Justices Display Divisions in New Cases on Voting Maps Warped by Politics

If we gerrymander so one group can vote to repeal the 13th Amendment, "because I believe it is for the good of the country!", or the right of women to vote, or free speech, will this be alright? I think any politician who stands up and says, I did this to help My Party have an Unfair advantage has stated in no uncertain terms that he is a traitor, his speech is treasonous, yes saying you want to kill the president or overthrow the government are NOT protected in free speech just like screaming Fire in a crowded movie theater is not protected. Equal Representation which to my simple mind means an even playing field. Could we imagine if one team in the Super Bowl had to have all members have their legs joined together like a three legged race, "Because I support the American League and think it's best for football", no one would even think this is fair, sensible and in anyway acceptable. It would be labelled stupid and completely unAmerican. People in either party who gerrymander, simple bring them up on charges of treason. This is Not politics at all. This is an attack on America and the right of citizens to vote in fair elections. Those politicians who favor gerrymandering can move to China, Iran or Russia where elections have about as much validity as a balance sheet of Donald Trump's bank loan applications. Gerrymandering is Treason. Pure and Simple.

Donald Trump doesn't need gerrymandering; he has racism. While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, he secretly knows that they can be led around like a bulls with nose rings - only instead of bull rings, he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead them wherever he wants. If DJT doesn't destroy our fragile democracy, he has published the blueprint and playbook for some other demagogue to do it later. If a democracy like America's is going to exist, there will have to be a paradigm shift in human thought throughout the world. In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular group of people or a belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity. See RevolutionOfReason.com

Fifty years ago, on of my high school teachers arranged to have my class put on a mock Supreme Court hearing before several classes. I was one of the attorneys to argue the two cases on the docket selected by the teacher, cases he deemed to be the most pressing. One involved gerrymandering and the concept of one man one vote. Astonishingly, the issue remains unresolved fifty years later. Unfortunately, Justices like Kavanaugh again appear to want to avoid the issue. Like racism, which a Justice claims no longer exists and thus does not need to be addressed, Kavanaugh believes states can address the problem. Obviously, they cannot. Unless precluded by the Supreme Court, the "in's" will continue to draw voting district lines to favor their party. The result, like election fraud and efforts to deny minorities the opportunity to vote, is to dilute the value of certain votes in an effort to thwart the single most important right of our democracy- the right to elect our leaders.

If the Chief Justice thinks the First Amendment "may have a role to play if states draw districts to harm voters based on their political viewpoints" then I have a very hard time understanding why he would not vote to assume that role in these cases. Kavanaugh's vote also seems to be in play. It is completely incomprehensible to me that the Court would view the current state of our politics and come to the conclusion that partisan redistricting by either party does not affect free speech and voting rights.

Making Gerrymandering illegal is the only solution. The Supreme Court can make that a reality more so than the states can.

Why is one person, one vote such a problem for Republicans? Because it would be representative democracy and Republicans would lose on that front. So much for their fake "Originalism." Sensible people know better. Scalia was a fake!

Baker vs Carr - could it become relevant to the state legislatures as well? Congressional districts are usually drawn by the State Legislatures. And the parties in control make the call. Yet the States legislative districts are themselves arguably gerrymandered. I wonder if the Supreme Court will come down with a ruling that also requires the Sates to draw state-districts that are not gerrymandered or otherwise drawn on too too political lines. 2 asides: . gerrymander - pronoince with a 'hard' g https://www.wsj.com/video/gerrymandering-youre-saying-it-wrong/090A5D97-4928-4A08-A800-8305465AC5F5.html . The MA legislature Senate and House districts are, in my opinion, gerrymandered

This is why term limits need to be established for all Judges to include the Supreme Court.

I was gerrymandered in our senatorial and assembly districts by Republicans when in the majority in this state. Both representatives are enough to cause anaphalactic shock everytime Im near a polling place. One of them cares only about another country and the other is a hack who berates constituents. Thanks GOP for these wunderkinds and for your chicanery.

