Maps in Four States Were Ruled Illegal Gerrymanders. They’re Being Used Anyway (1 Viewer)

[zztop]

This is why I have no faith in this country anymore

Maps in Four States Were Ruled Illegal Gerrymanders. They’re Being Used Anyway.

A Supreme Court shift, frowning on changes close to elections, gives House Republicans a big advantage in November.

www.nytimes.com

David Wasserman, who follows congressional redistricting for the Cook Political Report, said that using rejected maps in the four states, which make up nearly 10 percent of the seats in the House, was likely to hand Republicans five to seven House seats that they otherwise would not have won.

Some election law scholars say they are troubled by the consequences in the long run.

“We’re seeing a revolution in courts’ willingness to allow elections to go forward under illegal or unconstitutional rules,” Richard L. Hasen, a professor at the U.C.L.A. School of Law and the director of its Safeguarding Democracy Project, said in an interview. “And that’s creating a situation in which states are getting one free illegal election before they have to change their rules.”

Behind much of the change is the Supreme Court’s embrace of an informal legal doctrine stating that judges should not order changes in election procedures too close to an actual election. In a 2006 case, Purcell v. Gonzalez, the court refused to stop an Arizona voter ID law from taking effect days before an election because that could “result in voter confusion and consequent incentive to remain away from the polls.”

The Purcell principle, as it is called, offers almost no guidance beyond that. But the Supreme Court has significantly broadened its scope in this decade, mostly through rulings on applications that seek emergency relief such as stays of lower court rulings, in which the justices’ reasoning often is cryptic or even unexplained.

 

[cuddlemonkey]

BAD - "We don't want those black people in that area to get their own congressperson!"

GOOD - "We don't those Democrats* in that area to get their own congressperson!"

*who just happen to be mostly black

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal judicial panel has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Tennessee's U.S. House maps and those for the state Senate amount to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

“In sum, the complaint alleges facts that are consistent with a racial gerrymander," stated the ruling, which was issued Wednesday. "But the facts are also consistent with a political gerrymander.”

The complaint was the first court challenge over a 2022 congressional redistricting map that carved up Democratic-leaning Nashville to help Republicans flip a seat in last year’s elections, a move that critics claimed was done to dilute the power of Black voters and other communities of color in one of the state's few Democratic strongholds.

The lawsuit also challenged state Senate District 31 in majority-Black Shelby County, including part of Memphis, using similar arguments and saying that the white voting age population went up under the new maps. A Republican now holds that seat.

However, the three federal judges who wrote the ruling argued there was another clear motivation behind Tennessee’s Republican state legislative supermajority by pointing to “naked partisanship" as the likely “straightforward explanation.”

In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that disputes over partisan gerrymandering of congressional and legislative districts are none of its business, limiting those claims to state courts under their own constitutions and laws. Most recently, the high court upheld South Carolina’s congressional map in a 6-3 decision that said the state General Assembly did not use race to draw districts based on the 2020 Census.

In Tennessee's case, the plaintiffs included the Tennessee State Conference of the NAACP, the African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee, the Equity Alliance, the League of Women Voters of Tennessee and several Tennessee voters, including former Democratic state Sen. Brenda Gilmore.

After Nashville was splintered into three congressional districts, former Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper of Nashville declined to seek reelection, claiming he couldn't win under the new layout. Ultimately, Rep. John Rose won reelection by about 33 percentage points, Rep. Mark Green won another term by 22 points, and Rep. Andy Ogles won his first term by 13 points in the district vacated by Cooper.

Tennessee now has eight Republicans in the U.S. House, with just one Democrat left in Memphis Rep. Steve Cohen.

In the original complaint, the plaintiffs argued that all three of the “candidates of choice” for minority voters lost their congressional bids in the Nashville area in 2022.

The judges countered that the lawsuit had to “more than plausibly allege that Tennessee’s legislators knew that their Republican-friendly map would harm voters who preferred Democratic candidates—including the higher percentage of minority voters who preferred those candidates.”...........

Judges dismiss suit alleging Tennessee's political maps discriminate against communities of color

A federal judicial panel has dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Tennessee’s U.S. House maps and those for the state Senate amount to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

apnews.com

"The judges countered that the lawsuit had to 'more than plausibly allege that Tennessee’s legislators knew that their Republican-friendly map would harm voters who preferred Democratic candidates—including the higher percentage of minority voters who preferred those candidates'."

That is the dumbest forking logic.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Guess this can go here
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Mike Johnson. the House Speaker, will soon have the challenge of leading a three-seat Republican majority. He has an interesting theory about why the Republican edge will be so slender.

Last week, on Fox News, he blamed Democraticgerrymandering.

While it’s always a delightful surprise to hear a Republican leader express concern about the evils of gerrymandering, Johnson has the facts and the math completely backwards.

The truth is the opposite: Republicans drew the district lines of nearly three times as many US House seats as did Democrats – 191 to 71.

Republicans gerrymandered more than three times as many seats than Democrats. They started from a position of power after drawing historic gerrymanders in 2011 that lasted a decade in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina.

And the Republicans’ gerrymandered advantage was preserved and protected by the Republican supermajority on the US supreme court.

The Republican party’s three-seat majority would not exist at all without a new, mid-decade gerrymander in North Carolina that gift-wrapped the Republicans the three additional seats that made the difference.

Before the Republican-controlled state supreme court upended North Carolina’s congressional map, the purple state elected seven Democrats and seven Republicans.

(When Democrats controlled the court, they mandated a fair map, not a Democratic one; when Republicans took over, the gerrymander returned.)

