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Supreme Court rules federal courts cannot invalidate partisan gerrymandering [pdf]
- lordCarbonFiber 7y agoThe cognitive dissonance required to wax poetically about how voters should just get their representatives (elected and permanently in power because of these broken districts) to pass laws to redraw the broken districts is astounding to me. Checks and balances, never heard of them. i can't wait to see what districts look like in a few years now that there's 0 potential for voters to be heard.
- andrewla 7y agoThe thing is that there is potential for changes at the federal level to contradict this. If Congress is controlled by the Democrats, and they see many states with Republican-gerrymandered districts, they might see a way to increase their influence by legislatively preventing gerrymandering on the national level, forcing states to make their districts more fair. There's of course always the chance that the party in power will see that preventing gerrymandering will hurt them more than it will help them, but that won't always be the case.
- klodolph 7y agoHow would they do that? Pass a law? Does the federal government have that authority?
- tptacek 7y agoProbably not.
- tptacek 7y agoWait, I am probably wrong about this; the Constitution explicitly delegates this power to the legislature.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> How would they do that? Pass a law? Does the federal government have that authority? Yes, at least for federal election districts. (The power is shared with the states, though.) The crux of the SCOTUS decision is the court has no way to define fairness when it comes to drawing political boundaries. Congress passed a law banning gerrymandering using racial criteria, so courts can overrule maps on that basis. But Congress hasn't addressed partisan gerrymandering. The courts, rightfully in my opinion, after reading the SCOTUS opinion, are rejecting the right to unilaterally expand the set of criteria upon which they can reject political maps.
- evgen 7y agoThey can do it without passing a law actually (which is a bit scary if you think about it.) Congress and congress alone has the power to determine its membership. They can simply pass a resolution stating that no member who was elected by a district that was gerrymandered by some specific criteria will be seated in the future. The courts can go pound sand if they don't like it.
- pvg 7y agoSome of this has been litigated and it's not quite that black and white. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_v._McCormack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_v._McCormack
- evgen 7y agoYes, the court can make such claims as they do in Powell, and Congress can ignore them. It is pure power politics, but the reputation of the court has been so diminished that Congress could easily get away with refusing to seat a member or two and there is really nothing that anyone could do to stop them.
- pvg 7y agoYou can make that argument about anything, though and it be would be equally applicable. 'The branches of the US government can start ignoring each other'. Sure, they could but that possibility doesn't really offer any useful insight. It's like saying I can become world heavyweight boxing champion by shooting my opponents.
- avs733 7y ago> The cognitive dissonance It's not cognitive dissonance, it's bad faith
- anigbrowl 7y agoThis needs to be stated more loudly and often. Reasonable people can disagree, and civility demands providing disputants with the benefit of the doubt, which is institutionalized in the courts. But when enough evidence of bad faith accumulates, a reluctance to acknowledge it is moral cowardice at best, cynical symbiosis at worst.
- vinayak147 7y agoGerrymandering backfires when voters change parties easily and frequently. Loosely held party loyalties keep politicians on their feet and forces them to focus on actual voter's issues. When voters dogmatically lock-in to a party affiliation for decades/generations it leaves politicians with zero incentive to listen to them and shifts their focus to drawing safe-districts. The best way for voters to be heard is to radically reject all party-lock-in-narratives and fire anyone who is in a safe seat - irrespective of everything else.
