North Carolina's unconstitutional gerrymandered map will be used in midterms

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CNN


By Kate Sullivan, CNN
Updated 7:37 PM ET, Tue September 4, 2018

Washington (CNN)A federal court concluded Tuesday there is 'insufficient time' before the November midterm elections to redraw an electoral map that the courts have ruled is unconstitutionally gerrymandered.

"Having carefully reviewed the parties' briefing and supporting materials, we conclude that there is insufficient time for this Court to approve a new districting plan and for the State to conduct an election using that plan prior to the seating of the new Congress in January 2019," the court ruling read.

"And we further find that imposing a new schedule for North Carolina's congressional elections would, at this late juncture, unduly interfere with the State's electoral machinery and likely confuse voters and depress turnout."

In late August, the same panel of federal judges ruled that North Carolina's congressional map favors Republicans and "constitutes an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment, and Article I of the Constitution."

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/04/politics/north-carolina-court-gerrymander-midterms/index.html

[Fullduplexxx]

1. "Unduly"

[Hav]

2. Mission accomplished

I suppose there will eventually be changes for the 2020 elections but elections are every 2 years. All they have to do is stall long enough and then they can say: "Sorry, not enough time".

[BumRushDaShow]

3. "we conclude that there is insufficient time for this Court to approve a new districting plan"

We did it here in PA with enough time to be in effect for our May primary. The court order with the new map was released at the end of February of this year, allowing 3 months to fine-tune the boundaries down to the street level.

IMHO, they could do it in time (the demographic/population map technology is very much available) but the issue would be rejiggering who would now be running where after a new map is drawn.

[mwooldri]

4. Why not elect all the Congresscritters 'At large'?

Take NC as a single district, return 13 House Reps?

Then if they need to have a 'district', the 13 winners get put in a district that's close to them and taking into account how that district would have voted.

And the 'insufficient time' argument is pure BS in my opinion. The UK can call a general election, and it is held 6 weeks later. The candidates have already been selected by the parties.

[FBaggins]

6. That would be significantly more unconstitutional

“Just switch to a different form of democracy”?

Though we would return at least three more Dems that way.

[Massacure]

39. Multi-member districts are actually not unconstitutional.

States have elected representatives at large in the past, but Congress passed a law in 1967 requiring all of its House members to be elected from single member districts.

[FBaggins]

40. You're correct up to that 1967 law

But miss that in 1971, Whitcomb determined that multimember districts violated the equal protection clause:

But my main concern was the last-minute change to an electoral system based on the outcome of the court ruling. “Hey, let’s switch to a parliamentary system, I think it’s much cooler!” Isn’t a constitutional outcome in fixing an unconstitutional gerrymander either

[Massacure]

38. Federal law states that Representatives must be elected from single member districts.

States can opt to elect members of their state legislatures at large if they so choose, but Congress explicitly prohibited states from electing its representatives to the House like that.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. Wow. This just adds to the GOP's theory that if you simply delay

implementing a court order, eventually you can ignore it until it goes away. First was reuniting children taken from their parents at the border and now this.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

14. Same with counting the votes in Florida during Bush v. Gore.

The Repugs knew if they just delayed the count long enough by sending Congressional staffers down disrupt the counting, ultimately the Supreme Court would hand the election to Bush. In the end, this resulted in the deaths of more than 2,000 U.S. military personnel and at least 100,000 Iraqis.

[FBaggins]

7. The court didn't have much choice

The Supreme Court had previously agreed to review their decision but didn’t hit the merits. If this court had ruled that new lines had to be drawn, it almost certainly would have been stayed while they took another look (at which point it would be way too late).

Remember that, at this point, the court has not determined that there is a standard by which you can evaluate a gerrymander as “too political”.

[noneof_theabove]

10. Yes there is...

The boundaries are to be drawn according to the population shift on the xx00 census.
This is not bound to any party, income, sex, race or anything else but "equal population".

Instead they have like all things they touch convoluted the system.

I spent 20 years in government services [911] dealing with maps and in our region developed
the first mapping system to locate a caller back in 1997.

And I use the following in training classes.
Take the "jurisdiction" boundaries of a law enforcement agency, they all have them to track crimes.
Give a politician a spreadsheet of the numbers and it goes in the nearest trash can.

Now map the number of say residential break in and theft.
For law enforcement color the areas from 0=white and the max=red.
This is the monday morning planning where extra effort needs to applied.
BUT - that effort requires overtime or more people which is money.
Take that RED map to city council and what does red mean?.....MORE MONEY THEY DON'T HAVE...in the trash.
BUT - instead of red make it green - money.
And one of the council will go "that is my area". If I don't fix it I will not get reelected and vote yes for funding.

See nothing but the color change NOT THE DATA, it is still impartial to everything but the crime.
Also that speadsheet is forgotten, but the map is BURNED IN THEIR EYEBALLS.

Misusing data for "personal gain" should be a crime if it is not already.

[FBaggins]

15. Not according to the court there isn't

Their opinion is what matters.

The issue here is that (despite what you imply) there is no non-political option for drawing political boundaries. The question is whether there's an impartial standard that can be applied to identify districts where politics played too large a role.

One thing that Democrats often forget is that we need gerrymandering to some extent. Democrats tend to live together in population centers (urban and denser suburban). Without district lines that share some of that strength into surrounding areas, we would never win the House again. We would have about 150 unbeatable districts packed with Democrats and maybe another 50 or so that were moderately competitive... but couldn't win a majority.

