• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

SCOTUS decisions

what a terrible fucking post

Cav is correct that both do it. Pubs have done it effectively in VA, and Dems have in MD. Take a gander at MD's congressional districts - half of them look like rorschach tests. Unsurprising result by the SCOTUS. Pleasantly somewhat surprised by the citizenship question decision.
 
Trying to compare the two is like comparing a guy that stole a candy bar to a guy that robbed a bank. Look at the misrepresentation numbers caused by gerrymandering between what a normal districts would be vs the districts we have drawn now and then come back with the both sides do it. It was literally the republican play book the last decade through state campaigns before anyone was paying attention as they celebrated the first black president. If it’s up to the states to enact laws, and the state lawmakers that need to enact those laws are in the position of power because of the way the districts are drawn, explain how a state law will ever be made?
 
Cav is correct that both do it. Pubs have done it effectively in VA, and Dems have in MD. Take a gander at MD's congressional districts - half of them look like rorschach tests. Unsurprising result by the SCOTUS. Pleasantly somewhat surprised by the citizenship question decision.

Not disagreeing that MD is gerrymandered, but it is a really weirdly shaped state. They'd look like Rorschach tests regardless.

Regardless, the partisan breakdown of this ruling is very telling. Both parties have a history of gerrymandering, but right now, protecting gerrymandering protects one party much more than the other. Here's hoping VA Dems take the state legislature this year and pass some reforms.
 
Cav is correct that both do it. Pubs have done it effectively in VA, and Dems have in MD. Take a gander at MD's congressional districts - half of them look like rorschach tests. Unsurprising result by the SCOTUS. Pleasantly somewhat surprised by the citizenship question decision.

who cares if both parties do it? it's cheating bullshit.
 
Don't act like that matters.


At least the court did the right thing on the citizenship question.

Sort of. Sounds like they said don't be so obvious in what you're trying to accomplish. Reword it a slightly different way so we can rule in favor.
 
Equal protection under the law?

A minority of voters should be able to disenfranchise a majority of voters legally?

Setting up an objective non-partisan or bi-partisan standard that secured this is not making up rules or drawing lines. Case law along with legislature provides the broad legal strokes which are then enacted through the regulatory process.
 
Last edited:
I love it when donkeys think they get to write the rules and then get all pissy when they perceive they’ve been broken. Here, the lack of guidance in the Constitution is precisely the problem. How can the SCOTUS decide an issue when the Constitution doesn’t say anything about it? Drawing lines would just be making up rules, which is good evidence that the framers reserved this issue for resolution through the political process, not the federal courts.

and what is supposed to happen when the political process is completely broken?
 
Not disagreeing that MD is gerrymandered, but it is a really weirdly shaped state. They'd look like Rorschach tests regardless.

Regardless, the partisan breakdown of this ruling is very telling. Both parties have a history of gerrymandering, but right now, protecting gerrymandering protects one party much more than the other. Here's hoping VA Dems take the state legislature this year and pass some reforms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland's_congressional_districts

Seriously look at MD's districts. You have 3 guys from Baltimore Co who live within 10-15 minutes of each other as reps.

I have a fair amount of hope here in VA regardless of this year's state election results. There's pretty strong momentum to have a bipartisan commission do the map drawing, which is how it should be done. I think our 2017 gains in the house have enough Pubs scared that, if they don't agree, they could be the minority party the next time the map is to be drawn.
 

It's more of a problem with Pubs now because of all the gains they made in the state legislatures in the 2000s. As we were busy congratulating ourselves for electing our first African-American president, the Pubs were cleaning up nationwide in state houses in all but the more liberal states. So when they got to draw the maps after the 2010 census, they went hog wild. From more of a historical perspective, both parties have engaged in it extensively. My favorite story from here in VA was after a recent census a Dem delegate from the Fredericksburg area got his district redrawn so he could get rid of his probable opponent. Trouble was that redrawing got that opponent's father by the same name out of the district but not the opponent, who he lost to.
 
Deeper dive on the NC and MD districts.

 
So gerrymandering can be challenged in state court and federal has no grounds to interfere?
 
So as a things should be done at a state level, Junebug explain how in a state that doesn’t allow ballot initiatives, that has already gerrymandered safe districts to wield unrepresentative power will the state be able to address gerrymandering?
 
So gerrymandering can be challenged in state court and federal has no grounds to interfere?

No, it can be challenged under either, but we just lost in federal court on partisan grounds. Didn't the PA Supreme Court invalidate the PA map a couple of years ago saying it violated PA's state constitution? That's why I have more hope that this can be dealt with at the state level in some states.
 
So as a things should be done at a state level, Junebug explain how in a state that doesn’t allow ballot initiatives, that has already gerrymandered safe districts to wield unrepresentative power will the state be able to address gerrymandering?

Good point. If you live in a state that has already gerrymandered legislative districts to the extent that it will be virtually impossible to remove one party as the majority without a ridiculous popular vote majority from the other side, and that party also controls your state supreme court and doesn't have ballot initiatives, what remedy exists to restore two-party rule in your state? The answer, apparently, is that there isn't one, and you can either choose to live with a near-permanent one-party system in your state, or move to one that's more of your liking. Which is what I've heard a good many conservatives say over the years anyway.
 
So as a things should be done at a state level, Junebug explain how in a state that doesn’t allow ballot initiatives, that has already gerrymandered safe districts to wield unrepresentative power will the state be able to address gerrymandering?

Sucks to suck
 
Voting blocs are neither monolithic nor permanent. Win hearts and minds, and then gerrymander if you so choose. Rinse and repeat.

fast forward: activist judges refuse to hear conservative case against gerrymandering !!!1
 
Junebug is doing an intellectual version of “nananana boo boo, stick your head in doodoo”
 
Back
Top