- salawat 7y agoWell... At least now we can honestly say the system is still as vulnerable to being rigged as it was before. I'm honestly at a loss for words. EDIT: Words no longer 404ing. It appears the Court is not satisfied with the State's criteria/legal reasoning to justify justicable action against the districting plans. They hold the measure must be politically neutral, and have some basis in being legally addressed. They go at length to describe circumstances to describe cases with inherent justicability (districting along racial demographics), but offer no hints or grasps as to a measure of degree at which political gerrymandering becomes "excessive". It looks like Maryland attempted to use "likelihood of persistence" of the gerrymandered district, but this was dismissed on allowability based on previous precedent. "Intent" was also singled out in a couple different wordings, but did not hold satisfactorally for the Court. Of particular concern was of the Federal Courts to support State Court's particular measures on what constitutes excessive gerrymandering. It seems the Court is nudging State populations to appeal to the Federal Legislature to oversee malconduct in individual State districting. I find this concerning, seeing as our Federal Legislature has enough on it's plate with getting things passed, and the last thing we want is to start having the different levels trying to micromanage each other. I can sort of see some tiny speck of Wisdom in their judgement. I don't necessarily find it satisfying, but I have to grudgingly admit they at least reasoned it out.
- paulryanrogers 7y agoConstitutional amendment
- CameronNemo 7y ago34 senators are represented by less than 8% of the population. Good luck with that. Anarchism is the only reasonable path forward. Liberalism has failed.
- lostmsu 7y agoAnarchism have failed much harder long time ago.
- w8vY7ER 7y agoThis is just so disappointing. We cannot allow this to be the last word on the topic, they must be made to address this!
- klipt 7y agoYou can override a court decision (which interprets the law) by changing the law itself. All you have to do is vote for ... oh wait.
- smhenderson 7y agoSeems like at this point we need Congress to step in to address this. And given 1) they don't seem to want to work with each other at all at this point and 2) regardless of party this conflicts with their own interests I can't see much progress being made on this anytime soon. Disappointing indeed!
- jasonlotito 7y agoThat should be federal courts, not state courts. This is important, because states like Pennsylvania have had its Supreme Court hand down rulings on gerrymandering because of its constitution. I should note that this didn't go to the Supreme Court because it was purely a state matter, and ruled based on the state's constitution.
- ashleyn 7y agoPennsylvania is neither uniformly red nor blue, so this kind of judgement will not be possible in a state like North Carolina.
- jacobolus 7y agoNorth Carolina has a “liberal” majority on its Supreme Court, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Justices_of_the_North_Carolina_Supreme_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Justices_of_the_North_...
- trianglesphere 7y ago> Held: Partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions be- yond the reach of the federal courts. Pp. 6–34 Yea title is a little off. They're pretty specific that it was only federal courts.
- Analemma_ 7y agoThe Governor of California should just say, "Thanks to today's Supreme Court decision, we intend to redistrict California to make it mathematically impossible for Republicans to win a single House seat". I bet you the Senate would agree to a federal anti-gerrymandering provision right quick after that.
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- gumby 7y agoCalifornia districting is done by a nonpartisan commission outside the control of politicians and elections (except president/Vice President of USA) do not have parties in them (e.g. two republicans could be the two candidates for a seat).
- jimbob45 7y agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted. There's certainly corruption to be witnessed on both sides of the aisle.
- shemnon42 7y agoAnd then it would be the legislative branch mandating anti-gerrymandering, which according to today's ruling is the branch that should be doing it. So Gov Newsom totally should do it.
- CameronNemo 7y agoSo what? The House loses like 9 Republicans in that case. Without flipping the Senate, it is meaningless.
- nwallin 7y agoI agree with you, however that's unfortunately not possible. The California Constitution defines the redistricting process in terms of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. We would need a ballot initiative to overturn it. I'm not aware of any initiatives to add such a provision to the ballot in 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistricting_Commission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistrict...
- ashelmire 7y agoThe fact that Roberts actually wrote this without his head exploding is astounding: "Vote dilution in the one-person, one-vote cases refers to the idea that each vote must carry equal weight. That requirement does not extend to political parties; it does not mean that each party must be influential in proportion to the number of its supporters." How can each vote carry equal weight if 60% of the voters get to select 30% of the elected officials?
- chrisseaton 7y ago> That requirement does not extend to political parties I think political parties are a non-entity as far as the US constitution (small 'c') is concerned, aren't they? So the court doesn't have any opinion on them and there are no requirements.
