Districting is a science and an art, and I don't think Democrats and Republicans are going to agree on anything if its build on any high-level conceptual foundation. The cleanest and best solution...
Districting is a science and an art, and I don't think Democrats and Republicans are going to agree on anything if its build on any high-level conceptual foundation. The cleanest and best solution IMO is to to only allow convex polygons. It wouldn't fix everything, but it would universally lead to an acceptable outcome and would definitely put a stop to the most egregious cases of politicians picking their voters.
I would also help if "of course we were trying to draw the lines in a way that would give us an unfair advantage, but we weren't being racist about it." Wasn't a valid defense.
I would also help if "of course we were trying to draw the lines in a way that would give us an unfair advantage, but we weren't being racist about it." Wasn't a valid defense.
You can still game the system with nice-looking districts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq-Y7crQo44 Although he admits in that video that his algorithm depends on the voter information being...
Although he admits in that video that his algorithm depends on the voter information being absolute fact, which it is not. In the real world it might not work so well.
From the blog post: ... ... ... ... ... ... ... I draw a further conclusion: that's why having control over Supreme Court nominations is so important.
From the blog post:
I generally find it crude to characterize hotly contested Supreme Court cases as pitting Republicans against Democrats. But in this case, the characterization is apt.
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This defense prevailed. The Supreme Court was persuaded that the legislature was trying to ensure that Republicans would win District 1. As a result, the map will stay in effect, so Republicans will, in fact, win District 1. So, yes, the Republicans won this case.
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So what happened in Alexander? Here’s what I think.
Alexander was a close case on the merits: the plaintiffs brought a marginal racial-gerrymandering case, but they won anyway in the district court, and the Supreme Court had to decide whether the deferential “clear error” standard of review canceled out the weaknesses in the plaintiffs’ case. It could have gone either way.
There were no high-minded philosophical debates. Instead, the case boiled down to a series of sharp, but non-philosophical, disputes about the interpretation of the evidentiary record and of ambiguous statements in prior cases.
In resolving those disputes in the State’s favor, the majority was influenced by its broader project of preventing litigants from using racial-gerrymandering claims as an end run around its recent decision barring partisan-gerrymandering claims.
This style of judicial reasoning should be accepted and expected, but not celebrated.
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Although the majority and the dissent disagreed on pretty much everything, there was no philosophical disagreement. They both applied the same standard—race can’t be the “predominant factor”—and except for Justice Thomas’s solo concurrence, no one questioned that standard.
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Cromartie II [in 2001] is a virtual carbon copy of Alexander. So I guess nothing has changed. Except … Cromartie II was written by Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Stevens, O’Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg. The dissent was written by Justice Thomas, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Kennedy. Wait, what?
As it turns out, moving blocs of Black voters can be helpful to either party, depending on who is drawing the maps. When Black voters are moved from a swing district to a landslide district—the situation in South Carolina in 2021—this is helpful to Republicans. When Black voters are moved from a landslide district to a swing district—the situation in North Carolina in 1997—this is helpful to Democrats. In Cromartie II, the Supreme Court was persuaded that the legislature’s goal was to gerrymander the map in favor of the Democrats, and so the Democrats’ gerrymandered map was permitted to go into effect, over the dissent of the conservative wing of the Court.
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Alexander was decided in the wake of Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U. S. 684, 721 (2019), which held that partisan gerrymandering claims are non-justiciable. When it came out, Rucho was perhaps the single most disliked ruling ever among progressive Court-watchers, although Dobbs has lapped the field. If there is ever again a majority of Democratic appointees on the Court, I suspect that very few opinions from the current Court will be overruled (as opposed to read narrowly), but Rucho will be overruled at the first opportunity.
But Rucho is on the books and the current Court is committed to it.
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I find it difficult to criticize either the majority’s reasoning or the dissent’s reasoning with much fervor because it’s a close issue. As I see it, the 6-3 split on standing reflects the inevitable tendency of judges’ views on ideological issues to spill over to non-ideological issues, at least when those issues are close. And that’s what happened in Alexander, too.
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Should that have happened? Well, a judge would have to be some combination of a robot and a saint for that not to happen. Perhaps in a perfect world this type of judicial decision-making would not occur, but inveighing against it is truly tilting at windmills.
I draw a further conclusion: that's why having control over Supreme Court nominations is so important.
Districting is a science and an art, and I don't think Democrats and Republicans are going to agree on anything if its build on any high-level conceptual foundation. The cleanest and best solution IMO is to to only allow convex polygons. It wouldn't fix everything, but it would universally lead to an acceptable outcome and would definitely put a stop to the most egregious cases of politicians picking their voters.
I would also help if "of course we were trying to draw the lines in a way that would give us an unfair advantage, but we weren't being racist about it." Wasn't a valid defense.
You can still game the system with nice-looking districts - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq-Y7crQo44
Although he admits in that video that his algorithm depends on the voter information being absolute fact, which it is not. In the real world it might not work so well.
From the blog post:
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...
...
...
...
I draw a further conclusion: that's why having control over Supreme Court nominations is so important.