And what happened after the newly-seated Republican court destroyed the balanced map and returned it to the Republican legislature to be tilted in its direction?

The new map produced 10 Republicans and four Democrats. Many experts believe it could yet elect 11 Republicans and three Democrats. The gerrymander handed Johnson the three seats that made him speaker. Without it, Democrats might even control the House.

Johnson, quite simply, couldn’t be any more wrong. Both parties certainly gerrymandered where they could. But Republicans had the power to gerrymander far more districts in far more places.

Overall, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law school, it all adds up to a 16-seat edge for Republicans nationwide.

“The bias in this cycle’s maps strongly favors Republicans due primarily to aggressive gerrymandering in GOP strongholds in the South and Midwest,” a Brennan report concludes.…..

Did gerrymandering keep Republicans from a bigger majority? Absolutely not | David Daley

Mike Johnson has an explanation for why the Republican majority is so thin – and it’s misleading and cynical

www.theguardian.com

 

[bird]

Guess this can go here
=================
Mike Johnson. the House Speaker, will soon have the challenge of leading a three-seat Republican majority. He has an interesting theory about why the Republican edge will be so slender.

Last week, on Fox News, he blamed Democraticgerrymandering.

While it’s always a delightful surprise to hear a Republican leader express concern about the evils of gerrymandering, Johnson has the facts and the math completely backwards.

The truth is the opposite: Republicans drew the district lines of nearly three times as many US House seats as did Democrats – 191 to 71.

Republicans gerrymandered more than three times as many seats than Democrats. They started from a position of power after drawing historic gerrymanders in 2011 that lasted a decade in states like Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina.

And the Republicans’ gerrymandered advantage was preserved and protected by the Republican supermajority on the US supreme court.

The Republican party’s three-seat majority would not exist at all without a new, mid-decade gerrymander in North Carolina that gift-wrapped the Republicans the three additional seats that made the difference.

Before the Republican-controlled state supreme court upended North Carolina’s congressional map, the purple state elected seven Democrats and seven Republicans.

(When Democrats controlled the court, they mandated a fair map, not a Democratic one; when Republicans took over, the gerrymander returned.)

And what happened after the newly-seated Republican court destroyed the balanced map and returned it to the Republican legislature to be tilted in its direction?

The new map produced 10 Republicans and four Democrats. Many experts believe it could yet elect 11 Republicans and three Democrats. The gerrymander handed Johnson the three seats that made him speaker. Without it, Democrats might even control the House.

Johnson, quite simply, couldn’t be any more wrong. Both parties certainly gerrymandered where they could. But Republicans had the power to gerrymander far more districts in far more places.

Overall, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice at New York University law school, it all adds up to a 16-seat edge for Republicans nationwide.

“The bias in this cycle’s maps strongly favors Republicans due primarily to aggressive gerrymandering in GOP strongholds in the South and Midwest,” a Brennan report concludes.…..

Did gerrymandering keep Republicans from a bigger majority? Absolutely not | David Daley

Mike Johnson has an explanation for why the Republican majority is so thin – and it’s misleading and cynical

www.theguardian.com

Let us not forget that the maps in Ohio were deemed unconstitutional 6 times. Yet, the Republican Party refused to do anything. When there was a ballot measure to create a commission to draw districts which was supported by former Republican Ohio Supreme Court justices the Republican Party spent boatlaods of money including outside money on defeating it. And, as yet another example of Republican amorality, Ohio AG David Yost screwed around with the wording of the ballot measure.

 

[Optimus Prime]

A federal appeals court heard arguments Tuesday in a case that could further erode voting rights protecting minority voters or solidify that Louisiana’s legislative maps diluted Black voters’ power.

The fifth circuit court of appeals, which hears cases brought for appeal from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, will weigh in on Nairne v Landry, a case in which a federal judge in Louisiana ruled the Republican-controlled legislature had violated section 2 of the Voting Rights Act with its newly created maps.

Section 2 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in voting processes and ensures electoral procedures are “equally open to participation” for people regardless of race. When states redistrict every 10 years, they often face legal challenges for hindering the voices of minority voters.


In Nairne v Landry, the plaintiffs successfully argued that Black voters’ political power in Louisiana was diluted and that they were not able to elect candidates they wanted, outside of a small number of districts that packed in Black voters. Louisiana’s maps have been the subject of multiple lawsuits since they were finalized.

“Our win in the district court was a testament to our fight for fairness and inclusion in Louisiana’s political process,” plaintiff Dorothy Nairne said in a press release. “I know I speak not only for myself and the other plaintiffs, but also for so many Black community members across this state, when I say that new representation at our State Capitol would give us hope for justice.”

The case is being watched far beyond its impacts on Louisiana’s maps.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is under attack from the right. The eighth circuit ruled in late 2023 that only the US government, not outside groups or citizens, could sue over violations of section 2.

Most lawsuits over violations, though, come from entities outside the government, referred to as a private right of action. Closing this lane of accountability would significantly weaken the Voting Rights Act.

The private right of action issue is expected to make it up to the US supreme court. Of the 466 cases brought under section 2 since 1982, only 18 were from the Department of Justice.

The fifth circuit, based in New Orleans, is seen as primed for the Maga era. The New York Times called it the “proving ground for some of the most aggressive conservative arguments in American law”.…….

Appeals court hears case that could dilute Black voters’ power in Louisiana

Fifth circuit, seen as primed for the Maga era, hears arguments challenging state’s newly created maps

www.theguardian.com