This important issue regarding fair voting seems to be another case where our expectations are based on norms rather than word of law. So much of what has made front page headlines these past two plus years has also been the disregard of long-held and long-respected norms of political behavior in a democracy. How do we, or is it possible to, return to a more civil political climate where there's some professional respect paid to each other rather than the ugly, hateful rhetoric that fills our news media?

I understand why parties in power want to gerrymander; I just don't understand how it could possibly not be viewed as a brazen affront to democracy. Might as well let the incumbent count the votes her/himself, unsupervised.

The five Republican Supremes may take a twirl with suitors from the opposition. But, at the end of the night, they will go home with the one who brung 'em. Gerrymandering most often favors Republicans, lately, and so, by a vote of 5-to-4, gerrymandering will be endorsed. Of course, the majority opinion will couch it in terms of states rights, or lack of federal jurisdiction, or whatever smokescreen of verbiage the Gang of Five sends aloft. Seen it all before. See "Citizens United" smokescreen. See "Bush v Gore" smokescreen. See "Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc." smokescreen. Might John Roberts take a powder and dalliance with the libs, as his vote rescued Obamacare a while back? The conservative chaperones at this dance have their eye on him.

Prediction: somehow the Maryland gerrymander will be found unconstitutional, while the NC one won’t be.

Watch the so-called Originalists scurry under their robe rocks.

Of course, gerrymandering's wrong. Of course, it would make more sense if district lines were drawn such that the partisan breakdowns of individual districts aligned as closely as possible with the overall percentages of their respective states. However interestingly, in 2018, the Democrats carried the national House of Representatives popular vote by 8 points. Ignoring the effect of third-party candidates, that's roughly 54% to 46%. The overall party breakdown in the current 116th House of Representatives includes 235 Democrats. FWIW, that's basically exactly 54% of the total of 435 House seats!

if the supreme court declares this is OK..then there really isn't hope for democracy in the United States.. we might as well pack up and go to the moon.. a seemingly easy way to do this is just count people agnostically..without reference to sex, race, religion and especially partisan affiliation. these meandering districts are an affront to representative democracy....

NC State Representative David Lewis' best line illustrating his intentions was, “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats.” How can this possibly be considered fair?

An interesting point concerning this issue is that it has virtually no bearing on the presidential election. It is obviated by the outdated, undemocratic Electoral College.

The elections are federal, the problem is national, and the issue goes straight to the heart of our democracy. There is no excuse for the Supreme Court to fail to act. Another punt by them would be a sad day for our democracy.

This is a highly complex issue, party versus party, urban versus rural, race versus race, money versus poor, and more. My suggestion would be to set the outer boundaries, saying anything which exceeds these limits is not allowed. Other than that, it is up to the local governments to manage their affairs.

Gerrymandering: the politicians pick the voters. Campaign donations: bribery required for politicians to remain in office. First amendment: corporations are people, too, only richer and immortal. The old ship of liberty has been leaking for decades, and it is long past time for another Constitutional Convention. Here were some of Thomas Jefferson's thoughts about this: "... I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. we might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilised society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors... each generation is as independant of the one preceding, as that was of all which had gone before. it has then, like them, a right to chuse for itself the form of government it believes most promotive of it’s own happiness: consequently to accomodate to the circumstances in which it finds itself that recieved from it’s predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind that a solemn opportunity of doing this every 19. or 20. years should be provided by the constitution; so that it may be handed on, with periodical repairs, from generation to generation to the end of time, if any thing human can so long endure."

Gerrymandering cannot be controlled at a state level unless every state eliminates it at the same time. In the absence of that, you will have states that unfairly redistrict to gain a congressional advantage. All the states will never act on their own. The Supreme Court must act for it to be resolved.

Dear Justice Kavanaugh: Let's look at it this way: It may be a "big lift" for the court to get involved. But if, as Chief Justice Roberts said in his confirmation hearing, the court's job is to serve as impartial umpires, what alternative is there? After all, I can't recall a ball game in which the umpires declined to make a decision because it was too difficult. Further, every year that the court fails to fashion a legal standard standard in the hope that "recent developments around the nation ... may make action less necessary" is a year in which our democracy - and our faith in that democracy - is eroded further. If, as Chief Justice Roberts has claimed, there are no "Bush justices" or "Obama justices," only justices, then it's time for those justices to do their job and remedy a situation that all apparently agree is damaging to the heart (and, I might add, soul) of our system.

