Supreme Court, on 5-4 Party Line Vote, Blocks Gerrymander Remedy

[Wyrt]

Once again the conservative members of the Supreme Court show what utter pieces of shit they are.

So glad we got another shit stain on the bench thanks to Trump.

[Underverse]

Once again the conservative members of the Supreme Court show what utter pieces of shit they are.

So glad we got another shit stain on the bench thanks to Trump.

Pretty much all that needs to be said. Republicans cheating/abusing the system to get into positions of power is nothing new, as has been demonstrated again and again and again.

[Mormolyce]

Hard to imagine a more powerful illustration of the corruption of the electoral system and the partisan nature of the judiciary in one.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The only thing that would make more Latino voters equate to a permanent Democrat majority is the stupidity of the GOP. Latinos are not a group of super-liberals. On average, they're not too far off from whites, tending to be a little more liberal in some areas, a little more conservative in others, and even those differences are fairly small once you normalize for age (the Latino demographic has a younger average age). It's kinda the GOP's own fault that they struggle to convince the Latinos who are conservative and whose viewpoints more naturally fall in line with the GOP to actually vote for them.

(Agreeing with you here) Lest we not forget that "Latino" is a pretty big category, and we have Latinos immigrating from certain countries that vote overwhelmingly Republican. Cuba comes to mind as the most obvious, but it's also not the only one.

Latino voters are not some kind of ace in the hole for Democrats.

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Hard to imagine a more powerful illustration of the corruption of the electoral system and the partisan nature of the judiciary in one.

Citizens United comes close on the corruption side, but partisanship? Nah, both parties agree they should be able to buy elections.

[Mormolyce]

Citizens United comes close on the corruption side, but partisanship? Nah, both parties agree they should be able to buy elections.

Good to see some bipartisanship.

If only there was an independent candidate who pledged to clean up the swamp. But you know, wasn't lying through his teeth.

[Gray_Matter]

I was clear that I prefer hands off redistricting, but provided evidence that it's accounted for about a single seat total. Fuckery with districts is obviously quite common, but it more or less balances at the national level. I'd prefer doing away with it, but it doesn't matter anywhere near as much as the fantasies of partisans make it seem.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...is-safe-right/

Second, Republicans’ astounding state legislative gains in the 2010 midterms — the year before the decennial redistricting cycle — allowed them to redraw four times as many congressional districts as Democrats in 2011 and 2012, stretching their geographical edge even further. As a result, in 2012, Democrats won 51 percent of all major-party votes cast for House candidates but just 47 percent of all seats. In 2014, Democrats won 47 percent of all major-party votes but just 43 percent of the seats. Amazingly, just 16 of 247 House Republicans won their races by fewer than 10 percentage points.

So the dems won 47% of seats with 51% of the vote in 2012 and 43% of the seats with 47% of the votes in 2014 and you are saying that it accounted for a single seat?

[Spectral]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...is-safe-right/

So the dems won 47% of seats with 51% of the vote in 2012 and 43% of the seats with 47% of the votes in 2014 and you are saying that it accounted for a single seat?

I think the evidence on the matter is pretty clear - the majority of this disparity has to do with clustering of populations rather than deliberate gerrymandering. To the extent that they're gerrymandered, the national split gets fairly close to even. Throwing up your hands in disbelief at that isn't actually evidence - see academic paper linked earlier for the empirical work on the matter. The majority of the effect just comes from urban and racial clustering. Think otherwise? Bring evidence.

[LaserSharkDFB]

Once again the conservative members of the Supreme Court show what utter pieces of shit they are.

So glad we got another shit stain on the bench thanks to Trump.

This is less on Trump and much more on the GOP members who refused to do their fucking job and let Obama nominate a Justice. Gorsuch is 100% sitting in a stolen seat.

[Masark]

the majority of this disparity has to do with clustering of populations rather than deliberate gerrymandering.

How is a system of districting that uses clustering of populations to skew the vote results NOT gerrymandering?

[Spectral]

How is a system of districting that uses clustering of populations to skew the vote results NOT gerrymandering?