- paulkon 7y agoWhat's the distinction between small 'c' Constitution and the formal document in this context?
- chrisseaton 7y agoThe constitution includes the Constitution, plus precedent, convention, etc. Some countries, like the UK, have a constitution but no Constitution.
- coldcode 7y agoIt's true, the Constitution was written without regard to parties, which I think is a huge failing, but one that could be remedied - if we didn't have partisan politics. But Supremes have created new law many times, both good and bad, and they should have this time as well. What will likely happen is people will challenge maps on other reasons, with no obvious likelihood of success. I have always felt that the rule for drawing a map should involve some kind of rational geometric principal, such as requiring the maps to have a minimal boundary length, making it mostly impossible to rig. But not very likely to ever happen sadly.
- xpe 7y agoI’ve read some knee jerk reactions here on HN. I would encourage everyone to dig deeper. I suggest starting by reading this Atlantic article: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/partisan-gerrymandering-supreme-court-north-carolina/592741/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/partisan-g...
- xpe 7y agoA quote from the above Atlantic article: “Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. “But the fact that such gerrymandering is ‘incompatible with democratic principles’ does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary. We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”
- avs733 7y agoThis is one of those quotes that sounds great in the abstract but fails in any form of reality. The chickens protest to the farmer that the fox is eating them. The farmer says, right but what can I do it's the fox eating you? Everything is a political question...especially when you make it one. The case in front of the courts was about redistricting being politicized. To use the fact that it is being politicized to claim you can't take action to protect people's fundamental right to effective representation is an embarrassing argument. It's willful ignorance towards a goal.
- bsamuels 7y agoThis is actually a fascinating read, despite the disappointing decision. This section really resonates: > It is not even clear what fairness looks like in this context. It may mean achieving a greater number of competitive districts by undoing packing and cracking so that supporters of the disadvantaged party have a better shot at electing their preferred candidates. But it could mean engaging in cracking and packing to ensure each party its “appropriate” share of “safe” seats. Or perhaps it should be measured by adherence to “traditional” districting criteria. Deciding among those different visions of fairness poses basic questions that are political, not legal. There are no legal standards discernible in the Constitution for making such judgments. And it is only after determining how to define fairness that one can even begin to answer the determinative question: “How much is too much?”
- blakesterz 7y agoThat's Roberts writing? "It is not even clear what fairness looks like in this context." Except it IS clear what unfairness looks like, and it's this. “How much is too much?” This, what they are doing right hear right now, this is too much. I have to assume it's obvious to the majority here and they know what they're doing. Kagan's dissent is great and finishes with this which REALLY resonates with me: "Of all times to abandon the Court’s duty to declare the law, this was not the one. The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections. With respect but deep sadness, I dissent. "
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> this is too much There's a reasonable back and forth between the majority and minority on this question. The majority rejects unilaterally expanding the set of criteria the courts can use to overturn political maps. There's a good separation-of-powers argument for that conservatism. (The court would prefer another branch decide what is and isn't too partisan, in the way Congress defined what is illegal racial gerrymandering.)
- rayiner 7y ago
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- bwb 7y agoI just feel like this is another nail in the coffin that is trust in democracy in this country. You look at the stats on how much young people in the USA trust their political system and it just keeps falling for reasons like this. Oh please vote... just remember that we can make your congressional distracts meaningless by overloading it with one side. Oh and ya the electoral college will overwrite the vote of the majority. Democracy?
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> just remember that we can make your congressional distracts meaningless by overloading it with one side Overloaded districts just shift the debate from generals to primaries. I live in Manhattan. It will pretty much always vote blue. That doesn't mean there isn't political competition.
- tptacek 7y ago"Another" nail? If it's a nail, it's one of the first ones in the coffin. Precedent for this decision stretches all the way back to the founders.
