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What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

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Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#11

Post by bradleyjg »

This is an interesting article, but the headline is deceptive. The article doesn't answer that question it poses. The reason the Supreme Court granted cert is because the court below, which in this case was a special 3 judge district court panel whose opinions skip the Court of Appeals, ruled in favor of the challengers.

If the Supreme Court had not granted cert it would have meant that this lower court opinion would have in effect (but not technically) stood as a nationwide precedent modifying existing Supreme Court decisions.

Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#12

Post by tanderson92 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #11

This is an interesting article, but the headline is deceptive. The article doesn't answer that question it poses. The reason the Supreme Court granted cert is because the court below, which in this case was a special 3 judge district court panel whose opinions skip the Court of Appeals, ruled in favor of the challengers. If the Supreme Court had not granted cert it would have meant that this lower court opinion would…

Thanks, this is what I was looking for. More coverage at SCOTUS blog: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gill-v-whitford/

Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#13

Post by mtgx »

A proportional representation voting system would also largely solve the gerrymandering problem (no district would be dominated by a single party anymore so exploiting the gerrymandering system wouldn't help much), along with having many other benefits for democracy:

http://www.fairvote.org/fair_representation

> They complied with the Constitution’s one person, one vote requirement

That line is interesting. How is the electoral college system not in conflict with the Constitution then, if a person's vote in one state is much stronger than another person's vote in another state? Or is it enough that it satisfies the requirement technically (still "one vote"), even if not in spirit/based on a (I would think) more common interpretation of the Constitution?

Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#14

Post by graycamry »

mapmeld wrote: post #6
crb002 wrote: post #3

I wish SCOTUS would put out a Euclidian distance Voronoi metric, where the redistricting map presented with minimum error wins. You quickly get into non-linear territory by using travel time instead of Euclidian distance. Roads and bridges become weapons for cutting or connecting districts. Bad bad stuff.

Programmers like to come up with mathematical plans like this, but you would likely run into the Voting Rights Act! Many districts which aren't compact have been created as majority-minority districts, to prevent disenfranchisement of racial minorities. Plans which divide or erase one of these districts get stopped by the Supreme Court all the time. It's a 1960s approach to equality, but you can tell its effectivenes…

> Many districts which aren't compact have been created as majority-minority districts, to prevent disenfranchisement of racial minorities.

[citation needed]

I have seen many examples of horribly shaped districts, but all of them were done for partisan advantage. I would love it if you

1. Give an example of a majority minority district that is horribly shaped explicitly to accommodate the VRA. 2. Give citation for statement that there are "Many" such districts.

Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#15

Post by s73ver »

bluetwo wrote: post #9

Personally I wish my state would enact a law that says representative districts must be drawn to cross as few county lines as possible. Yes, some manipulation would still be possible, but it would be greatly diminished.

Take the power to create districts away from the legislature. Give it to a non-partisan commission. 1/3 Democrats, 1/3 Republicans, and 1/3 other/no party. We did that in California, and almost none of the legislators were happy with it, which means it probably did a good job. The state still wound up with mostly Democratic representation, but that's more a product of California being heavily Democrat. I'd imagine that if you did the same thing in Texas, even if the districts were much less gerrymandered, you'd still have mostly Republicans.

Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#16

Post by infosample »

mtgx wrote: post #13

A proportional representation voting system would also largely solve the gerrymandering problem (no district would be dominated by a single party anymore so exploiting the gerrymandering system wouldn't help much), along with having many other benefits for democracy: http://www.fairvote.org/fair_representation > They complied with the Constitution’s one person, one vote requirement That line is interesting. How is th…

Look at the history of compromise that lead to the Electoral College -

Madison acknowledged that while a popular vote would be ideal, it would be difficult to get consensus on the proposal given the prevalence of slavery in the South:

There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_Stat...

Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#17

Post by karlshea »

graycamry wrote: post #14
mapmeld wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmers like to come up with mathematical plans like this, but you would likely run into the Voting Rights Act! Many districts which aren't compact have been created as majority-minority districts, to prevent disenfranchisement of racial minorities. Plans which divide or erase one of these districts get stopped by the Supreme Court all the time. It's a 1960s approach to equality, but you can tell its effectivenes…

> Many districts which aren't compact have been created as majority-minority districts, to prevent disenfranchisement of racial minorities. [citation needed] I have seen many examples of horribly shaped districts, but all of them were done for partisan advantage. I would love it if you 1. Give an example of a majority minority district that is horribly shaped explicitly to accommodate the VRA. 2. Give citation for st…

https://www.justice.gov/crt/cases-raising-claims-under-secti...

Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#18

Post by tzs »

mtgx wrote: post #13

A proportional representation voting system would also largely solve the gerrymandering problem (no district would be dominated by a single party anymore so exploiting the gerrymandering system wouldn't help much), along with having many other benefits for democracy: http://www.fairvote.org/fair_representation > They complied with the Constitution’s one person, one vote requirement That line is interesting. How is th…

It's a bit of a tangent, but the discussion of voting systems reminds me of another modification to voting that I sometimes think might be reasonable: weighting votes based on voter age, with the weight starting off low for the youngest voters and increasing to a peak, and then dropping off again.

What brought this on was thinking about the brexit vote over in the UK, which from what I read had very different outcomes among different age groups. It seems quite unfair that people who are likely to die before brexit is complete should have the same say as people who will be living decades under the outcome.

Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#19

Post by EGreg »

crb002 wrote: post #3

I wish SCOTUS would put out a Euclidian distance Voronoi metric, where the redistricting map presented with minimum error wins. You quickly get into non-linear territory by using travel time instead of Euclidian distance. Roads and bridges become weapons for cutting or connecting districts. Bad bad stuff.

Or, you know, you could just change the ballot to allow more voting for than one candidate, as Maine just did.

Rendering gerrymandering much less of a deal.

By the way APPROVAL VOTE is the best one, not ranked voting.

Re: What convinced the Supreme Court to take the Wisconsin gerrymandering case?

#20

Post by ChrisBland »

graycamry wrote: post #14
mapmeld wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programmers like to come up with mathematical plans like this, but you would likely run into the Voting Rights Act! Many districts which aren't compact have been created as majority-minority districts, to prevent disenfranchisement of racial minorities. Plans which divide or erase one of these districts get stopped by the Supreme Court all the time. It's a 1960s approach to equality, but you can tell its effectivenes…

> Many districts which aren't compact have been created as majority-minority districts, to prevent disenfranchisement of racial minorities. [citation needed] I have seen many examples of horribly shaped districts, but all of them were done for partisan advantage. I would love it if you 1. Give an example of a majority minority district that is horribly shaped explicitly to accommodate the VRA. 2. Give citation for st…

Some of the ugliest looking district ducklings are beautiful swans in the eyes of the courts. For example, the Illinois 4th Congressional District drawn in the 2000's decade is often called the "earmuff" district for obvious reasons. The western portion of this district actually travels along the northbound lane of Interstate 294! But, this district has a very important purpose. It was initially created in the 1990s to elect the first Latino representative to Congress from the Midwest.

The 4th congressional district has its funny shape because there is an African-American community sandwiched between two Latino communities. The African-American community is represented by the 7th Congressional district, which is designed to elect an African-American candidate of choice. The 4th district was wrapped around the 7th district so that both African-American and Latino communities could have congressional representation.

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