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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?

#71

Post by heydenberk »

pmoriarty wrote: post #68
pyre wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I think this is the part that matters. It's possible that the Supreme Court would rather that the judgement came from them rather than the lower court. Leaving it as-is would modify existing Supreme Court ca…

"Leaving it as-is would modify existing Supreme Court caselaw, but the decision itself wouldn't have come from the Supreme Court, which could lead to a bit of ambiguity. If the Supreme Court itself weighs in, even just to agree with the lower court, it eliminates that ambiguity. No one is left wondering "What if it had gone to the Supreme Court" about the decision." Doesn't this reasoning apply to every case that com…

Most cases that the Supreme Court refuses to hear are those in which lower courts reaffirmed the status quo.

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

#72

Post by pmoriarty »

heydenberk wrote: post #71
pmoriarty wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Leaving it as-is would modify existing Supreme Court caselaw, but the decision itself wouldn't have come from the Supreme Court, which could lead to a bit of ambiguity. If the Supreme Court itself weighs in, even just to agree with the lower court, it eliminates that ambiguity. No one is left wondering "What if it had gone to the Supreme Court" about the decision." Doesn't this reasoning apply to every case that com…

Most cases that the Supreme Court refuses to hear are those in which lower courts reaffirmed the status quo.

Why is that? If this lower court could go against the status quo like this, what stops other courts doing the same in other cases?

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

#73

Post by oh_sigh »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #63
autokad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i dont think its a good idea to discriminate a voter on any metric: age, income, race, education, or status of health among them. I am really surprised that anyone would even suggest it

Voting is already discriminatory based on age. We don't let 5 year olds vote, drive, or drink; why shouldn't we impose the same restrictions on say, a senile 95 year old with the mental age of 5 year old? I know why, implementing those restrictions would be far more difficult, but still, it's incorrect to say you should never discriminate based on age. Ironically, I actually know a radical anti-ageism activist who th…

> Why shouldn't we impose the same restrictions on say, a senile 95 year old with the mental age of 5 year old?

In that case, you aren't discriminating based on age. Unless you think for some reason that a 95 year old with the mental capacity of a 5 year old doesn't deserve a vote, but a 40 year old with the mental capacity of a 5 year old does deserve a vote.

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

#74

Post by oh_sigh »

ouid wrote: post #22
tzs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 outcome…

why does it start off low for the youngest?

Because younger people have less life experience than older people?

How many times do you see articles about 18-23 year old people doing something stupid, and people come to their defense saying something along the lines of 'They're only children!'?

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

#75

Post by function_seven »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #63
autokad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i dont think its a good idea to discriminate a voter on any metric: age, income, race, education, or status of health among them. I am really surprised that anyone would even suggest it

Voting is already discriminatory based on age. We don't let 5 year olds vote, drive, or drink; why shouldn't we impose the same restrictions on say, a senile 95 year old with the mental age of 5 year old? I know why, implementing those restrictions would be far more difficult, but still, it's incorrect to say you should never discriminate based on age. Ironically, I actually know a radical anti-ageism activist who th…

> Ironically, I actually know a radical anti-ageism activist who thinks 5 year olds (and 0 year olds for that matter) should have all the same legal rights as adults.

I'd be really curious to know that activist's views on labor, aviation, combat, pornography, driving, and marriage--as they relate to a 5-year-old. I suppose some of those categories can be answered with skill testing or whatnot, but others clearly cannot.

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

#76

Post by thephyber »

pmoriarty wrote: post #72
heydenberk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most cases that the Supreme Court refuses to hear are those in which lower courts reaffirmed the status quo.

Why is that? If this lower court could go against the status quo like this, what stops other courts doing the same in other cases?

This[1] may help. The relevant excepts:

> The doctrine operates both horizontally and vertically. Horizontal stare decisis refers to a court adhering to its own precedent. A court engages in vertical stare decisis when it applies precedent from a higher court. Consequently, stare decisis discourages litigating established precedents, and thus, reduces spending.

and

> Although courts seldom overrule precedent, Justice Rehnquist explained that stare decisis is not an “inexorable command.” On occasion, the Court will decide not to apply the doctrine if a prior decision is deemed unworkable. In addition, significant societal changes may also prompt the Court to overrule precedent; however, any decision to overrule precedent is exercised cautiously.

It's worth a read (not terribly long) because of the examples and the rationale behind Louisiana having a different system.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis

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

#77

Post by s73ver »

bumblebeard wrote: post #59
s73ver wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Iowa's redistricting commission is truly non-partisan: no politicians are allowed to participate. Seems to work fairly well for them just looking at the maps and variety of results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa's_congressional_districts

Everyone's going to be somewhat political. So no politicians is a good rule, but it still would be good to know the political affiliations of the people doing the districting.

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

#78

Post by s73ver »

opportune wrote: post #25
ChrisBland wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But isn't that gerrymandering for democrats instead of republicans? I am open to the idea that districts could be drawn based on more than geography, but to me this just sounds like "helpful" gerrymandering simply because it assists the democrats instead of the republicans. There's no reason for congressional districts to be based on race, IMO.

No, that's gerrymandering for minorities instead of the majority. THe fact that many minorities support and run as Ds is beside the point.

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

#79

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

oh_sigh wrote: post #73
MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voting is already discriminatory based on age. We don't let 5 year olds vote, drive, or drink; why shouldn't we impose the same restrictions on say, a senile 95 year old with the mental age of 5 year old? I know why, implementing those restrictions would be far more difficult, but still, it's incorrect to say you should never discriminate based on age. Ironically, I actually know a radical anti-ageism activist who th…

> Why shouldn't we impose the same restrictions on say, a senile 95 year old with the mental age of 5 year old? In that case, you aren't discriminating based on age. Unless you think for some reason that a 95 year old with the mental capacity of a 5 year old doesn't deserve a vote, but a 40 year old with the mental capacity of a 5 year old does deserve a vote.

Good point, in the case of voting it's a matter of mental age/capacity, not physical age. But I think there are analogous situations where it makes sense to age discriminate on both end for primarily physical reasons - contact sports, voluntary exposure to high g-forces, etc.

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

#80

Post by s73ver »

civilian wrote: post #29
ChrisBland wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks for the background! That does explain the motivation a lot more. It does, however, seem wicked racist and even rude that the primary goal of districting should be to get a candidate of a certain race.

As it turns out, many, many, many districts are majority white people. What these districts do is make sure there are some that aren't.
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