I doubt that even 1% of the population supports gerrymandering. The question is not whether gerrymandering is good, but whether or not it is constitutional, and if not, how does one determine whether or not any particular redistricting plan is unconstitutionally gerrymandered or not? The latter question is not easy to answer. Would it be unconstitutional if, for example, in a state split 55%-45% between two parties if every district were structured such that it had 55% of its voters from one party and 45% from the other? Even though that would give the larger party 100% of the seats? Even seemingly neutral criteria such as compactness and maintenance of municipal boundaries could create something that looks gerrymandered just because Democrats tend to be concentrated in larger cities.

If not now, when, Justice Kavanaugh? There may be initiatives to address gerrymandering, but they are still few and far between and highly contentious. Piecemeal efforts will only create a non-level playing field among states which distorts the expression of Americans in their electoral preferences. You need a more uniform approach to national offices, and a Supreme Court statement encouraging that is overdue, in my opinion.

In North Carolina, gerrymandering amplifies the value of the rural vote by dividing urban voting districts into smaller parts and diluting them across large expanses of rural geography. This would seem to be the pattern that benefits Republicans across the nation, including the national gerrymander called the U.S. Senate. Don't look for the Republican Supreme Court justices to dismantle the system that got them nominated to the court in the first place.

I am not the lawyer in the family but it seems we could write into law a requirement that Congressional Districts should as much as is possible follow existing boundaries such as city, township, and county limits. That single guideline should put make a substantial difference.

The Supreme Court, under Justice Roberts, may well thread the needle on this one. They could rule that the gerrymanders in the two cases before them are unconstitutional, but only on the basis that the legislators overtly stated that their overriding principle in setting the districts was pure partisanship. Of course, in the future no legislator will ever say that their intent was partisan. So there will be no future cases. (Sort of like saying there can't be obstruction of justice unless the party doing the obstructing says that his intent was to obstruct justice.)

Representative districts should be set randomly by household within each state. (After the first draw, newly-registered voters are randomly assigned to a district while continuing voters remain with their drawn district for as long as they live in that state.) Defining representation geographically more distinctly than that is unnecessary in our highly connected world.

The article does not seem to present the fact that there are far more states which have been gerrymandered by Republicans than Democrats. Pursuant to the trend over the last 10 or 20 years, and adhering to the will of the authoritarian in the White House, Republicans are trying their best to force an irrevocable one-party rule upon our former democracy. It appears that the United States Supreme Court is now reluctant to step in and rescue fair and balanced elections. Consequently, the citizens must do it themselves. In heavily Republican gerrymandered states, all Democrats should register as Republicans. It will appear that there is not a single Democrat in the entire state; every citizen is a Republican. Democrats will be camouflaged among the"friendly" populace, as is done in every effective guerrilla insurgency for self-determination. If they so choose, Democrats can re-register as Democrats several months before a primary election, and long after Republicans have tried to cheat democracy with favorable boundary lines carefully drawn with ill-will towards the People. So that's where Republicans are forcing the country; Democrats and other dissenters must hide and appear to be friendly to the ruling Republican regime. I truly believe a lot of "patriotic conservatives" would accept a country where the Democrats have completely and permanently lost power everywhere. In fact, they're trying to do this very thing.

In a democratic country, fair elections would be sacred. One human, one vote. Not a lot of expectation this court is supportive of democracy.

Think of the U.S. as 50 separate countries. Each has a system to elect members to represent them in a combined government with limited responsibilities. The vast majority of decisions on self rule still exist. Why is the Federal government sticking its nose into a states business? Why should other states representatives, or a federal court interfere with a state issue? For hundreds of years gerrymandering has withstood state and federal scrutiny. Let voters of a state change their constitution, if they don’t like their system. Ceding more control to the Federal Government, or a Federal Court deminishes a states right to self rule, just as eliminating the electoral college would. If Federal jurisdictions are forced on states, they should be permitted to leave the union. There joining involved liberties that are now trying to be taken away.

