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PoliGAF 2017 |OT6| Made this thread during Harvey because the ratings would be higher

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wait like SCOTUS will end partisan gerrymandering or the chance for SCOTUS to do something about partisan gerrymandering is dead?

Kennedy remained relatively silent during the arguments but the questions he did asked made it seem like he's voting with the liberal bloc in the court. Specifically that there does seem to be a workable standard. The more conservative justice still argue that there isn't but even Alito noted that partisan gerrymandering is "distasteful".

This is a HUGE case. Seriously, it should not be underestimated in its importance for our democracy.
 
Seems like partisan gerrymandering might be dead according to SCOTUS watchers.

still worried how future courts without Kennedy look at maps.

Really dems need to go back to multi-member districts. We need to at least start talking about that for the 2030, 2040 cycles. Geography will always hold us back from true democracy.
 

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Kennedy remained relatively silent during the arguments but the questions he did asked made it seem like he's voting with the liberal bloc in the court. Specifically that there does seem to be a workable standard. The more conservative justice still argue that there isn't but even Alito noted that partisan gerrymandering is "distasteful".

This is a HUGE case. Seriously, it should not be underestimated in its importance for our democracy.

This case was designed with him in mind. If he didn't find it convincing then we'd really be screwed.
 
still worried how future courts without Kennedy look at maps.

Really dems need to go back to multi-member districts. We need to at least start talking about that for the 2030, 2040 cycles. Geography will always hold us back from true democracy.

With a clear standard, very few of those cases are actually going to make it to the SCOTUS, if any of them.

Basically Kennedy wanted an equation to avoid a situation like you suggest.
 

Surfinn

Member
Not sure if posted but

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ifi_push_breaking-news&utm_term=.15d33e33bfb7

WaPo said:
President Trump told Puerto Rico officials they should feel proud that hadn't lost thousands of lives like in ”a real catastrophe like Katrina," and also said the devastated island territory was throwing the nation's budget ”a little out of whack" during his first visit there since Hurricane Maria ravaged the island nearly two weeks ago.

A real catastrophe.....
 
Sooner.

Probably a ton of special elections in 2019 and new maps in 2020.

Really? I thought the court wouldn't want to rock the boat right before the districts are redrawn anyway, in 2021.

Although I guess with a formula, redrawing districts wouldn't be a big deal, just pop it into the computer and out comes the map.
 
You'd sue in federal court almost immediately in PA/MI/NC/TX/etc with the standard applied in Gill. You'd have to sue for both state House, state Senate, and congressional maps, probably separately.

Maps probably wouldn't be ready by 2018 (though maybe the WI House would be since it's the one in the case). You'd then get a ton of courts striking down maps, and in some cases like in NC, ones that have already been admitted to being partisan gerrymanders in federal court. The maps would then be redrawn for potential special elections in 2019, though some may draw them out till 2020 like in NC now.

That feels like how it would go.

Really? I thought the court wouldn't want to rock the boat right before the districts are redrawn anyway, in 2021.

Although I guess with a formula, redrawing districts wouldn't be a big deal, just pop it into the computer and out comes the map.

Unconstitutional is unconstitutional.
 

Toth

Member
Doesn't Trump owe Puerto Rico like 30 million for a failed resort? people in glass houses, etc.

Anyway, today's 'presser' was sickening. The guy has no clue on how to read a room or display leadership qualities at all. It seems people are waking up a bit more to this nonsense at least.
 
The argument that faith in democracy should be more important than the public perception of the court is a fantastic point.

I know he probably wasn't, but being reminded that should have embarrassed Roberts.
 
So Trumps VOICE hotline for victims of immigrants (one of the most ridiculous things this administration has done), is a disaster. Shock and awe.

https://splinternews.com/this-is-what-it-looks-like-when-the-president-asks-peop-1819077393

In April, the Trump Administration launched what it called the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) hotline, with a stated mission to “provide proactive, timely, adequate, and professional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens.” But internal logs of calls to VOICE obtained by Splinter show that hundreds of Americans seized on the hotline to lodge secret accusations against acquaintances, neighbors, or even their own family members, often to advance petty personal grievances.

The logs—hundreds of which were available for download on the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement web site despite containing extremely sensitive personal information—call to mind the efforts of closed societies like East Germany or Cuba to cultivate vast networks of informants and an atmosphere of fear and suspicion.

The reports rarely involve the sort of dangerous criminality that Donald Trump campaigned against. Despite the VOICE office’s statement that the service “is not a hotline to report crime,” callers are using it to alert Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to minor infractions, or merely to the presence of people they suspect of being undocumented immigrants.

On many of the calls, the only violation the informant offers the authority is that the people exist.

But after conducting Google searches for some data in that spreadsheet, including local police report numbers provided by callers, we were able to find a second spreadsheet, covering April to mid-August, hosted on the ICE web site. That spreadsheet appears to have been partially redacted to prepare it for release under the FOIA, but two columns containing intimate personal details—names, cell phone numbers, alleged crimes, addresses, and Social Security numbers—of both callers and the alleged undocumented immigrants they were calling about remained completely unredacted and publicly available. In several cases, the details would make it possible for people to figure out who informed on them.

Together, the logs are a grim running diary of a country where people eagerly report their fellow residents to the authorities, or seek to bring the power of the immigration police to bear on family disputes. On May 25, 2017, one man called to say that his stepson was violating a restraining order by parking his car near his house. He didn’t want his wife to know that he was trying to get her son deported

Much much more at the link. Its utterly insane.
 
Other than a strikedown of partisan gerrymandering, I'm hoping for an explicit statement from the Court that certain methods are the only constitutional methods allowed in the map drawing process. Otherwise, you get NC where they just draw up shit maps right before using them to win a race, then they get sued and are told to come up with new maps again (even though the election under the bad ones holds).

Basically I want maps that don't comply with this ruling to get ignored, not for those maps to get drawn and then challenged after they've done what they wanted to do.
 

Ogodei

Member
kaisch was rumored to back this aswell

Don't Ohio and California already have fair districting? A few Ohio districts are a little loopily drawn (the one south of the two Akron-Cleveland districts, and a district that meanders from Lima to Sandusky), but they seem to have a decent mix of D-R districts for a state that's been thoroughly R-captured at the state level for so long. Especially compared to Pennsylvania which isn't as conservative as Ohio but has hideous districts.
 
Don't Ohio and California already have fair districting? A few Ohio districts are a little loopily drawn (the one south of the two Akron-Cleveland districts, and a district that meanders from Lima to Sandusky), but they seem to have a decent mix of D-R districts for a state that's been thoroughly R-captured at the state level for so long. Especially compared to Pennsylvania which isn't as conservative as Ohio but has hideous districts.

As a former resident of Ohio, the districts are a total gerrymander, split 12-4 both in terms of PVI and actual representation. There are some reforms that were put into place for next cycle, although they're pretty watered-down.
 
I'm also hoping for a fix for Illinois. It's Democartic-dominated, but it removes accountability and puts too much power in the hands of the state party.
 
Don't Ohio and California already have fair districting? A few Ohio districts are a little loopily drawn (the one south of the two Akron-Cleveland districts, and a district that meanders from Lima to Sandusky), but they seem to have a decent mix of D-R districts for a state that's been thoroughly R-captured at the state level for so long. Especially compared to Pennsylvania which isn't as conservative as Ohio but has hideous districts.
lol what? Ohio is a state that went for Obama while going 4-12 D-R, it's gerrymandered as fuck, look at OH-1. Are you thinking of Wisconsin?
 
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