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North Carolina Redistricting

Milhouse said:
feats of strength
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ginsberg.jpg
 
By what merit should judges be selected on a bipartisan or apolitical basis?
 
PhDeac said:
By what merit should judges be selected on a bipartisan or apolitical basis?
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Well it has been the norm for most of our political history....judges, at least at the federal level, were primarily selected based upon their legal abilities and not their views on issues. Hence why Scalia got 97 votes and Ginsburg got 96 - while their views were well known, their legal bona fides were unquestionable
 
What are "legal abilities" and how is that distinct from views on the issues? #notalawyer
 
PhDeac said:
What are "legal abilities" and how is that distinct from views on the issues? #notalawyer
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Skill in legal analysis, legal philosophy, legal writing. It's hard to quantify, but it boils down to some combination of logic and writing skills.

I'll put it this way, when I read a Roberts opinion, or a Posner opinion, even though I may fundamentally disagree with the result, I can appreciate the extremely high-level of logical reasoning
 
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MysteryMen said:
Skill in legal analysis, legal philosophy, legal writing. It's hard to quantify, but it boils down to some combination of logic and writing skills.

I'll put it this way, when I read a Roberts opinion, or a Posner opinion, even though I may fundamentally disagree with the result, I can appreciate the extremely high-level of logical reasoning
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So the ability to justify one's views on the issues.
 
Race for Pennsylvania Supreme Court Breaks Spending Record

Here’s how the spending in the Pennsylvania race breaks down, according to Justice at State and the Brennan Center for Justice:

Christine Donohue (D) $1,923,910.52
Kevin Dougherty (D) $3,853,205.51
David N. Wecht (D) $2,880,604
Anne Covey (R) $925,406.29
Michael A. George (R) $861,623.60
Judith Olson (R) $575,007.56
Paul Panepinto (I) $234,000
Six primary losers raised a total of $1,563,619.85
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Granted, the record they beat was two guys vying for one spot. Here we had seven people vying for three spots.
 
Townie and avalon the Philadelphia yankees and Ph the Floridian need to step off this thread. This is Our State now and we'll select our judges without your carpetbagging help.
 
PhDeac said:
So the ability to justify one's views on the issues.
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I think that's a gross oversimplification. Judges are expected to, and often do, apply the law, even when it conflicts with their personal views.

Legal reasoning is more of an ability to explain why the law applies the way it does to the facts of a specific case
 
There are a lot of legal issues out there that don't require you to have a "take" on it one way or the other. I just spent the last three hours doing jury instructions for a negligence case and my opinion on the issue wouldn't matter neither would the judge's. It would matter if the judge wasn't able to sort through the rationale required to figure out why X instruction is require with this fact pattern while Y instruction isn't. Obviously trial courts are a little bit of a different animal than appellate courts.

Tough for voters to analyze who is going to do a better job sorting through god awful proposed instructions to properly charge a jury and it certainly doesn't matter if the judge is conservative or liberal - just if they're able to properly logic their way through it.
 
RChildress107 said:
Pretty much. Especially for the highest court in a jurisdiction.
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Certainly more true in these circumstances, but there are definitely cases where respect for stare decisis trumps personal views. See, Planned Parenthood v. Casey
 
I'd like that measure more if it was paired with a baseline measure of party segregation to distinguish gerrymandering from proximity. It's not gerrymander if existing boundaries are used (city lines, county lines, zip codes, census tracks).
 
PhDeac said:
I'd like that measure more if it was paired with a baseline measure of party segregation to distinguish gerrymandering from proximity. It's not gerrymander if existing boundaries are used (city lines, county lines, zip codes, census tracks).
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No. This is the argument that the conservative gerrymanderers have been using to defend their plans. Data is so sophisticated now that you can draw districts that look perfectly normal but were still designed to entrench the incumbent party.

The problem with gerrymandering is its effect, not its aesthetics. You shouldn't be allowed to gerrymander just because it "looks good," and the Supreme Court essentially rejected this test a few weeks ago with regard to racial gerrymandering.
 
Can you elaborate? Do you have examples of districts that "look good?"
 
PhDeac said:
Can you elaborate? Do you have examples of districts that "look good?"
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I don't have specific districts off the top of my head, but in the Virginia case that was just at the Supreme Court that had to do with state house districts, the court below had found that there could be no gerrymandering because the districts were normally shaped. And the Supreme Court said that's not the standard, instead intent is what matters. Irregular shape can be an indication of intent to gerrymander, but it's not a prerequisite.

It's very easy using computer software to draw districts that generally follow county, city, whatever, lines but still have the same effect as a district that looks irregular in wasting more votes for one party than another. Wasted votes are the core of gerrymandering.
 
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