Discussion: Supreme Court Affirms Ruling Striking Down NC Legislative Districts

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What was the number? We’re Clarence and gorsuch the holdouts?

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So who redraws the districts? Will the GOP be able to litigate and push it past 2018?

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Scotusblog said it was a “per curium” disposition, and they didn’t mention any dissents. In plainer English, the judgement was issued in the name of the court, and none of the justices chose to offer additional comment.

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  1. Don’t know
  2. I can’t see how these districts could be used for another election, now that courts all the way up have found them unconstitutional.
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It is mind-boggling, but appears the NC GOP has won a delay yet again, so that they can still incorporate illegal court-acknowledged gerrymandering in the next special election. I really doubt they could delay yet again with another SC appeal for 2018, but they are like pit bulls in a dogfight- bite, hold, and shake.

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This was done via the “orders list,” not as a Court decision. They simply sent it back to the District Court for further consideration. As @ottnot posted, no justices were named. This one will be back, I’m sure.

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Here is a link to the Court’s order:

The District Court ordered new, special elections out of cycle, and the Supreme Court vacated that order finding the District Court did not do enough of a case-specific analysis. It is not surprising that the Supreme Court took a hard look at an order that had the effect of cutting short terms of office for certain (but not all) legislators in the state and established a new court-ordered election. Mandatory injunctions (those that require someone to do something) always face a tougher bar than injunctions that preserve the status quo or prevent something from happening in the future (i.e., an order that no new elections can be held under the maps).

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Isn’t it curious that no criminal charges result from such gerrymandering.
Until such activity becomes a criminal offense, even the ruling of the Supreme Court is milk toast.

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Not “could”. Will.

This is top priority. Do your job.

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One of the dumbest comments ever.

The queue here is, The Supreme Court = unanimous or 9-0.

In order to have gotten that agreement from all 9, North Carolina’s districts were really violating the law, egregiously!

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According to Wex
Per curiam
Definition

Latin for “by the court.” An opinion from an appellate court that does not identify any specific judge who may have written the opinion.

"Overview

"A “per curiam” decision is a decision delivered via an opinion issued in the name of the Court rather than specific judges. Most decisions on the merits by the Supreme Court (and other appellate courts in the U.S.) take the form of one or more opinions signed by individual justices (and joined in by others). Even when such signed opinions are unanimous, they are not termed “per curiam.” “Per curiam” decisions are given that label by the Court itself and tend to be short. Usually, though not always, they deal with issues the Court views as relatively non-controversial.

"For examples, see, e.g., Wood v. Bartholomew, 516 U.S. 1 (1995) and Kimberlin v. Quinlin, 515 U.S. 321(1995). However, they are not necessarily unanimous. Indeed, some per curiam decisions are accompanied by dissenting opinions. See, e.g., Bush v. Gore, 531 US 98 (2000).

“The top appellate courts of most states (including, e.g., Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina) use the same terminology.”

In this case it was pretty much open and shut as far as the Supreme Court was concerned. My guess is Roberts was embarrassed to learn that bigots still exist in the Republican party.

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My guess is that Roberts was really terrified at the idea that there would be open arguments on the record in front of the court, and that some of his colleagues might write dissenting opinions.

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Where are you ncsteve? Can you enlighten on this from inside N.C.?

So Judge Roberts, how’s that killing of Article 4 of Voting Acts working out? What…within 24 hours of that ruling the very southern states it applied to got on the ball doing precisely what Article 4 was meant to prevent: the violation of black voter’s rights.

“Our country has changed,” Roberts wrote in the opinion he delivered that day, Shelby County v. Holder. It has wiped away so much of its racist past that the “extraordinary measures” employed by a key provision of the Voting Rights Act could no longer be justified.

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