In his opinion for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that partisan-gerrymandering claims pose particularly difficult problems for courts because it is well settled that legislatures can consider politics when drawing district maps. The question that courts would have to decide is when the consideration of politics has gone too far and violates the Constitution. But there’s no requirement, Roberts wrote, that a party’s representation in a congressional delegation or state legislature reflect its share of the statewide vote – a concept known as proportional representation.
Instead, Roberts emphasized, what plaintiffs in partisan-gerrymandering cases are asking courts to decide is what level of representation would be fair, and how to draw maps to achieve that level of fairness. There are many different ways to measure fairness, Roberts suggested, and choosing among them “poses basic questions that are political, not legal.” Nothing in the Constitution provides standards to decide what is fair, much less the kind of “limited and precise standards that are clear, manageable, and politically neutral” that courts would need. In the absence of such standards, Roberts concluded, courts should refrain from deciding partisan-gerrymandering cases...
Roberts is basically saying "Not My Problem," passing the buck back to state legislatures that will never take the matter as serious as Roberts claims they should. This is basically abandoning an aspect of Judicial Review that gave federal courts the power to force the other two federal branches - and the states - to play by Constitutional rules.
...Reading her dissent from the bench, Kagan emphasized that the Supreme Court had refused for “the first time ever” to “remedy a constitutional violation because it thinks the task beyond judicial capabilities.” Kagan lamented that the “partisan gerrymanders in these cases deprived citizens of the most fundamental of their constitutional rights.” The gerrymanders “debased and dishonored our democracy, turning upside-down the core American idea that all governmental power derives from the people.” “In giving such gerrymanders a pass from judicial review,” she concluded, “the majority goes tragically wrong...”
Similar to how Roberts' conservative court dismantled key enforcements of the Voting Rights Acts - where Roberts and Scalia and the others no longer saw racism and allowed racist states to start suppressing ethnic and young voters - this Court refuses to see how one party - their own Republicans - repeatedly abuse the maps to shape Congressional districts in ways to guarantee virtual strangleholds on enough districts to keep Democrats from out of power.
The only way Democrats ever regain the House at this point is in massive voter uprisings against Republicans' growing extremist agendas. And the only response Republicans will have to that is to gerrymander and cheat even more.
Every Red State where Republicans dominate the state legislatures - like here in Florida - will essentially double-down in their attempt to reduce the odds of Democrats winning or maintaining enough districts to do anything the voters actually want. States where there are slim Democratic voting majorities but have overwhelming Republican elected officials, mocking their own residents needs.
I wrote about this before: The Republicans today rule in the minority, ignoring the majority when it comes to better wages, better schools, better environment, safer gun laws, stronger social aid...
Neither democracies nor republics can live without the accountability elected leaders owe their citizenry.
Right now, the only proper, the only SANE response relies on 108 million Americans who currently refuse to register to vote, either from apathy or fear.
The way gerrymandering works is through Republicans exploiting population gaps between dense urban/suburban areas - that lean liberal - and rural ones - that lean conservative - by packing most liberal (Dem) voters into one tight district and then spreading out shards of liberal voters into five or seven spread-out districts ranging across ten counties where the registered votes are few and far between.
They can get away with this because there are large enough percentages of the states' populations that are unregistered to vote (but could), so they can gauge where that 30-40 percent of non-voters are and plop them into those wide-ranging districts where they can be counted on to never show up.
So here's the deal, Americans. All 108 million of you need to register to vote, right now. Granted, under normal circumstances I'd suggest registering all as Democrats, but I dread that the GOP mapmakers will create algorithms that will just shove all those Dem voters into overloaded singular districts and leave eight districts sparsely GOP. Instead, I'll suggest mixing it up a bit, some of you register as Dems and the rest of you register as No-Party-Affiliate. Being a NPA should drive those computer modelling software crazy, because they can't determine that you're friend or foe. If a serious plurality of voters were No-Party, the GOP can't rely on creating "safe" districts out of you and run the risk of allowing their more extreme candidates alienating enough NPA voters to lose those districts.
The only way to defeat gerrymanders is through voters, lots of us, dedicated to the republic (not Republicans) and willing to overwhelm EVERY district with angry, disaffected no-party votes.
I need to hear from you 108 million by the end of July.
Get registered to vote.
Get ready to vote every Republican out of their goddamned gerrymandered seats.
The United States needs you.
2 comments:
The only bright spot in the ruling was the part that said state or federal legislation could rein in gerrymanders, and considering that HR1 did just that, and California draws its districts with an independent commission, we need to put redistricting reform on the list of things we must clean up when we get a Democratic administration and senate again.
-Doug in Oakland
California may be okay out of this ruling, but the battleground states where the Democratics are majority voters but the Republicans hold all the power are screwed. Florida and Georgia and Texas in particular - where population shifts between now and 2028 that are younger and multiethnic (and thus more liberal/socialist) will go against Far Right conservative agendas - are going to see the worst gerrymandering efforts in spite of the rules because the GOP knows the Roberts Court won't even lift a finger against them.
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