See the Vox article earlier, including:

As Jonathan Ladd has written, gerrymandering is not a very useful concept in itself. Redistricting is just a process that weighs competing values, including but not limited to compactness, competitiveness, preserving communities of interest, and racial representation. If representing particular communities and geographical areas is important, then the resulting districts will likely include many that aren’t competitive. There’s nothing villainous about this; people are just more likely than they used to be to live near people who vote like they do.

Democrats are concentrated into fewer districts that are much more densely Democratic than suburban and exurban districts are Republican. Urban populations have increased sharply. You'd have to basically scrap districting altogether to have an outcome that didn't structurally favor Republicans in 2018.

[Machismo]

Once again, conservatives demonstrate that they hate freedom and equality, sad!

[Grapemask]

See the Vox article earlier, including:

Democrats are concentrated into fewer districts that are much more densely Democratic than suburban and exurban districts are Republican. Urban populations have increased sharply. You'd have to basically scrap districting altogether to have an outcome that didn't structurally favor Republicans in 2018.

You can't keep quoting a quasi-opinion article and a source that backs your claim; this is the definition of internet bubbles and people selecting the data that represents the reality they'd like to believe is the case. It's like the anti-climate change people who furiously link the thoroughly refuted and debunked study on Daily Caller, or any of a small handful of other thoroughly refuted and debunked "studies," while ignoring the tens of thousands to the contrary that have been extensively peer reviewed and repeated.

Such as in this case, where there are hundreds that have found that gerrymandering is significant and has lead to an alarming shift in Democrat vote suppression in the area of 15%. This is exactly why Republicans poured millions of dollars into that very goal starting around 2008. It's worked well. Most claims to the contrary are usually cherry-picking or hiding facts, or ignoring the reality that suppression through redistricting needs to be done continuously, as populations tend to shift (and the US is currently in such a major population shift that we've given it a name), and that votes towards the end of a redistricting period will not be so heavily diluted as votes in the beginning of a period.

[Cthulhu 2020]

No no guys, it's TOTALLY fair and just to cram a district 80% full of Democrats while surrounding districts are 47% Democrat. Nothing to see here. Move along.

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But hey, every time gerrymandering comes up, the usual suspects on these boards come on here and start crying about how Democrats do it just as much as Republicans!

And we can remind them that it was Democrats who voted to make gerrymandering illegal, and Republicans who voted to keep as is.

[Macaquerie]

You'd have to basically scrap districting altogether to have an outcome that didn't structurally favor Republicans in 2018.

Why haven't we done this yet? Most people don't even know what district they belong to until election time, and we're supposed to believe that having an elected representative who comes from the same Rorschach inkblot that we do actually matters?

I mean this is really not that hard to remedy, if your state has 5 seats in the House then you vote for 5 people out of a list of all the people putting their hat in the ring, and the top 5 vote getters are seated. Both parties will have an incentive to nominate qualified candidates rather than partisan hacks to avoid getting wiped out by straight party line votes.

[Fugus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_...onal_districts

This is my districts. Quite literally the will of the people have been silenced in my state and I fear, under the situation, things might end up escalating into violence before shit gets fixed. Look the at representation before the last districting as that should tell you the proper layout, then look at it after it.

The 2013 election was a 55/45 popular vote in the Democrats favor.
The 2015 with a 50/50 split.

Also have to remember this place likes to try and disenfranchise voters now.


The republicans are trying their best to screw this nation for themselves. And one of many future cases where the newly elected illegitimate justice votes against the will of the people and what is best for this nation.

Honestly, districting needs to be removed from all parties as that genie is out of the bottle now with how powerful computers and how the Republicans showed just how effectively they can screw over voters with it last time around. Now it will be free game on both sides whenever districts are drawn.

[jimboa24]

No no guys, it's TOTALLY fair and just to cram a district 80% full of Democrats while surrounding districts are 47% Democrat. Nothing to see here. Move along.

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But hey, every time gerrymandering comes up, the usual suspects on these boards come on here and start crying about how Democrats do it just as much as Republicans!

