Highlighting the issue: Really driving it home: Further reading on Thomas’ concurrence, which is, frankly, terrifying.
Highlighting the issue:
Now, Alito writes, the courts must give lawmakers a “presumption of legislative good faith” when they are accused of racial gerrymandering. The clear line between partisan and racial gerrymandering is suddenly very murky. Under the majority’s reasoning, racial discrimination in redistricting is “simply a side effect of the legislature’s partisan goal” and, therefore, permissible.
Really driving it home:
To bring a claim of illegal racial gerrymandering in the future, litigants must provide a “substitute map” showing “how the state could have achieved its legitimate political objectives…while producing significantly greater racial balance.”
Yikes. We all knew it was coming but seriously holy shit. Officially from the US Supreme Court, it is legitimate, worthy, and legal to disenfranchise minorities as long as it furthers your...
Yikes. We all knew it was coming but seriously holy shit.
Officially from the US Supreme Court, it is legitimate, worthy, and legal to disenfranchise minorities as long as it furthers your partisan aims.
Offtopic, but I'd never heard of KeepTrack before, so was curious about it and did some digging. The Substack appears to run by the lead moderator of the /r/Keep_Track subreddit, rusticgorilla....
Offtopic, but I'd never heard of KeepTrack before, so was curious about it and did some digging. The Substack appears to run by the lead moderator of the /r/Keep_Track subreddit, rusticgorilla. And here is the original submission there by them, which has more comments, if anyone is interested in reading them:
I was definitely impressed by the article, which is why I was so curious to know who wrote it. I'm not much for reading about US politics these days though, since it's far too depressing and...
I was definitely impressed by the article, which is why I was so curious to know who wrote it. I'm not much for reading about US politics these days though, since it's far too depressing and detrimental to my mental health (and I'm not even American!). So I likely won't be following the Substack, but it's cool to see someone that invested in keeping track of what's going on, and willing to put in that much work to inform others about it.
I totally agree and have been struggling with the same issue. I just thought it was cool that they did it on the side and were simply passionate about the issue, at the time I was really thinking...
I totally agree and have been struggling with the same issue. I just thought it was cool that they did it on the side and were simply passionate about the issue, at the time I was really thinking I might want to do something similar and it was cool to ask them a couple questions about their process and background.
I have not had time to look into this but my understanding has been that not only is this legal, but required by some federal voting rights laws to allow minorities better representation. Illinois...
I have not had time to look into this but my understanding has been that not only is this legal, but required by some federal voting rights laws to allow minorities better representation.
Illinois district four always comes up in these discussions, which is 100% racially gerrymandered
You can argue that drawing a map to give a likely majority to a minority group allows for better representation, but you can also concentrate minority votes in a few regions to help the party who...
You can argue that drawing a map to give a likely majority to a minority group allows for better representation, but you can also concentrate minority votes in a few regions to help the party who would not be getting those votes based on their platform win otherwise contested elections. That's what has ended up happening in a lot of places.
The idea you have to "win" to have representation is also a bit flawed. In a hypothetical scenario with three voting blocs with 49%, 49%, and 2% of the vote, the 2% has equal say in the outcome of the election. It's not hard to find minority interest groups (e.g., NRA) who are catered to because of their influence.
I mean this is the whole problem with the discussion. What is the point of a district at the end of the day? Ideally to give reasonable representation to its population, and unfortunately I think...
I mean this is the whole problem with the discussion. What is the point of a district at the end of the day? Ideally to give reasonable representation to its population, and unfortunately I think that goal has been co-opted by "get the most representatives on my team in congress".
So yes, i'm well aware of packing and cracking (which arguably does not apply at all in the 4th's case as every area around it is also heavily of the same party thus not changing much except minority representation, and why it's an example worth paying attention to), but I think too many people approach this problem from the "how do I stop them from gerrymandering because I know MY party should have won" and not "what would actually be a sensible district so the people get real representation".
In nevada we constantly have the party in power drawing these absurd districts over vast swaths of land that just so happen to get the result they want, but ultimately seem impossible for a representative to actually effectively help? They wind up with some section of Las Vegas and then miles and miles of some portion of a cow county. The people they're trying to help have completely different wants and needs, and are sometimes vastly far apart.