- jacobolus 7y agoIn the US context, voting rights were dramatically expanded between the 18th century and the 1960s. A regression to Jim Crow era practices is a serious setback.
- tptacek 7y agoGerrymandering has been a constant since the time of the founders.
- lordCarbonFiber 7y agoThat's wrong, and wrong in really interesting ways.First off if we want to argue from the founders districts were never supposed to be more than 10k people and the number of districts would naturally grow with population. We threw that out the window in the early 20th century precisely to make the representation of power less democratic. Ignoring all of that history, and taking your statement in good faith, it still is reductive to pretend that we're in the same state as the 18th century. Voters are much more diverse, and the technology exists to precisely draw districts to achieve very precise outcomes. The increased precision and ability to do things at scale is a differentiating factor, as well as the increased consequences; a voting population that's just "land owning white males" might see gerrymandering as less extreme that the much more diverse distribution of beliefs we have in the current voting population. The current problems with gerrymandering are huge. Issues that have super majority support among the population (reproductive rights, immigration reform, drug reform, gun control) are controlled by an increasingly small population of voters. You can (and even may be correct) claim that this represents the wills of the founders; it's a much harder sell to claim that this is a "good thing" that the people shouldn't be able to push back against.
- tomp 7y agoIf my understanding is correct, this is a misleading title. Federal courts cannot invalidate partisan gerrymandering - it's left to the individual states.
- HaloZero 7y agoThat is correct, I imagine he's arguing that each state should decide on how to setup it's districting vs the courts. It's already happened in a few states with independent redistricting setups (but mostly in blue/purple states) but it will be much harder in deep red states.
- tomp 7y agoPresumably the less purple a state is (i.e. the more pure red or pure blue) the less it matters, no?
- moate 7y agoPresidental and Senatorial, yes. For the House, those red districts in blue states and vice versa can help influence the majority. At the state level, it depends on the number of districts. Some states are at large (one district) so it doesn't matter greatly, and on the other end of the spectrum you have places like Texas and Cali where there's so many districts that it would be hard to affect. But if you hit that sweets spot of like 2-5 districts (which represents 15 states) than the Map could have a huge effect on things.
- lordCarbonFiber 7y agoThe particularly red/blue states are where this matters the most. Imagining a state with 10 districts and a split of 80-20 along party lines (and this is relatively as extreme red/blue you can get; americans aren't that homogenous). Ideally you'd expect that state to send and 8 - 2 split to the house of representatives to best represent their population. With gerrymandering it's trivial to insure those 20% are silenced as far as federal influence is concerned. That's a lot of people and, I would argue, not an ideal situation.
- duxup 7y agoIt seems inherently unfair, and maybe undemocratic that a party (any party) could control state government with a disproportionately small number of overall votes. Or that any party could gather a large majority of votes, and not actually have any control.
- jimbob45 7y agohttps://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/ For those who want a more in-depth look at gerrymandering and why it's not simply or easy to fix, I highly recommend this series from 538. They do a great job highlighting complicated wrinkles with common gerrymandering solutions and pointing out ideas you may not have previously thought.
- mullingitover 7y agoIt's pretty fitting that the justices who were appointed by presidents who seized power against the wishes of a majority of voters were the ones to drag this corruption-enabling decision over the finish line. Pack the SC until they stop making corrupt decisions.
- ctlby 7y agoCan you explain how the current president "seized" power? Was there some extra-legal mechanism at work that I'm not aware of?
- CameronNemo 7y agoMcConnell blocked the previous president from making his deserved appointment. The current Supreme Court is illegitimate, courtesy of the Senate.
- ctlby 7y agoCan you point to the law McConnell violated in doing this? And if not, in what sense is the current court illegitimate? Finally, how does this in any way address my question about the president "seizing" power?