And we can remind them that it was Democrats who voted to make gerrymandering illegal, and Republicans who voted to keep as is.

Oh please. The democrats had the chance in 2008 to get rid of it when they had the majority in BOTH houses of Congress. Did they? Fuck no. They love to bitch about it when they lose, but when they win and are in power it suddenly becomes a non-issue. Why? Because they love to use it every bit as much as Republicans do. And the minute they make gains in Congress again, the oh-so-fucking-important issue of gerrymandering will vanish overnight.

[Fugus]

Oh please. The democrats had the chance in 2008 to get rid of it when they had the majority in BOTH houses of Congress. Did they? Fuck no. They love to bitch about it when they lose, but when they win and are in power it suddenly becomes a non-issue.

In all honesty, it wasn't as big of an issue before the last districting. That was the first one where computers became powerful enough to assist in drawing with the surgical precision we have now.

The last districting demonstrated just how badly it could be abused with the technology of today and that is what made it such a huge deal with the extremes of which it has been used and how wide of a scale it has been done on.

Given what the last districting has shown us. All parties should be banned from doing it and it should be required to be done by a neutral 3rd party with mandatory prison time for anyone who attempts to gerrymander.

As I stated before, the genie is out of the bottle since it is known how to do it and now any party who wins during that election can give them virtual revolt level protection and silencing of the voters in that area with the ability to redo it every 10 years unless something happens so drastic they lose even that majority at which the other guy gets to do it to them.

[PosPosPos]

Oh please. The democrats had the chance in 2008 to get rid of it when they had the majority in BOTH houses of Congress. Did they? Fuck no. They love to bitch about it when they lose, but when they win and are in power it suddenly becomes a non-issue. Why? Because they love to use it every bit as much as Republicans do. And the minute they make gains in Congress again, the oh-so-fucking-important issue of gerrymandering will vanish overnight.

Oh, finally you alt-righters admit that the Democrats aren't scumbags like the cheating Republicans because they won't abuse their power even while holding majority in both houses.

Indirect confession, but better than not at all.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Oh please. The democrats had the chance in 2008 to get rid of it when they had the majority in BOTH houses of Congress. Did they? Fuck no. They love to bitch about it when they lose, but when they win and are in power it suddenly becomes a non-issue. Why? Because they love to use it every bit as much as Republicans do. And the minute they make gains in Congress again, the oh-so-fucking-important issue of gerrymandering will vanish overnight.

I dunno if you remember, but there were like 20 other issues at the top of the ticket, and the Gerrymandering that completely fucked the whole system up occurred in 2010. So yeah, it wasn't blatantly terrible in 2008. Republicans continuously linked ONE SINGLE C-shaped district in Illinois over and over and got their panties in a twist, when they had their own districts drawn all fucked up. But no, it wasn't nearly as big of an issue back then. It is now. Nice try though.

And if you don't believe me, search for pre and post 2010 districts. Hint: They're redrawn every 10 years based on the census... or supposed to be based on the census.

These last 6 years the courts have found instances where Republicans were using RACIAL DATA to draw districts, which is BLATANTLY illegal and they got slapped down for it. But they still got away with drawing some pretty fucked districts. See Florida on page 1.

And don't forget, history will remember that Republicans wanted Gerrymandering to stay, so they lose the right to bitch about it if it gets flipped back on their asses post 2020.

Next.

[Gestopft]

Oh please. The democrats had the chance in 2008 to get rid of it when they had the majority in BOTH houses of Congress.

In addition to what @Fugus just said about how computer modeling made it a more pressing issue only recently:

I see this "reasoning" come up for many issues: why didn't Dems fix this, or do that, or what have you...it's not like two years is all that long in legislative time- you can't get everything done that you want to, and you have to spend political capital judiciously. The system is set up to be slow and deliberate, and getting anything major done takes a) time and b) cooperation from the other party if you want it to last.

Additionally, there was a wee bit of a financial crisis going on at the time. Between finishing TARP, Dodd-Frank, and the ACA (also a pressing issue at time), it's not like they had the time or ability to push through every pet project and issue they wanted to get to.