I think it's a lot more important to create districts that can actually be reasonably represented, rather than getting the outcome some politician/party wants.
I think you have that backwards. AFAIK, SCOTUS didn't force Louisiana to redraw... they ruled in favor of the state using the 2024 GOP-led legislature crafted map that they were forced to make by...
I think you have that backwards. AFAIK, SCOTUS didn't force Louisiana to redraw... they ruled in favor of the state using the 2024 GOP-led legislature crafted map that they were forced to make by a lower federal court ruling that their 2022 Congressional map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act:
Highlighting the issue:
Really driving it home:
Further reading on Thomas’ concurrence, which is, frankly, terrifying.
I just want to take a moment to say that it’s insane that we allow “partisan” gerrymandering at all.
Up there with money is free speech and insider trading for politicians
Yikes. We all knew it was coming but seriously holy shit.
Officially from the US Supreme Court, it is legitimate, worthy, and legal to disenfranchise minorities as long as it furthers your partisan aims.
Offtopic, but I'd never heard of KeepTrack before, so was curious about it and did some digging. The Substack appears to run by the lead moderator of the /r/Keep_Track subreddit, rusticgorilla. And here is the original submission there by them, which has more comments, if anyone is interested in reading them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/comments/1czhgdc/supreme_court_ruling_greenlights_nearly_all/
p.s. VICE did a profile on them a few years ago too, which was an interesting read:
Meet the archeologist who's decoding the Mueller investigation for Reddit users
rusticgorilla is very cool and very thorough, they are worth following. Keep_Track was a massively impressive project.
I was definitely impressed by the article, which is why I was so curious to know who wrote it. I'm not much for reading about US politics these days though, since it's far too depressing and detrimental to my mental health (and I'm not even American!). So I likely won't be following the Substack, but it's cool to see someone that invested in keeping track of what's going on, and willing to put in that much work to inform others about it.
I totally agree and have been struggling with the same issue. I just thought it was cool that they did it on the side and were simply passionate about the issue, at the time I was really thinking I might want to do something similar and it was cool to ask them a couple questions about their process and background.
I have not had time to look into this but my understanding has been that not only is this legal, but required by some federal voting rights laws to allow minorities better representation.
Illinois district four always comes up in these discussions, which is 100% racially gerrymandered
You can argue that drawing a map to give a likely majority to a minority group allows for better representation, but you can also concentrate minority votes in a few regions to help the party who would not be getting those votes based on their platform win otherwise contested elections. That's what has ended up happening in a lot of places.
The idea you have to "win" to have representation is also a bit flawed. In a hypothetical scenario with three voting blocs with 49%, 49%, and 2% of the vote, the 2% has equal say in the outcome of the election. It's not hard to find minority interest groups (e.g., NRA) who are catered to because of their influence.
I mean this is the whole problem with the discussion. What is the point of a district at the end of the day? Ideally to give reasonable representation to its population, and unfortunately I think that goal has been co-opted by "get the most representatives on my team in congress".
So yes, i'm well aware of packing and cracking (which arguably does not apply at all in the 4th's case as every area around it is also heavily of the same party thus not changing much except minority representation, and why it's an example worth paying attention to), but I think too many people approach this problem from the "how do I stop them from gerrymandering because I know MY party should have won" and not "what would actually be a sensible district so the people get real representation".
In nevada we constantly have the party in power drawing these absurd districts over vast swaths of land that just so happen to get the result they want, but ultimately seem impossible for a representative to actually effectively help? They wind up with some section of Las Vegas and then miles and miles of some portion of a cow county. The people they're trying to help have completely different wants and needs, and are sometimes vastly far apart.
I think it's a lot more important to create districts that can actually be reasonably represented, rather than getting the outcome some politician/party wants.
What's the difference between this case and the ones that the Supreme Court forced e.g. Louisiana to redraw?
I think you have that backwards. AFAIK, SCOTUS didn't force Louisiana to redraw... they ruled in favor of the state using the 2024 GOP-led legislature crafted map that they were forced to make by a lower federal court ruling that their 2022 Congressional map likely violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-louisiana-congressional-map/
The differences in the legal reasoning behind that and this recent SCOTUS decision are way beyond me though since IANAL, nor American.