In the years since the famed "identity politics" of Southern Strategy took hold, I have come to view partisan gerrymandering as a sort of proxy for racial gerrymandering. We need to have nonpartisan districting commissions, probably computer assisted. While we're at it, we need to look at some of the local shenanigans that took place in Georgia and Dodge City to close the loopholes that local politicians use to suppress the vote. I could go on...

Since there are no national elections, just state elections, the Constitution leaves the manner in which elections are conducted to the states. Unfortunately, the founders assumed elections would be conducted fairly because they did not anticipate the rise of political parties. As long as people, politicians and advocacy groups are involved, voting districts will be drawn to advantage on faction over another. This includes maps drawn by supposedly nonpartisan committees such California’s vaunted Citizens Redistricting Committee. Its charter requires it to draw voting district maps that “minimize” the devision of “communities of interest” and enable “minorities to elect a candidate of their choice.” The Citizens Redistricting Committee’s charter is a gerrymandering manual. Voting district maps should be drawn by computers programmed to ignore all factors except population density. The federal government should devise a standard computer software program that states could use for the purpose of drawing voting district maps. Residents of the states should shame their legislatures into using the program.

If this country is to survive as a democracy, it needs the real input from it citizens. Gerrymandering is a joke and should be discontinued as soon as possible. In this day and age, it cannot be difficult to overlay a graph representing the number of congressmen a state's population warrants based on the location of that state's population.

So these current Supreme Court Judges will let us know this year if they are for their party or for Democracy - finding legal reasons and/or excuses for their individual determinations.

This will be yet another manifestation of GOP " reasoning " and grasping for Power. It will NOT end well. Thanks, Mitch. 2020.

1 person 1 vote! There is no rational basis for not following this fundamental precept of democracy. How to get there is the job of the courts to ascertain. To say we cannot figure out a formula is not acceptable and shirks their duty! Come on justices you are smart people I'm sure there are many ways to get it done.

Then there's the greatest gerrymandering example of them all: the Electoral College. Ending gerrymandering in all its forms brings us closer to a true democracy.

"drawing election maps to help the party in power" Is there a "party in power" anymore? Or do we just elect a king that rules for 4 years. Congress continues to cede power to the President. Trump is overriding Congress's "power of the purse" with his National Emergency and Congress won't even lift a hand to override his veto. Why bother having a Congress at all? Why should we, the public, waste time electing representatives that are so willing to give up what little power they have? Maybe Congress should be dissolved? Or, in a 'more perfect union', Congress would dissolve the office of the Presidency. Either way, what we have now ain't working for us.

I have read dozens of stories about how impossible it would be to create a fair redistricting process after the decennial census. It doesn't strike me as being that hard at all. Simply take the process away from the party in power, have an equal number of each side on the redistricting committee, and require that the redistricted map must result in an election where each party has the number of representatives that corresponds to the number of their partisans in that state. For example: State A has 10 representatives. Registered voters, as measured in the census and party rolls, break down as 60 percent Republican and 40 percent Democrat. The resdistricted map must result in six Republican reps and 4 Democrat reps. If it doesn't, it is adjusted for the next election, which is two years away, not 10. This is very fair and very practical. It may also result in more registered voters and, ¡heaven forfend!, more voter participation.

I expect another punt. Although SCOTUS seems foolish to keep on punting. The issue isn't going away. We just move anti-gerrymandering campaigns to state courts and ballot initiatives. Neither approach can create a coherent federal policy on partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court is just going to see another case on the docket before long. The wise decision in my opinion would affirm the 1986 ruling. The majority wrote "intentional discrimination against an identifiable political group and an actual discriminatory effect on that group." I can personally identify my political group and demonstrate gerrymandering's discriminatory effect on my voting rights. I can literally walk you through the gerrymander in Salt Lake City. You might want a bike if you're short on time but that's how close things are. If the Justices can't see fit to rule negatively on gerrymandering, they don't deserve to be Justices.

