Looks like NC will stay gerrymandered until after the 2020 census. The potential intervention of the Supreme Court is ominous. Unless I’m misremembering, Kavanaugh is so extreme that he believes that it’s unconstitutional for states to entrust districting to an independent panel.
So another chance of equitable districts is lost. And those that drew the gerrymandered districts won’t face a penalty.
The only way partisan gerrymanders will be ruled unlawful is if there’s enough of a wave in a “traditionally republican” state that democrats can redraw districts. And remember, it’s already been ruled that it’s OK to redistrict more than once in a census cycle.
Yes. This is why it’s imperative that Dems aggressively gerrymander whenever they get the chance. It’s the only thing that will force a rethink on the issue by the GOP hacks on the Supreme Court.
The state elections board also told the court there was essentially only one doable option — [making November the primary and] holding a stand-alone congressional election a week before Christmas.
And this is a problem because …?
An interesting aspect of gerrymandering that most people overlook is that it can backfire. Gerrymandering works by creating a relative advantage for one party at the expense of diluting that party’s absolute advantage in their strongholds.
In other words, for the Republicans to maintain a majority even when they lose by a few percentage points overall, they have to draw the districts so that they have no overwhelming advantage anywhere. That works great if they only lose by a little.
But what happens if they lose by a lot? Say 10-15%? In such cases, their loss is multiplied because they sacrificed all of their safe districts to maintain majorities during narrow losses. What this means is that, if the Dems win by the same amounts they appeared to be gaining during the special elections (an average 12-15% gain over the 2016 election results) their gains in the House and state legislatures might be magnified, rather than suppressed, by the Republican gerrymandering.
That would be poetic justice to say the least.
[quote=“nemo, post:2, topic:76950”]
Unless I’m misremembering, Kavanaugh is so extreme that he believes that it’s unconstitutional for states to entrust districting to an independent panel
[/quote]Well, yeah … but only if Republicans are in power.
The problem with the Democratic Party “leadership” is that when they’ve been handed power they refuse to use it. The opposite is true for Republican’ts…
But…but…that would be unseemly!
But on the other hand, if the Democrats did that, I wouldn’t be a Democrat.
It is better to fight fire with water instead of with fire.
How pure of you.
We conclude that there is insufficient time for this court to approve a new districting plan
Another success for the Supreme Court.
They bumped this one back to the lower court with the intent of keeping the gerrymandering going at least one more cycle. And with the hope that a new justice would help them put an end to all this nonsense about “drawing fair districts.”
Another win for Anti-Democracy!
Now, please swap all ‘party’ designations, Dem for GOP, and try to imagine it happening the same way.
Hell no.
The RealUglyCons would have demanded whatever the next step is (full court instead of 3-judge panel?) and then continued to sue to not confirm the election results, then not to seat the members elected. All this by holding the court to its original ruling that the districts were unconstitutional, and therefore the officeholders are “fruit of a poisoned tree,” a classic legal construct.
Come on, Dems, that’s the kind of fight that’ll energize your base in these midterms. The Republicants already have maximized their turnout. They can’t get any more because there aren’t any more stupid, lazy cowards than already voted for #PussyGrabber.
Yep. This is why they’re so freaked out. The average generic poll is still around D+8, but the last few have been higher; the last one was D+14. And at least in 2006 and 2010, it was only after Labor Day that the polls really broke for the Ds and Rs respectively, so there’s a good chance it will settle around that higher number. If you look at the 538 graph, the median is a D gain of about 30-40 seats, but there’s a very long tail where it’s possible Ds could gain 80+ seats by breaking through the gerrymander wall. Right now it doesn’t look too likely, but who knows?
Give me one day and the use of google and I’ll have a fair redistricting plan/map done for ya. It’s really NOT that difficult.
Call me simple but, how does one hold a constitutional election with a non constitutional map?
They Would be taking the Merry out of Christmas.
Like if Hispanic and African Americans start buying lots of assault rifles.