The Supreme Court is allowing California to use its new congressional map for this year’s midterm election, clearing the way for the state’s gerrymandered districts as Democrats and Republicans continue their fight for control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The state’s voters approved the redistricting plan last year as a Democratic counterresponse to Texas’ new GOP-friendly map, which President Trump pushed for to help Republicans hold on to their narrow majority in the House.
And in an unsigned order released Wednesday, the high court’s majority denied an emergency request by the California’s Republican Party to block the redistricting plan. The state’s GOP argued that the map violated the U.S. Constitution because its creation was mainly driven by race, not partisan politics. A lower federal court rejected that claim.
Nice of them to “allow” it. I thought the states were responsible for their own elections?
The question was more about the constitutionality behind how the map was decided. Republicans were arguing it was about race which is unconstitutional. You can only gerrymander to make a one party state… Which like… Wtf?
“Oops we fucked democracy. Let’s do the bare minimum going forward.”
I’d hope this will bring us closer to real legal barriers to gerrymandering, if hope hadn’t been beaten out of me by now.
The weird thing is this CA law removed anti-gerrymandering laws. We had a legal barrier here in CA, but this law was to remove that barrier so we could counter TX. It sucked voting for it.
It’s time constrained.
Yeah this was definitely a race for the bottom, but unfortunately a necessary one. Michelle Obama’s idea of “when they go low, we go high” only works if your opponent has a miniscule amount of morals or shame.
It also doesn’t work when a very large percentage of people desperately WANT you to go low.
It only works when the voters notice/care. If they did, the Republican Party would have died after GWB.
From what I’ve read the barrier wasn’t actually removed, so much as putting it on pause for a time. This map will only be in place until 2030 when the maps were going to be redrawn anyway, at which point the new map will be created using the standard anti-gerrymandering method.
It’s not weird if you start with the premise of Democrats being just as dirty and underhanded as Republicans. Both these private organizations benefit from this. The people, not so much.
Dirty and underhanded? Sure. “Just as” dirty and underhanded? No.
The world is not black and white. People are not either pure or utterly corrupt. Everything is a spectrum, everything a matter of degree.
Interesting that you want to argue that the world isn’t black and white while arguing that simple party affiliation determines whether someone deserves sympathy or villification for the same action.
This is a very “only the Sith deal in absolutes!” type of statement.
The truth is that people are just desperately clinging to the idea that Democrats winning an election will solve all our problems despite all the evidence to the contrary. They’ve proven time and time again that they are completely fine with “the status quo” because they benefit from all this turmoil just as much as Republicans do. They will not be our saviors no matter how badly people want to believe it.
Interesting that you want to argue that the world isn’t black and white while arguing that simple party affiliation determines whether someone deserves sympathy or villification for the same action.
This is a very “only the Sith deal in absolutes!” type of statement.
Nonsense. No one is arguing that “simple party affiliation” is what makes gerrymandering okay.
California’s law specifically triggered only if Texas went through with their proposed gerrymander. It also has an expiration date following the 2030 census, at which point the California Citizens Redistricting Commission will resume their duties.
Please tell me you realize these are not the same. If you cannot see the difference, you are either a zealot or arguing in poor faith.
Democrats vote for something that should not benefit them and benefits the people as a whole. Republicans do something that makes a change necessary. Democrats vote to TEMPORARILY undo that benefit for the people with a time-based reenacting of the benefit.
You: BOTH SIDES!!
Democrats try to vote for ranked choice voting in some states. Republicans push to outlaw that for the entire country.
You: BOTH SIDES!!
It’s weird because Dems have been the ones making all the anti gerrymandering laws lmao
Takes a very low iq to understand both sides being the same
Of course because it’s good PR, and then later when they don’t want to be constricted by such rules, they just write new laws to nullify it.
The result is effectively the same as if they’d never passed these anti-gerrymandering laws in the first place, yet the sycophants eat this stuff up despite getting absolutely nothing from it.
Don’t forget that the Texas legislature was only able to gerrymander due to Texas Dems showing up and giving them a quorum.
The change is time constrained. Anti gerrymandering laws go back into place.
Hey - maybe this shouldn’t be legal at all? Why is neither party proposing an amendment outlawing this?
Laws are useless without consequences.
The GOP will never support clean cut voting laws, they have to manipulate the votes to win anything they haven’t had the numbers to win an election since Nixon. That’s the reason our voting laws are convoluted in the first place.
Why is neither party proposing an amendment outlawing this?
Proposals have been made.
But the majority party rarely sees an incentive to change the rules they won under. And a minority party never has the votes to overturn a majority-written set of maps.
There isnt any need for a constituonal amendment to stop gerrymandering. A simple act of Congress will do it
And, to be absolutely clear, nothing less than an act of Congress will stop it nationwide. And any anti-gerrymandering measure that isn’t nationwide is an endorsement of partisan gerrymandering in red states.
I don’t see how an act of Congress could do it for the same legal reasons Trump can’t “nationalize” elections, and the same reason I believe the supreme Court upheld this.
The States have the right to organize how votes are performed, but no one in the U.S. has a right to vote in reality. They have a right to not be discriminated against during voting.
Let’s say Florida decided they won’t have a popular vote for president and the currently elected representatives vote on the electors.
Every person in Florida just lost their right to vote, but they did not discriminate in doing so, and it could be legal. The residents would have to be pissed at their State government for allowing such a vote to pass… But federally, it could be constitutional.
Gerrymander remapping has been deemed unconstitutional in other states specifically because they were trying to manipulate representation of certain races to change the results.
So, this CA law is removing the anti-gerrymandering legislation that CA Democrats got enacted. The Democrats proposed a state-wide initiative to stop gerrymandering. It won, and we were all happy. Now we have to remove that legislation because Republicans in other states are going the other direction.
If you think getting 20 Republican governors to sign up for a Constitutional amendment that will destroy the chances of a Republican majority US House is a doable do, then I have a bridge to sell you. The thing is, even proposing it would cost the taxpayers million in all the logistical crap that would happen to have a vote for something guaranteed to fail.
Because it already exists. This is a temporary law.
Where’s all those naysayers who said the court wasn’t going to let CA do this?
The court may be right leaning, the court may be infiltrated by corruption and lobbying, the court may have an old doucher who dick don’t work and will take RVs as bribes… But c’mon, they still like to keep things interesting.
Now get out there and fucking vote for someone other than what the DNC tells you to.
They’ve fallen back to “well it doesn’t matter anyway because elections will be canceled.”
With all ramping up of the attempts to steal state voter roles (ie ICE will leave if you hand over voter rolls), actually stealing 2020 ballots from Georgia, and calling to nationalize the election it’s almost like they knew this was coming. Weird.
With a heavy dose of “See! Both parties really are the same!”
