North Carolina GOP (The Gift That Keeps On Giving): NCGOP Chair Indicted

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/mel_bough

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article232677422.html

He also said that since the North Carolina constitution specifically gives redistricting power to the legislature, it shouldn’t even be up to a court to step in and dictate how redistricting should or shouldn’t work.

Right, because telling the courts they have no right whatsoever to rule on redistricting-related issues is totally a solid argument. It worked so well in Pennsylvania's case.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/joebrunowsoc9/status/1157031318254960640?s=21

Are you sure they weren't arrested for Meth? Those are the scuzziest most disgusting looking group of rednecks I have ever seen.

fwiw, when the hammer started coming down and they all started talking to the press, it was mentioned that there was frequent drug use (opiates) where Dowless kept and sorted the ballots. I forget which one it was, but the woman talking said she would go in there and frequently see someone passed out from getting high all day.

[Virginiá]

Found it lol

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/briannasacks/dowless-britt-inside-north-carolina-absentee-ballot-machine

Jessica Dowless described the scene in the small office at the intersection of two highways, where she worked on Harris’s behalf for the last two months as chaotic. One worker, she said, “was so ******g high the other day she passed out at the ******g computer.” One of the workers who collected absentee ballots from residents was a “pill head,” she said.

[Virginiá]

Activists now prepare to move against the Congressional Map, though they would have to move fast with the  primaries approaching.

Why didn't they do them both at the same time?

Who knows. Given the shifts from Republican to Democratic majorities in the appellate/Supreme Court, it would have been a reasonable assumption to believe the lawsuits would succeed. I mean, the NCSC has a 6 - 1 Democratic majority, and the newest justice was literally involved in gerrymandering lawsuit(s) for the left, for gods sakes.

[Virginiá]

NCGOP says f it, decides to troll court that threw out their partisan gerrymander:

https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1170141519187271681

[Virginiá]

This is like a perfect example, LIVE, of why lawmakers should not be allowed anywhere near the maps and basically a non-factor in the process. They won't be able to help themselves, even when under court order. They don't want to risk losing their jobs and many of them don't even want to have to actually run in a competitive election and will do whatever they have to in order to avoid it. It's a massive conflict of interest and one of the founding father's biggest mistakes.

[Virginiá]

I kind of liked this explanation on Slate for what is going on here:

Republicans surely know they stand little chance of winning this round. By trolling the court, they are all but ensuring the appointment of a special master. At that point, Republicans can accuse the judges of overreach and demonize the judiciary. A number of important judicial seats are up for election in 2020, and GOP lawmakers may hope to provoke a backlash against progressive judges to rally the base. Whatever the cause for their bad behavior, North Carolina Republicans have spent the last few days proving once again that they could not draw a fair map to save their lives.

I don't think these politicians have any real hope that this will work, so they are just trying to weaponize the entire affair. The issue though is that they don't need to do this to "rally the base." They can just say whatever they want and their base will gobble it up. It's how politics works these days. And I'm really skeptical the GOP base even cares or feels passionately about this anyway. Maybe if they can get Trump to spend weeks railing against the NC judges and doing rallies in the state leading up to the 2020 elections, but other than that, it's not likely to cause any movement.

The other rationale is that NCGOP politicians are so immovably corrupt that even when forced into a situation where it is virtually impossible to gerrymander again due to the restrictions placed on the process, they simply can't produce a fair map because every inch of their being is screaming for them to manipulate the process anyway just for that 0.0001% chance it works. When they have no ethical foundation to lean on in the first place, it's really easy to give in to the urge to gerrymander anyway. What do they care? They won't personally face any repercussions for it. And all of this is a great argument for why they should.

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/brentlaurenz/status/1172143714707197952

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1173750762943307776

How pathetic. They'd rather increase their odds of remaining in the minority, mostly powerless, so long as some of them get safer seats. Literally not even about governing at this point. Just warming seats and collecting a paycheck.

Every last one of them needs to be primaried.

[Virginiá]

https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107358

Earlier today, the North Carolina legislature approved remedial maps to replace the state house and state senate plans that were recently struck down as partisan gerrymanders. PlanScore assessed the remedial maps, and here are the results. For the state house, the old plan had an efficiency gap of 9%, a partisan bias of 7%, and a mean-median difference of 5% (all in a Republican direction, and based on a model using 2016 data). On the other hand, the new map has an efficiency gap of 5%, a partisan bias of 3%, and a mean-median difference of 3% (again all pro-Republican). So the new map is about half as skewed as the old plan.

[Virginiá]

ftr, a lawsuit was filed against the NC Congressional map:

https://twitter.com/mateagold/status/1177579466387853312

I still can't help but feel like this was done in response to impeachment, given that it would help offset any potential losses in bigly Trump districts. The only other explanation is they just dragged their asses for months up to the point where it might not even be possible to redraw the map (after a trial/appeal) in time.