Voting rights bills and lawsuits megathread (Updated: April 27th 2020)

[Torie]

I believe under the NY Constitution, new maps require a majority vote from both parties, so the Pub minority in the State Senate would have a veto power. So either one gets a non partisan map (voted by the legislature or imposed by the Court if there is a deadlock), or a bipartisan gerrymander such as exists now in the state legislature (with the Assembly seats being a Dem gerrymander, and the Senate seats a Pub gerrymander).

[Torie]

I believe under the NY Constitution, new maps require a majority vote from both parties, so the Pub minority in the State Senate would have a veto power. So either one gets a non partisan map (voted by the legislature or imposed by the Court if there is a deadlock), or a bipartisan gerrymander such as exists now in the state legislature (with the Assembly seats being a Dem gerrymander, and the Senate seats a Pub gerrymander).

What about congressional maps?

I believe that the rules are the same. You can read up on it all here, and make up your own mind.

[Torie]

SCOTUS added the Maryland CD map to its pile, apparently to rule on it along with the Wisconsin map.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, is MD-03 or PA-07 the ugliest CD district of them all? Your choose.

[Torie]

It is now. Thanks!

PS:  MD-03 is just as ugly as the earlier map.

[Torie]

PA gerrymandering verdict due out by January 2018....just in time for the-midterms.

One would think that the upcoming SCOTUS decision would circumscribe what the PA state Supreme Court does, or if the PA court rules first, perhaps override some of it.

[Torie]

PA gerrymandering verdict due out by January 2018....just in time for the-midterms.

One would think that the upcoming SCOTUS decision would circumscribe what the PA state Supreme Court does, or if the PA court rules first, perhaps override some of it.

The PA case is based on the PA Constitution - no federal case has purview

Are you sure about that? That is the key point.

[Torie]

Power To The People!

Link

Commonwealth Court Says Pa’s Congressional Lines Do Not Violate State Constitution

Power To The People!

Link

Federal judges rule in favor of Pennsylvania Republicans in gerrymandering case

Power To The People!

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article193814154.html

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Well, not yet. The Supreme Court has not yet issued a ruling to overthrow this heist attempt. True federalists across the nation can cheer as the 4th circuit can no longer take advantage of the temporary void left by Great Justice Scalia.

If Justice Kennedy does his expected thing, I suspect the NC map will go down the tubes. We shall see. The Pubs were hogs rather than pigs in some of these maps, doing grotesque things to get one extra seat, or pad a seat so that it would never be marginal. Pigs get fat, and hogs get slaughtered. Smart gerrymanderers draw pretty maps, and the biases are subtle. There are not many smart gerrymanderers on the Fruited Plain. Well maybe that Mathis woman qualifies in the Dem gerrymander of AZ as the supposedly non partisan person on the commission. But then she sort of had to be somewhat subtle, given her oath of office. One irony is that CA CD map. It was a Dem gerrymander lite, but given the collapse of the Pub party in CA, it now has morphed into a Pub gerrymander lite. Who knew?

[Torie]

Sorry to interrupt the regular programming. I do admit I have something of a map fetish.

[Torie]

Compromise reached on Congressional redistricting reform in Ohio:

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/02/ohios_proposed_gerrymanding_fi.html

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It has some rules on compactness and county splits, and I think it does say the map can't favor political parties or incumbents, and it allows a Governor to veto it and citizens to file a veto referendum, so all in all it's better than nothing, but it wouldn't entirely stop Republicans from passing a bad map. It would just mean that without any votes from Democrats, it would only be in place for 4 years, which would give Democrats another shot to get a better map. On the other hand, it seems like Republicans would also have another shot to shore up their districts mid-decade, so I guess it depends on how you want to look at it.

Either way, better than nothing. Democrats should still invest heavily in taking back the Governor's mansion and the SoS office as well.

That is the most convoluted protocol ever designed by man.

[Torie]

The Missouri proposal would effectively require the legislative seats to be gerrymandered in favor of the Dems to enable them to prevail in the percentage of the seats that matches their statewide percentage.  That is an erroneous way to calculate it, even if you wanted that principle. Muon2 says you need to double the dominant party's margin, so if a minority party got 45% of the statewide vote, they should get only 40% of the seats.

And even with that correction, it would still require gerrymandering for the Dems to offset the geographical concentration of Dems and the VRA (although in Missouri, the CD to be reasonably drawn for the black constituency closely matches what should be drawn anyway, given how the county and City of St. Louis lines lie). So I oppose that approach. Minimize chops and erosity, and then for maps that get basically to the same score, try to go for competitiveness and minimizing partisan skew per the Muon2 formula.