd. Amendment. Remedies. Looks more necessary everyday I'm sorry to say

The U.S. Constitution specifically leaves Congressional redistricting solely to the State LEGISLATURES, not the Federal courts, absent instructions from Congress (which, outside of the VRA and ban on multi-member districts, don’t exist). That is a political question. The Constitution doesn’t require any specific rule for how states are to be redistricted - nor should any court impose one by fiat.

Your beef is with the state legislatures and Congress - both of which could impose standards if they wish.

What about Baker v. Carr, which explicitly held that cases involving redistricting were justiciable? That decision specifically placed the one man one vote rule on redrawing legislative districts.

One-man one-vote is a justiciable standard. What’s a “fair” map is not. That’s in the eye of the beholder.

There are any number of standards which have been advanced by scholars in recent years.

Which is precisely the problem - there are a number of standards, none of which are particularly more “fair” than the others. It’s up to the state legislatures and/or Congress to decide which is best - not the federal courts.

The legislators and Congress are directly constituted by the problem of gerrymandering. Do you not see this as a self-perpetuating issue?. Beyond that, please read the very well-reasoned descent. This is absolutely a justiciable issue. Let's not pretend that Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito or not dyed-in-the-wool partisans.

Yes, exactly.

Let's just wait for the North Carolina Republicans to pass a fair districting law.....oh wait, that'll literally never happen.

Or Texas Republicans, or Wisconsin Republicans, etc etc etc. You pair up and remember, many states do not have the ability to put referendum on the ballot to permit direct voter choice of a say our district in commission. Likewise some states don't have elected judiciaries and judicial nominees I'm this decision relies on to correct gerrymandering would be ratified, or blocked, by the same legislature who self-selected themselves with a gerrymandered map.

[Badger]

Let’s put this another way - Suppose Trump gets reelected and gets to appoint a whole lot of new judges in his second term. Do those of you who think some standard could have been made up by the court to determine what’s a partisan Gerrymander (which, like in VRA jurisprudence would most likely be some facts-and-circumstances test nonsense) trust Trump-appointed judges to not strike down Democratic maps while keeping Republican maps?

The courts are better left out of this whole issue.

You just gave the game away here, in that you’re projecting that the other side can’t possibly be doing this for anything other than narrow partisan interests.

Spoiler alert: They’re not. You didn’t hear Democrats complain about partisan Gerrymandering in the 1990s, when they drew most maps. Many of the 90s maps were “worse” than the most recent lot.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - there’s no such thing as nonpartisan Gerrymandering or a nonpartisan map. Redistricting is inherently political.

Democrats would have benefited from this, but only because Republicans have pulled things so far away from what anybody could reasonably call fair representation. But when all you’re interested in is power, not principle, it can be hard to tell the difference.

Again, what’s “fair” representation? As much as you and the plaintiffs want us to, the Constitution and current law doesn’t require proportional representation. Nor does it require creating “competitive” districts (whatever that means) or not splitting cities and other municipalities. It doesn’t require enacting incumbent protection rackets or (supposedly) nonpartisan maps or partisan Gerrymanders. All of this is up to the state legislatures to decide.

So if Republicans captured the state legislature and drew maps that were extremely unevenly balanced by population to preserve Republican hegemony no matter the Democratic share of the vote (say out of 13 districts, 12 were, like, super conservative small towns and the 13th was the rest of the state), that would be fine because it came from the state legislature? What do you think representation is?

Yup - that's fine, absent a law to the contrary. As long as these Congressional districts are of near equal population and follow the VRA (if required), the courts should butt out. As it would be if, say, Democrats captured the state legislature and drew maps that were unevenly balanced to "preserve Democratic hegemony" - whatever that means.

If you don't like it, call your Congressman to impose a national standard or organize to vote out your state legislators in redistricting years. This shouldn't be up to the courts, who are very poor at and shouldn't be making policy judgments.

We don't live in a proportional parliamentary system - and I'm very thankful for that.

What do I think a "fair" map is - one that keeps cities, counties and municipalities completely whole to the maximum extent possible. But you and the plaintiffs seem to think we should live in a proportional system and compensate for urban Democratic self-packing by giving cities far much more representation than they deserve in the name of "competitiveness". Who's right - well, that's for the legislature to decide, not the federal courts.

The requirement that districts be equally populated didn’t come from the legislature. You know this, and you’ve ignored it.

Anyway, you’re making pretty clear that your conception of representation is just grabbing whatever isn’t nailed down.

[Badger]

F*** it! It's time for Democrats to gerrymander the f*** out of the states they have the ability to. Then a case like this will come back to the Supreme Court and get ruled the other way. It's our only option now. F*** the high road!

Buddy, you already are. Democrats aren’t some pure, peaceful party: if they can do something, they will. Maryland, California, New York, and a dozen other states have been gerrymandered. For literally decades, the Republicans never had a house majority because of gerrymandering.

That being said, this ruling would be much better if not disingenuous in scope, with perhaps an exception for Gorsuch.

California is redistricting by a neutral commission.

Wow. What a painful cell phone.

And New York?? The only thing Jerry Maynard there is the state senate lines, and very much to the benefit of Republicans

[Badger]

i get that’s there’s no truly objective way to set standards for “fair” districts as opposed to population equality, but still even if you can’t make the most optimal solution you can undo most of the gerrymandering...the GOP has gerrymanders in UT, TX (well now only sort of), OK, WI, MI, PA, OH, AL, LA, MS, GA, SC, NC, VA, and NJ. dems only have MA, IL, MD, CT and RI (which will become irrelevant in 3 years). a fair map would produce a much more democratic-leaning congress (relative to before)

Massachusetts and Rhode Island? Are you kidding?? It has been actively noted here that there is no reasonable way create a republican congressional district in Massachusetts without gerrymandering. Rhode Island is equally obvious. For that matter, Connecticut as a gerrymander is silly as hell.

[Badger]

The maps in MA, MD and CA disproportionately favor one party over the other, given the proportional breakdown of votes across the whole state.  So, is that a gerrymander? or would a gerrymander be drawing weird salamander-shaped Republican districts there to achieve proportional representation?

California is drawn by a nonpartisan commission and Massachusetts has unfavourable geography for Republicans. Maryland is a Democratic gerrymander, one of only two currently in place. You've completely missed the point.

And one that produces a whopping one, counted, one congressional seat shift away from the Republicans Nationwide. Arguing that this is a bipartisan issue considering how much Republicans swept the 2010 State elections and abused the living freak out of gerrymandering for the last decade is completely a historical factually inaccurate. Repair wrap as an aside, I'll point out that some poster on one of the political geography Maps, either here or on aad, posted a really good proposed Maryland map showing that compactly drawing districts could actually produce an all Democratic delegation out of the state without particular gerrymandering. I'm not proposing it, but Republicans really really need to quit whining and grasping for straws when calling this what about or both sides do it problem.

 I will repeat what literally dozens if not hundreds of progressives have posted time and time again to The resulting Silence of Republicans. We will gladly, instantly, trade you a new map in Maryland for new maps in Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Utah, etc etc etc etc etc