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Supreme Court upholds decision to strike down North Carolina racial gerrymandering

V

Vincent Alexander

Member
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said said the court ignored past precedent in finding that race was the motivating factor in drawing District 12.

In a similar case in 2001 challenging the constitutionality of District 12, the challenger lost because they failed to provide an alternative map that served the legislature’s political objective without producing the same racial effect. Because Harris also failed to produce an alternative map, Alito said he should have lost this case.
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I don't understand this. Dissents, but his reasoning sounds like it is in favor of striking down still...? What am I missing here?
 
L

Laevateinn

Member
I wonder what other crazy, unexpected decisions Clarence Thomas will make now that he doesn't have Scalia to crib notes from.
 
K

KHarvey16

Member
Vincent Alexander said:
I don't understand this. Dissents, but his reasoning sounds like it is in favor of striking down still...? What am I missing here?
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How does it sound that way? His reasoning is a previous ruling went against a plaintiff because they didn't offer an alternate arrangement, which also wasn't done here.
 
J

JonnyDBrit

Member
Vincent Alexander said:
I don't understand this. Dissents, but his reasoning sounds like it is in favor of striking down still...? What am I missing here?
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KHarvey16 said:
How does it sound that way? His reasoning is a previous ruling went against a plaintiff because they didn't offer an alternate arrangement, which also wasn't done here.
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Basically, it seems like that while he doesn't necessarily disagree with the position of the rest of the judges in terms of principles, he nevertheless feels it doesn't work on a technical basis.

Which is also kinda important since that provides a potential angle with which he could be convinced on this sort of issue in future.
 
T

TheCochese

Banned
giphy.gif
 
T

TestOfTide

Banned
LegendofJoe said:
This case will be heard by the Supreme Court later this year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitford_v._Gill

It has the potential to declare partisan (not just racial) gerrymandering unconstitutional. It is a ruling that could literally save democracy in this country.
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I'm worried though. Because if Kennedy wasn't willing to rule with the liberals on blatant RACIAL gerrymandering, why should we believe he'll suddenly decide to strike down purely partisan gerrymandering?
 
E

EdibleKnife

Member
With this and the voting ID case, it seems that at least the Supreme Court is keeping NC in line. Hope other states just take the lesson and stop their BS machinations. Doubtful though since the GOP is so desperate to manipulate the system to make some people matter more than others.
 
I

Iksenpets

Banned
TestOfTide said:
I'm worried though. Because if Kennedy wasn't willing to rule with the liberals on blatant RACIAL gerrymandering, why should we believe he'll suddenly decide to strike down purely partisan gerrymandering?
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Yep, reading through this and seeing Kennedy sign on with Alito here is troubling. Basically means all future gerrymandering decisions hinge on Thomas, which could mean that anything less egregious than North Carolina will survive.
 
I

ICO_SotC

Member
Vincent Alexander said:
I don't understand this. Dissents, but his reasoning sounds like it is in favor of striking down still...? What am I missing here?
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From reading, it seems there were two district's being looked at. The dissenters acknowledged discrimination was happening in one district, but not the other, so they had to rule against the entire case?

From Bloomberg:

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy issued a partial dissent saying they would have upheld one of the districts.
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S

sangreal

Member
What did the minority concur with? I read Alito's dissent and he trashes the entire ruling

Vincent Alexander said:
I don't understand this. Dissents, but his reasoning sounds like it is in favor of striking down still...? What am I missing here?
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No, he is saying it shouldn't have been struck down because nobody provided an alternative map that gave Republicans the same edge without basing it on race

That was the (bad) precedent set in a past ruling over the same district with the same arguments
 
C

cameron

Member
Laevateinn said:
I wonder what other crazy, unexpected decisions Clarence Thomas will make now that he doesn't have Scalia to crib notes from.
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He's still a tit. Gorsuch sat this one out, but him and Thomas were BFFs on another case.

LA Times: "Gorsuch dissents as Supreme Court upholds ban on big-money gifts to parties"
New Justice Neil M. Gorsuch joined Clarence Thomas in dissent Monday when the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from a Republican Party lawyer seeking to strike down limits on big-money contributions to political parties.

By a 7-2 vote, the high court upheld limits set in the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002.

The dissent by Gorsuch is his first and most significant decision since joining the court last month, and it puts him squarely on the side of conservatives and Republican lawyers who believe that limits on political money are unconstitutional.
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L

LegendofJoe

Member
TestOfTide said:
I'm worried though. Because if Kennedy wasn't willing to rule with the liberals on blatant RACIAL gerrymandering, why should we believe he'll suddenly decide to strike down purely partisan gerrymandering?
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Kennedy is waiting for the right case to come through to make a rock solid judicially based ruling against partisan gerrymandering. That will allow the court to set a standard for what constitutes illegal gerrymandering. The Wisconsin case could very well be the one that fits the bill.

Here's good background reading on the judicial complexities of ruling against partisan gerrymandering:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...e-court-should-use-it/?utm_term=.f6ad528c3744
 
T

The Llama

Member
Read through the opinion earlier. Basically there were two districts at issue. Everyone agreed that one was racially motivated, including the dissent. The dissent disagreed on the second district, essentially saying the Court had found no racial motivation in essentially the same case in 2001 and the facts before them hasn't really changed and thus the Court should find the same way on that district.

You can tell Kagan and Alito reaaaaaally disagreed, they basically personally attack each other in the footnotes lol. Seemed a bit much, especially by SCOTUS standards.
 
S

sonicmj1

Member
ICO_SotC said:
From reading, it seems there were two district's being looked at. The dissenters acknowledged discrimination was happening in one district, but not the other, so they had to rule against the entire case?

From Bloomberg:
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Not quite. It's a partial dissent. Everyone agrees that District One is racial gerrymandering (8-0), but the court is not unanimous about District Twelve (5-3) because the plaintiffs didn't provide an alternative map showing a potential non-racial divide, which an earlier court case said they had to do.

Racial gerrymandering is a pretty different thing from partisan gerrymandering, because there are stronger legal protections against distinctions based on race. In the past, the court hasn't been able to agree on what actually constitutes partisan gerrymandering, so until that happens they're not going to be able to bar it under the Equal Protection clause.
 
I

Iksenpets

Banned
wildfire said:
That would mean Trump used a monkey's paw.
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I think the monkey paw may have been Ted Cruz's here. He thought that the monkey's cruel price for replacing Scalia was a conservative was forcing him to endorse the man who called his wife ugly and accused his dad of murder, but the monkey's curse was only just getting started.
 
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