Law [Partisan Gerrymandering News] Florida appeals court reverses ruling on DeSantis’s congressional maps

Burning Hammer said:
Still happens man, it's like the left is better at using identity politics than the right. The right is reactive to the lefts identity assault. Politics is dirty.
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The right has consistently played white identity politics for a looooong time.
 
Unless the Supreme Court wants to be responsible for the drawing of every congressional district nation wide, I fail to see how they could logically interfere with how states draw their own districts.
 
Ice That Jaw said:
Its almost as if republicans became ultra skilled in benefitting from gerrymandering as a defense for the every increasing black and latino voting blocks of the democrats. The dems will continue to win the popular vote while the repubs control the majority of districts. Lol
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Looks like it. Instead of trying to poach those voters as you would in a proper democratic they just draw increasing insular district maps that protect them from having to actually compete for votes. Look at that one Florida district doing its best to avoid the coasts
imrs.php
 
What does any of this have to do with Russia though?
 
Farmer Br0wn said:
Unless the Supreme Court wants to be responsible for the drawing of every congressional district nation wide, I fail to see how they could logically interfere with how states draw their own districts.
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They could urge all the other states to do what we're doing and transfer redistricting responsibilities to an independent commission not beholden to any single political party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistricting_Commission

California's Citizens Redistricting Commission is comprised of 5 Republicans, 5 Democrats, and 4 Independents. No politicians allowed.
 
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Arkain2K said:
They could urge all the other states to do what we're doing and transfer redistricting responsibilities to an independent commission not beholden to any single political party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistricting_Commission

(California's Redistricting Commission is comprised of 5 Republicans, 5 Democrats, and 4 Independents).
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Very nice. Gerrymandering is obviously a problem but I have never heard of a solution to how they would re-do these districts.

Without actually checking any of the sources of that Wiki article, it seems optimistic.
 
Undying Poster said:
Very nice. Gerrymandering is obviously a problem but I have never heard of a solution to how they would re-do these districts.

Without actually checking any of the sources of that Wiki article, it seems optimistic.
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It's basically Check & Balance at work, any new redistricting plans would have to be put to a vote by the independent Commission, and any party's shenanigans would be voted down by the other party plus the Independents. As the result, the final district maps in this deep-blue State is considered to be the most competitve in the entire nation.

I still remember when the Governator first lead the fight against partisan gerrymandering in California back in 2008, all the Democratic "girlie men" in Sacramento were up in arms about it and accuse him of a "rightwing power-grab". Well, prop 11 pass and becomes a dream for the other states currently neck-deep in extreme gerrymandering.
 
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fight for redistricting reform could be his best role yet
Chronicle Editorial Board | September 9, 2017

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Arnold Schwarzenegger — the 70-year-old international celebrity, centrist Republican, and former governor of California — has chosen an audacious third act. He’s at the forefront of a bipartisan national push to change America’s hopelessly gerrymandered government.

Schwarzenegger is perhaps the most prominent of a group of politicians who have filed briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that extreme gerrymandering is unconstitutional. The court will hear arguments in the case, Gill vs. Whitford, next month.

Gill vs. Whitford, which concerns Wisconsin’s electoral maps for its state Legislature, is a potentially monumental case.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never weighed in on whether electoral maps — drawn every 10 years, usually by politicians of whichever party is in power — might be unconstitutional simply because they’re skewed toward one party or another.

Gerrymandering should not be a partisan issue. Drawing districts to benefit any one party or to assist a particular candidate is a cynical, bad-faith practice that makes life easier for politicians and worse for their constituents.

Once politicians from gerrymandered areas are in office, they’re often more afraid of facing a primary challenger than they are of facing a competitive general election — so they push for extreme policies.

As a country, we’ve been reaping the discouraging results — extreme polarization — for decades now.

Few are better suited to this mission than Schwarzenegger. As California’s governor, he stumped for Proposition 11, the 2008 initiative that created a nonpartisan citizens commission to draw boundaries for California’s Legislature. Two years later, voters approved an initiative that extended the commission’s powers, enabling them to draw the lines for California’s congressional districts as well.

At the time, California politicians hated the idea of Proposition 11. Democratic legislators, who were in the majority, tried to argue that it was a right-wing power grab.

The results have been anything but as advertised.

The commission has been a resounding success. Its citizen members regard their duties with the utmost seriousness. The voters have gained new trust in their state representatives.

According to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll in April 2017, a whopping 57 percent of registered voters approved of the state Legislature’s job performance — the highest level since 1988. That’s a sea change from seven years ago, when the Legislature’s approval rating was just 14 percent.

As for the promised right-wing power grab, it never materialized. If anything, the balance of power in the Legislature has only tilted further toward the Democrats.

Elected officials’ legitimacy comes from being freely chosen by the voters — not the other way around.

California has learned this lesson, and it’s time for the rest of the country to embrace it.

Some brave members of Congress, as well as state elected officials, have filed briefs asking the Court to draw a hard line against gerrymandering. The list includes politicians from all over the spectrum — House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ohio’s Republican Gov. John Kasich, to name a few.

But it’s difficult for most politicians to surrender power, and those who no longer hold public office are the ones fighting hardest for redistricting reform. Former Attorney General Eric Holder is leading up the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which will focus on changing redistricting procedures in several states. Schwarzenegger has a new Crowdpac, called Terminate Gerrymandering, which he’s pledged to match dollar-for-dollar.

In some ways, they’ll be facing an uphill battle — redistricting reform is a detail-based process that rarely grabs headlines. On the other hand, they’ll have a great national example in California — the state that got rid of gerrymandering and improved political trust.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/...rnold-Schwarzenegger-s-fight-for-12184324.php
 
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cincymma79 said:
it's bad when your party doesn't do it.
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Ding ding ding. Plenty of posters here who never had a problem with it until recently (just like the Electoral College). Must be a coincidence.
 
The Higher Power said:
Ding ding ding. Plenty of posters here who never had a problem with it until recently (just like the Electoral College). Must be a coincidence.
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Yeah it that guy complained about it all the way back in 2016. No way he's partisan about it. He said so
 
Farmer Br0wn said:
Unless the Supreme Court wants to be responsible for the drawing of every congressional district nation wide, I fail to see how they could logically interfere with how states draw their own districts.
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Easy, they can set down some fairly simply rules on drawing districts.
 
cincymma79 said:
Yeah it that guy complained about it all the way back in 2016. No way he's partisan about it. He said so
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Is there anyone who actually thinks that partisan gerrymandering is good on principle? It seems like it's just an argument between people who put tribalism above morality and people who don't rather than between people who think it's good on its merits and people who don't think it's good on its merits.
 
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