I can’t believe we have to hold out hope for a Roberts court to make a reasonable decision, lord help us all.
“I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” said Georgia state Rep. David Lewis (R) said as legislators were passing the map in 2016. “So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.”
Wait, what? The North Carolina congressional map was drawn by a state rep from Georgia?!?!
ETA: I see it’s since been corrected. Thanks TPM.
They’ll do anything to win…
Now is when Roberts will show his true colors…
I hope my iota of faith in him is not dashed…
Hassan is 110% correct, this is not a result we want. And to the Jill Stein & Bernie Bros who argued that Hillary was just as bad as Trump, both were corporate shills, vote for neither. I hope you are happy with what you have created, and realize that your collective actions and decisions gave us Trump.
I’m not optimistic about this, though I’ll add that I think the NC Supreme Court may have some opportunity to weigh in separately (NC Steve would know better). In addition, I think the fact that the court is taking up both Maryland (a Dem gerrymander) and NC (a GOP gerrymander) provides multiple options here to make a ruling that places the courts above the partisan fray. Either a hands off all partisan gerrymandering or a hands on no party can do this to the other party. Roberts likes simplicity and a simple rule that gerrymanders can’t be designed with partisan intent as the court found is unconstitutional. He could simply trust the finders of fact that they made the correct factual findings and met the proper thresholds and just uphold the legal principle. But alas I digress. We’re not likely to get from this Court the result that would be best for Democrats and all Americans. (That said, if I were Jerry Nadler and I wanted to play hardball LBJ style, I might float a new inquiry into Kavanaugh’s conduct with the hope that he might understand that he needs to bend the knee a bit to the liberal side). Honestly, if Kavanaugh wants to reduce his risk exposure a ruling upholding the NC appeals court decision would do a lot to turn down the temp.
As much as I sympathize with you, that horse has all but been beaten to death…
One could also argue that everyone that demanded we nominate Hillary because she was “more electable” despite her obvious flaws are at fault. But in general I find such after-the-fact blame casting to be a vain and useless exercise that serves our common foes more than our common cause.
These cases worry me. Until now race has been at the heart of all these gerrymandering laws, and it still might be for all I know but if the issue is gerrymandering by party to obtain and perpetuate a particular result then it is not at all clear who is going to win and why. I can see a strong argument that parties should be encouraged to actually compete in every neighborhood.
“We don’t know what Justice Kavanaugh thinks specifically about partisan gerrymandering…”
With Kavanaugh, SCOTUS is gerrymandered.
The honorable Judge Gerry Mander is already on Dotard’s short list for any upcoming SCOTUS openings…
Well since we are about to have that “debate” again, it started last week, it is IMHO good to have a reminder. 
We just went though an election cycle in which “progressives” lost some seats that were winnable (Kira Eastman in NB-2 and Campa-Nijar in CA-50 come to mind) and the party is currently starting a debate about nominating someone who will be tagged as a progressive (Warren, Sanders if he runs) vs. people who fit more into the moderate-left (Beto in his voting record, if not his retoric, Biden, Klobucher if she runs).
And the same debate just popped up with PAYGO rules that Pelosi reinstated.
Someone is going to win, and I have strong views on what is necessary to get Trump and republicans out of office, but there needs to be a reminder that that far left can’t go home with their marbles as they did in 2016 if they loose the nomination fight.
The Supreme Court took the North Carolina and Maryland gerrymandering cases for the purpose of making even the most egregious GOP partisan gerrymanders legal. The only factor that may lead them to look at it differently is if they fear the GOP will lose badly in 2020.
Agreed, what people fail to understand about the Founding Fathers is that governing/elections were always about identifying the lesser of two evils…
Brett Kavanaugh, a former GOP operative-turned-judge
There are not enough stars, daggers, double-daggers, and superscript numerals to address all the ways Kavanaugh is illegitimate.
It should be clearly obvious to everyone that a situation where one party wins a majority of votes but has a small minority of seats in a legislature is against the will of the people. WI and NC are prime examples of this situation now. It’s desperation on the Republican’s part that keep them pushing for gerrymandering that gives them a totally unbalanced number of seats compared to the votes, and it’s way past time for the courts to step in and force the system to be more fair. I have real doubts that will happen…Kennedy wouldn’t do it last year, and Republicans will do everything they can to make sure the SC stays out of it, or allows them the freedom to cheat. If Roberts allows it, it will be one more mark against his court…I doubt he will stop this one though, his love for the court comes second to making sure Republicans continue to control the nation.
Perhaps, just perhaps, all of the craziness going on now will convince some of the yahoos on the court (I’m talking to you, Mr. Chief Justice) that the total corruption of our system has to stop. We can hope…
I wouldn’t hold my breath. Roberts believes in rule by the hereditary elite. The only thing that separates him from the recent class of brazen crooks and thieves is that Roberts is unwilling to violate his own sense of decorum in pursuit of that goal.
Which is not a virtue, by the way. He worships that decorum because it’s the cornerstone of his own power as Master-For-Life of an entire branch of government, not because decorum is a kind of “civic hygiene.”
I’m not optimistic.