This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was published here and on the website for the Brennan Center for Justice.
The outlook in New York is also brighter, assuming that Governor Cuomo doesn’t get up to his old tricks. The current map (which he helped to produce) gives the GOP an unfair advantage.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts can’t intervene to stop partisan gerrymandering. Yet, last week’s North Carolina decision was the eighth straight anti-gerrymandering ruling by a state or lower federal court, underscoring just what an outlier the high court’s ruling really is.
Well said, and very disturbing.
There’s nothing bright about the outlook in Wisconsin. We can smell the rot already - and there’s honestly nothing anyone can do about it. Fitz and Vos have been vying to outdo each other in demonstrating their Walker-clone bona fides of arrogance and dishonesty, and the Supremes have appeared perfectly happy to be seen as a purely political entity.
The author of this post appears to be an expert, which means the already noted failure to explain Wisconsin’s situation better should be remedied next time. Also, some reference to the effectiveness of the Holder/Obama voting rights effort and any other organizations that can be cited would be much appreciated. In other words, if I had been writing this, it would have been at least 2 grafs longer and include more context. Quit with the lazy!
The precedential effect of the order is not “unclear.” It is dispositive of the issues addressed in the ruling’s decretal provisions (the decree at the end). As a trial court ruling, it is subject to the general rule that one trial court cannot overrule another in a matter pertaining to the same parties and facts absent a change in circumstances but is not mandatory authority (a case that must be followed) by other trial courts in cases involving different parties or facts.
However, it is an exceptionally well-considered, well-reasoned, well-supported decision that is likely to have enormous persuasive authority in any case involving our obscenely gerrymandered federal districts and further litigation over our state districts and, I predict, will have enormous influence in the several other states that have the same or similar provisions in their state constitutions relied upon by the court in this case.
The influence is “uncertain,” because it hasn’t happened yet. But that isn’t the same thing as “unclear.”
This +11, with emphasis on “It’s also possible that Democrats [will] win control of the state house, giving them the power to block bad congressional maps . . . .” Devoting resources to the fight for the Texas House could stop a gerrymander of 6-8 or more net congressional districts in 2022, probably at least several more than that in 2030.
To be honest, I don’t want fair maps to succeed. I want Dems to sweep state houses across the nation and gerrymander as much as possible. After the SCOTUS punted on the question, the only way I see a nationwide solution to gerrymandering is if the GOP is forced to table because they face such unfavorable maps for a decade.
When I see it work, then I will believe it. Sorry.