Look, any improvement to politicized districting is a welcome improvement. But we should not think evening out political party concentration is the goal of fair redistributing. The goal is to assure fair representation of its citizen’s views. Pre-selecting certain groups as "protected", even with an independent commission drawing the lines, puts the voting system in a terrible bind. Why are political parties and race more deserving of math-tested protection, than the environment, or home vs public schoolers, or gay rights? Why are natural boundaries like cities a starting point, vs connecting common interest groups that gather on-line from around the state? Why shouldn’t the protected group vary from year to year as hot-button issues evolve? Once you pre-ordain a protected group, all of these schemes rely on pre-existing geographic clustering of like-minded voters so there is a chance you can draw a "fair" compact district with enough votes to win. While gerrymandering may enable ghettoized minority groups to win seats, why should their voice be muted if they live scattered across a state? Only some form of multi-member proportional voting ensures our constitution rights are respected, while avoiding equally troublesome preferences- - see http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/gerrymandering.html for more details. We don’t get too many chances to fix the way we vote. Let’s put fairness above party.

Gerrymandering should be abolished. It is unjust.

Republicans complain about gerrymandering causing their voting power to be diluted. Where is their outrage over the Electoral College, then?

See if any of this sounds like a democracy: * We have a White House that operates under minority rule (by almost 3 million votes). * We have a Supreme Court justice who was stolen by the Senate violating its constitutionally mandated process of advice and consent. * We have a president who is enriching himself in violation of the emoluments clause in the Constitution. * We have gerrymandered districts all over the country but largely in red states defeating the principle of one person-one vote. * Because of the skewed voting results we have federal courts stacked with often unqualified judges rammed through by a minority-party-controlled Senate. (Considering margin of error: about 25 percent of U.S. voters are Republicans; about 32 percent are Democrats, the rest independents.) * Many states engage in serious voter suppression by illicit purging of voter rolls, closing of strategically targeted poll stations, reduction of early-voting days, reduced polling hours, and unconstitutionally rigid voter ID laws. And with all this we unblushingly send agents to monitor foreign-government elections to ensure THEY are fair.

Genuine democracies don’t tolerate partisan control of the voting process. Its a recipe for abuse.

My prediction is the Supreme Court will rule for Republicans in both cases

No one should have any expectation that the supreme court will rule for justice. They were appointed to help wealthy white power brokers and no one else. It should be obvious to anyone who lives in the real world that if a person is rich and white then they can do anything without regard to the laws and our courts and legal system will protect them. Our president is a prime example of a wealthy white criminal who is protected by the system we euphemistically call the justice system. Our legal system is for punishing poor people and keeping them down, as well as protecting wealthy white people. The things that are said in our constitution are jokes meant to fool people into believing they live in a country that has the rule of law.

Since current gerrymandering favors Republicans, the court will approve it.

The number of comments is a sad commentary on how apathetic Americans have become about their democratic processes. And then we wonder why enemies of democracy get elected.

I should be able to sue if I am redistricted to another community that I am not sensibly linked to. I know geographic radius isn't a sensible metric for a community along a riverway for example, but there has to be a common sense way to say neighborhoods and towns cannot be split into patchwork districts for such obvious gerrymandering purposes.

The brief before the court in the North Carolina case brought by the League of Women Voters is stunning. The computer technology available to draw and test the outcome of alternate voting district maps can assure victory for the party drawing them based on available voter registration data. The court has ruled maps cannot be drawn based on racial data. Is a voter no less disenfranchised if the basis is upon which party he/she is registered? There are tests for "fairness" in drawing these maps to prevent either party from distorting the outcome. Let us hope the court decides for the voice of the voter.

I do not have much faith in the Court to correct the insidious practice of gerrymandering. Enough of the justices are infected with partisanship to make it unlikely they’ll do the right thing. Now, if the Howard Schultzes and Michael Bloombergs really want to use their billions to help the country, they’d bankroll initiatives to set up nonpartisan districting commissions in all the states that don’t already have them. That’s our most realistic chance at a level playing field.

There is only one constituency for gerrymandering: incumbents. Legislation to end gerrymandering would be the appropriate way to end the practice, but that doesn't happen in the fraternity of incumbents that our congresses have become. The Supreme Court is justifiably reluctant to define legislative procedures. States should consider ballot initiatives to find a democratic solution to a republic problem.