Arizona redistricting goes to Supreme Court

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I found it ironic but as I read that linked article where he talks about the reduction in the diversity of districts, my mind kept thinking of PA, and specifically the seat Gerlach drew for himself in 2002. It was competative (topping the list for three straight cycles) yet was Republican enough for him to survive and at the same time set him up well for a potential statewide run at some point since it contained a sampling of rural, suburban, upscale and working class voters.


That said, a gerrymander is still a gerrymander (it was ugly) and the current map is even worse.

The 2008 data skewed the commission's competativeness metrics but I am a big fan of commissions for state's with eggregious legislature's and therefore I hope court upholds the commission's existance.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Remember: Gerrymandering's only frowned upon when Democrats do it.

No other Democrats on this board(not sure if you did)cried when the GOP did it in 2011.

Arizona has done some weird things like SB 1070, the denial for a bakery to refuse to make a wedding cake  for a same-sex marriage couple and now this. Even Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming aren't this crazy but they are more Republican than Arizona is.

The answer is demographics and history. The state was first settled by white Southerners and then a flood of midwestern Paleocons moved in from the midwest after World War II.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What's the legal justification for striking down commissions?

A hyperliteral reading of Article I Section 4 so that only a State legislature may devise district maps for the House of Representatives.

But that ignores that State legislatures can delegate the drawing of Congressional districts to non-partisan commissions. What they cannot do is to draft districts that grossly disenfranchise large segments of the population. Michigan is a prime example: if you live more than ten miles west of US 23 or to the north of Bay City and you are a Democrat, your voice is unlikely to be heard in the House of Representatives. The Koch syndicate owns your Representative and pulls the strings.   

Michigan is not heavily gerrymandered. Most of the Democratic areas are in and around Detroit. There are Democrats in Southwest MI but its still culturally conservative I would think thus  that area of MI elects Republicans to Congress.

Its the eighth district that is their primary objection if I am not mistaken. Though the current map has other flaws as well and the process was clearly rigged, hency why they need a commission in my view.