NYT: "Judges Find Wisconsin Redistricting Unfairly Favored Republicans"

[TheGoodBits]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/wisconsin-redistricting-found-to-unfairly-favor-republicans.html?_r=0
 

Quote

"A panel of three federal judges said on Monday that the Wisconsin Legislature’s 2011 redrawing of State Assembly districts to favor Republicans was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, the first such ruling in three decades of pitched legal battles over the issue.

Federal courts have struck down gerrymanders on racial grounds, but not on grounds that they unfairly give advantage to a political party — the more common form of gerrymandering. The case could now go directly to the Supreme Court, where its fate may rest with a single justice, Anthony M. Kennedy, who has expressed a willingness to strike down partisan gerrymanders but has yet to accept a rationale for it.

Should the court affirm the ruling, it could upend the next round of state redistricting, in 2021, for congressional and state elections nationwide, most of which is likely to be conducted by Republican-controlled legislatures that have swept into power in recent years.

“It is a huge deal,” said Heather Gerken, a Yale Law School professor and an expert on election law. “For years, everyone has waited for the Supreme Court to do something on this front. Now one of the lower courts has jump-started the debate.

“If this were to be a nationwide standard, 2021 would look quite different,” she said, “especially for the Democrats.”

Several election-law scholars said the ruling was especially significant because it offered, for the first time, a clear mathematical formula for measuring partisanship in a district, something that had been missing in previous assaults on gerrymandering.

The 2-to-1 ruling by the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin said that the Legislature’s remapping violated both the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because it aimed to deprive Democratic voters of their right to be represented. “Although Wisconsin’s natural political geography plays some role in the apportionment process,” the court wrote, “it simply does not explain adequately the sizable disparate effect” of Republican gains in the State Assembly after the boundaries were redrawn."

 

So this is a really big deal. The case is expected to go to the Supreme Court, which whose ruling will establish the law of the land for decades. Obviously the outlook of the decision is a lot more questionable than it would have been with a Hillary win and SCOTUS appointment. Or you know if the Senate had done its job with Garland. 

But this is, in my view, potentially the last chance this country has at preventing a serious constitutional crisis. We're heading in a bad direction where the majority of voters will have a minority voice in government indefinitely, due primarily to the post-2010 gerrymandering scheme. The House of Representatives is supposed to reflect the will of the people, and this decision will determine whether or not that is the case for the foreseeable future. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

I really don't understand why someone can't develop a computer model that would set up districts in an unbiased way and make that be used across the country.  I can barely send calendar invites with Outlook so I'm not the guy to do it but I wish someone would.

[twa]

I look forward to the higher court review on elections disparate effect by party..  

clear mathematical formula for measuring partisanship seems a legal wormhole except in the states where that is state law.  

prior case law

https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/major-partisan-gerrymandering-cases

 

[TheGoodBits]

18 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

I really don't understand why someone can't develop a computer model that would set up districts in an unbiased way and make that be used across the country.  I can barely send calendar invites with Outlook so I'm not the guy to do it but I wish someone would.

You easily can. Hell, thats exactly what REDMAP did after 2010, only the opposite because they used it to maximize the impact of their gerrymandering. The optimal outcome of this case would be to entirely do away with the role political parties have in drawing districts, nationally.