[Cryptoad]

8. Is this not a replay of

what happened in 2016 in NC?

another ground hog day!

[NCjack]

9. "... and depress turnout." This rigged election will depress

turnout. Many will will not bother to vote, since the fix is in place. Why isn't someone being charged with a crime?

[Mr. Sparkle]

11. There are 2 full months left !!

Thats plenty of time.

[lagomorph777]

19. It takes minutes to redraw the map. There are computers.

[Buckeyeblue]

12. Maybe the idea of having states has outlived its usefulness

I no longer see the point in having states. There is such disparity from state to state with things like education, health care, the way the poor are treated and many other things that I don't see the usefulness of the state any longer.

I'm just not sure how to replace it...

[global1]

13. Why Of Course This Gerrymandered Mess Will Be Used In November.....

We all know its wrong. The courts have told us it's wrong - but - the Repugs win again here - there's insufficient time to change things - so we'll just give it to them.

Why does it seem that anything this corrupt Party chooses to pull - they ' slap on the hand' get away with?

The fix is in folks. Everyday - it seems like there are signs that the 'blue wave' will not materialize in Nov. How do we even know that the polls that indicate that the Dems will win big in Nov aren't fake polls. Lull us Dems into a false sense of security - then lower the boom on us in the Midterms.

[FBaggins]

16. That's not quite correct

"The courts" haven't told us that it's wrong. This court has told us that and the Supreme Court sent it back.

So far... no court in the country has ruled that a gerrymander was too political and had that decision stand.

[lagomorph777]

18. Pennsylvania

[FBaggins]

20. Nope

That ruling was based entirely on the state's constitution. Nothing useful outside the state.

[lagomorph777]

21. Sorry - I missed where you excluded state constitutions.

[FBaggins]

23. Sorry... I didn't realize that you missed that it was a NC thread

There is no federal precedent to lean on or existing ruling that helps in NC. So far, SCOTUS has not established a "too political" standard based on the US Constitution and no lower court has established such a standard and had their ruling stand.

Better?

[lagomorph777]

26. I was responding to "no court in the _country_"

[Historic NY]

33. Republicans haven't been cooperating but obstructing drawing up a map....

Democrats should submit their drawn maps to the courts for approval....why wait

[link:https://www.cbsnews.com/news/federal-judges-again-rule-republican-drawn-nc-congressional-districts-unconstitutional-gerrymandered/|]

[lagomorph777]

17. Maps can be redrawn in minutes today;

we have these newfangled computer machines.

I call BS.

Any chance of appeal?

[FBaggins]

22. It isn't a question of how quickly new maps can be drawn

It's whether new primaries can be run in time to select candidates and get out absentee ballots in time for the election.

Any chance of appeal?

It was the likelihood of an appeal of a contrary ruling that probably kept them from trying to rush new lines. There aren't enough SCOTUS votes to rush through an expedited appeal even if we had the votes to win it.

[lagomorph777]

25. So safer to redraw on a slower schedule, even though missing this midterm?

[FBaggins]

28. Safer probably is the right word

The decision avoids what would almost certainly be chaos.

Taken outside of the political calendar, it's an open question whether their ruling will stand.

SCOTUS dodged the core question by saying that the court had failed to correctly identify whether plaintiffs even had standing to bring the case... so they sent it back down for further ruling. But they also overturned the Wisconsin case where the court HAD ruled that plaintiffs had standing... by saying that in fact, they didn't. So the first hurdle to overcome is whether SCOTUS will agree with this standing determination or will overturn it as well. IF that happens just before the election... chaos.

The second hurdle is what I mentioned above. There's no evidence that a SCOTUS majority is interested in ruling that a partisan gerrymander is unconstitutional and defining a standard for measuring same... but there are clearly four justices who would take the case. When they stay the current ruling pending their own action? Any move toward new lines is again undone. The left side of the court doesn't have the pull to not only accept the case, but rule in time for the election to be held. The other four are going to insist on waiting for Kavanaugh (at which point, we probably lose the case).

If they were the final word on the matter... it might not be too late to draw new lines (particularly if they say that November will be a new primary for a December general election)... but they aren't the final word and their last attempt was thrown back in their face.

[lagomorph777]

29. Well, if SCROTUS is incrementally legalizing Gerrymandering, we need to start doing it.

Win some legislatures, and Gerrymander with a vengeance.

[FBaggins]

30. "Start" doing it?

Republicans in recent years have made an art form out of it... but we are by no means innocent.

We spent decades with several percent more House seats than the percentage of the vote that we received. Do you think it was a coincidence? How do you think we held on to a 50+ seat majority in 1980 when Reagan won ~45 states?

[lagomorph777]

31. Are any of our consultants from those days still around?

Let's get 'em back on the payroll.

[FBaggins]

32. Lol... probably not

But as you correctly pointed out above... computers can handle all of that now.

The trick is capturing the redistricting reigns in as many states as possible in 2020.

[lagomorph777]

36. +1 A pretty big trick and a worthy goal.

[cstanleytech]

24. So the court rewards them for doing something criminal and unconstitutional?

[NoMoreRepugs]

27. Wonder who comprised that Federal Court?

[FBaggins]

34. Wynn, Osteen, and Britt

Appointed by Obama, Bush Jr,, and Carter respectively.

[NoMoreRepugs]

37. thanks.

[W T F]

35. It opens up an avenue of litigation that will challenge the outcome