- jadell 7y agoIt's the Senate's Constitutional responsibility to advise and consent the President's SCOTUS nominations. What is the procedure when they abdicate that responsibility? Remember, the Senate didn't tell Obama "no, we don't like your nominee." They, meaning McConnell, refused to hold any hearings on at all. So maybe he didn't violate the law, but he certainly didn't uphold his Constitutional responsibilities, which I believe is part of the Oath of Office he took.
- ctlby 7y agoNot sure why you were downvoted. This is the best answer I've ever received to my question.
- cardamomo 7y agoGerrymandering is enabled by data collection and algorithms that were once impractical to implement. In declining to take up the issue of gerrymandering in the previous Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy identified this issue. As reported by NPR [0]: > "Technology is both a threat and a promise," he wrote, noting that with the advent of computer technology, the temptation to leverage partisan advantage would "only grow" unless constrained by the courts. His hope, he wrote, was that "new technologies may produce new methods of analysis" for the courts to use in identifying and remedying the problem. So. Let's talk about ethics. This is a community that sees the issue, understands the subtle ways in which data and algorithms can be manipulated to systematically disenfranchise people, and has the power to create the tools that Justice Kennedy wrote about. This is also a community that has the power to resist -- to not let its expertise and skills fall under the employ of those that would harm democracy. Where's the action? [0]: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/25/704523712/the-supreme-court-takes-another-look-at-partisan-redistricting https://www.npr.org/2019/03/25/704523712/the-supreme-court-t...
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- threatofrain 7y agoThe only way that happens is a union. Unless people expect the aura of moral expectation to do anything.
- rossdavidh 7y agoIt might be helpful, if there were publicly available algorithms that could balance the various aims (competitive districts, compact districts, majority-minority districts, etc.) for a given set of geography and census data. That would enable legislators to at least say, in legislation, that algorithm such-and-such (publicly defined and available) will be used with such-and-such inputs (e.g. 1/3 competitive districts, majority-minority for any minority of at least 9% of the overall pop, etc.). Right now, the legislators would have to specify the algorithm themselves, or else specify a proprietary code business product, which seems icky. So, I suppose the dev community could make the tools for drawing maps available, and educate legislators in their use.
- weioruowiuer 7y agoI'm 99% sure things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
- linuxftw 7y agoWhat makes you think they're going to get better?
- weioruowiuer 7y agogood point
- xpe 7y agoHow are you 99% sure? That sounds amazingly precise. I would ask everyone to pause a minute before posting and ask if the comment adds substance to the discussion. If you have support for your argument, include it. If you use numbers, please back them up.
- rayiner 7y agoI'm not sure whether this is a good decision for the country, but it's a good decision for protecting the integrity of the federal judiciary (which is the whole point of the political question doctrine): > In considering whether partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable, we are mindful of Justice Kennedy’s counsel in Vieth: Any standard for resolving such claims must be grounded in a “limited and precise rationale” and be “clear, manageable, and politically neutral.” 541 U. S., at 306–308 (opinion concurring in judgment). An important reason for those careful constraints is that, as a Justice with extensive experience in state and local politics put it, “[t]he opportunity to control the drawing of electoral boundaries through the legislative process of apportionment is a critical and traditional part of politics in the United States.” Bandemer, 478 U. S., at 145 (opinion of O’Connor, J.). See Gaffney, 412 U. S., at 749 (observing that districting implicates “fundamental ‘choices about the nature of representation’” (quoting Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, 92 (1966))). An expansive standard requiring “the correction of all election district lines drawn for partisan reasons would commit federal and state courts to unprecedented intervention in the American political process,” Vieth, 541 U. S., at 306 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). One of the cases underlying this Supreme Court decision involves egregious Democratic gerrymandering in Maryland, my home state. The Congressional district my house should be in looks like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland%27s_3rd_congressional_district#/media/File:Maryland_US_Congressional_District_3_(since_2013).tif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland%27s_3rd_congressional.... It's shaped that way to dilute the republicans in Annapolis with democrats from Prince Georges County, and push the rest of the southeast Maryland republicans into district 5. This is clearly bad. But the question is, is it the role of the federal courts to do something about it? What do you think the reaction in Maryland would be if a Trump-appointed federal judge invalidated this district on constitutional grounds? This decision protects the federal judiciary from the inevitable shit show that would ensue in that and similar situations.
