The Supremes Say Nope to Gerrymandering
The Supremes – by a 5-4 vote with Anthony Kennedy siding with the good guys – saying that the Aladamnbama redistricting upheld by a lower court is wrong, wrong, wrong.
A closely divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out a lower court ruling that upheld a state legislature redistricting plan in Alabama that packed black voters into certain districts in a way critics say diminished their clout at the polls.
Of course, the bad dudes on the court think we should go back to literacy tests and poll taxes.
This is the case we here in Texas have been waiting for. We are redistricted in that way, too.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Thanks to Kyle for the heads up.
We are at a point technologically where redistricting could be performed by computers using mathematical algorithms. The algorithms would need to be focused the number of people and the geography, including city limits, etc. They would simply ignore race and political parties.
Of course, that is precisely why legislators won’t go that way.
1Will someone in Texas file a lawsuit to correct this travesty?
2Hurray for Kennedy, who has seen the light. Now let’s hope he’s still enlightened when it comes to the ACA.
3@LynnN
4I am aware of a north Texas county with a large and sophisticated geographic information group. During 2010 they offered Commissioners’ Court ten different scenarios for redrawing precincts, based on population, major roads, city limits etc. What Court eventually endorsed was a map that resembled the previous map, which is not balanced for 25% of the population in each precinct. It is close, but close only counts in horseshoes.
Maybe that same Scotus will throw Delay in jail for tampering with redistricting between census’ as part of his SOH scheme to keep wingnuts in power in congress forever.
5Take a look at Texas State House Rep Scott Turner’s district map….Reminds us that the Texas GOP can learn from the darn Yankees (see the cartoon lampooning gerrymandering in Massachusetts from 1812).
6Will Paxton be able to read the opinion or can his staff do it for him?
7Amen! I’ve been saying that for years, LynnN. As long as it was done openly as parameters to the algorithm I wouldn’t be opposed to taking certain social variables like race or ethnicity into account.
8I live with severe gerrymandering here in Arizona. At the state level my district contains the Navajo Reservation, a Democratic bastion. Whomever they vote for is who I get. On the Federal level most of Arizona’s reservations are in this district as well, which is why we have a Democratic Congresswoman. Not enough to affect any other races, though.
9Oh God, is there hope???????
10On the brighter side, the Texas districts provide a simple, free alternative to Rosarch tests.
11Oh, yeah- the district famous for its shrimp shape. Tailor-made to finally remove Lloyd Doggett from office, but even with its weird shape it was not up to the task.
12Cute! @AlaninAustin
13I’m surprised no one has mentioned North Carolina District 12.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the district that can be crossed as easily as crossing a street, because in fact some areas are simply streets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina%27s_12th_congressional_district
14I’m waiting for Paxton to make the stupid statement that federal courts have no jurisdiction over the Republic of Texas.
15AlanInAustin: Were you referring to the Rohrshach inkblot psychological test? Wouldn’t that be interesting? Having every republican’t responsible for gerrymandering to be screened by a psychiatrist using that test, among others. The population of mental institutions would skyrocket.
16It makes perfect damn sense!
17That’s Lloyd Doggett’s district!
The Ratpublicans have been trying to get rid of him for decades!
AKLynne-Currently a three judge panel in San Antonio is hearing a challenge to the Texas redistricting. The case was basically tried in stages and all of the briefing was done in December. The three judge panel in San Antonio has asked the plaintiffs to brief the effect of the Alabama case on the Texas redistricting case http://electionlawblog.org/?p=71321 Texas has been using a couple of the methods rejected by the SCOTUS for a long time including packing all minorities into a few districts. Greg Abbott took the legal position that it was okay to discriminate against minorities in these maps since minorities all vote for Democrats (another argument rejected by the SCOTUS).
This case has been going on since the 2011 redistricting first proposed by the Texas legislature.
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