- weioruowiuer 7y agoI think if you took every case heard by the Supreme Court and treated it the same way, they would likely make very few decisions. By these standards nothing is literal enough in the constitution to warrant a decision on pretty much anything really.
- weioruowiuer 7y agoI think any reasonable / rational human being could use the single word "equality" as the criteria and decide unequivocally that what is being done with gerrymandering is not that. Looks like SCOTUS needs congress to hold their hands and spell everything out in laws that will almost certainly contain loop holes. Why is this supreme court unable (unwilling?) to think for themselves?
- milsorgen 7y agoSpecific instance aside the court is wise to remain aloof from the role of king maker. A rare bit of propriety in today's disgruntled political arena.
- pmiller2 7y agoRemember Bush v. Gore? SCOTUS had no hesitation in taking the case then, knowing full well it could decide the election.
- germinalphrase 7y agoMaybe the Supreme Court is not the right entity to decide this issue, but gerrymandering is obviously anti-democratic. By permitting it for political gain, the court allows our two dominant political parties to act as “kingmakers” by controlling the relative level of impact for each vote. With the sophistication of modern data collection and modeling, we’re increasingly seeing politicians win popular vote counts in state races while losing the election. We need a wholesale reconsideration of our election fairness and security practices in this country.
- mrkstu 7y agoA good ruling. Everyone getting upset at this should take a couple things into consideration- 1. Both parties do this now and have done it historically. It is no more a danger today than it has ever been in the past and the Republic has lived and thrived with this system. Generally what it does it create a magnification of power for a party that is in a slight majority position, which can create more continuity in government and allow their ideas to make it into actual law over opposition. This is not a necessarily a bad thing. Voters get to see the full affects of a party's agenda take place and then if they don't like it, the party tends to get thrown out wholesale and the other 'team' ends up with similar magnification to implement their agenda. See Texas and California where this has played out in opposite directions in recent decades. 2. Modesty in the judiciary is a very good thing. Notice that the new 'ultra-conservative' judges have regularly been crossing over to join with the court liberals this term. Why? Because their underlying philosophy is to interpret the law and constitution as written. I appreciate here that they are calling out that the actions taken by the legislatures are not necessarily appropriate, but respecting the boundaries of what their constitutional role will often play to the advantage of those who disagree with this particular ruling. If they were true 'movement' conservatives dictating by desired outcome rather than the law, they could easily slip into a tyrannical mode from the POV of many here. Instead the worst you can say is that they are trying to enforce the law and Constitution as written and you can use your vote to get those changed.
- ctlby 7y agoThis thread is for breathless catastrophizing. Not sure why your reasonable comment is here.
- xpe 7y agoI disagree with your overall take, but I appreciate the thoughtfulness your arguments. I wish other people would not downvote a well-reasoned comment.
- xpe 7y agoYou are missing the point when you say ‘It is no more a danger today than it has ever been in the past...’. With more detailed data and computation, the dangers of gerrymandering are more powerful than ever.
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- throw0101a 7y agoAn observation from David Frum: > 1. Partisan gerrymandering is lawful. > 2. Racial gerrymandering is not lawful. > 3. Race is among the strongest predictors of partisanship. > 4. Square this circle - go! * https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1144251011432878080 https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1144251011432878080
- peteradio 7y agoWhat a crock of shit. Is there no such thing as equal representation under the law? Expand the house.
- deskamess 7y agoSo what is the recourse to this decision to prevent partisan gerrymandering? Basically what I am seeing is a class of laws that can be appealed at a state level, but not at a federal level. Not an expert on the legal system, but is there precedent for this on a constitutional topic (like voting)?