Scalia's death already having positive outcomes: Court lets NC ruling stand

[WHAMPOM]

Both sides do it. You on the left just double down on denying it.

And that makes it alright for your side to do it? AAAAWW!!

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

It's typical lib hypocrisy on display. Another reason why I could never be a lib.

Those majority minority districts are created entirely to keep those minorities from potentially swinging any good clean and wholesome majority majority districts away from the Republicans.

NC went 50.6%/48.4% Romney/Obama in 2012. Tell me how the fuck you work a 10R/3D congressional split from that without some serious underhandedness.

 

[Fern]

Strange that race plays an "impermissible role" here when it's actually required to create "majority minority" districts at the same time. I have no real insight into this case but this "pick and choose when race is a factor or not" is stupid.

Yep, from the OP's article:

“The problem with the last plan was that North Carolina took race too much into account. But now perhaps N.C. did not take race enough into account to assure that the districts comply with Section 2 of the Act, which requires the creation of minority opportunity districts under certain circumstances,” he wrote.

Before the ruling I heard NC Congresspersons remarking they purposefully created the districts to have a minority majority so they wouldn't run afoul of the Voting Rights Act.

Now they're supposed to dilute minority district and this somehow ensure better/more minority representation?

BTW: Seems to me many above are seeing this a repub v dem thing. It seems to me it's more about minority representation. These are two different things and I don't see how this ruling advances any concern about minority representation.

Fern

 

[Jhhnn]

Yep, from the OP's article:



Before the ruling I heard NC Congresspersons remarking they purposefully created the districts to have a minority majority so they wouldn't run afoul of the Voting Rights Act.

Now they're supposed to dilute minority district and this somehow ensure better/more minority representation?

BTW: Seems to me many above are seeing this a repub v dem thing. It seems to me it's more about minority representation. These are two different things and I don't see how this ruling advances any concern about minority representation.

Fern

Gerrymandering takes 2 forms, cracking & packing. If you can't crack the opposition into districts where they can't win then you try to pack them into as few districts as possible, apparently what they tried to do in NC.

As I pointed out earlier, gerrymandering has to be extreme for the court to address it at all. Repubs took it to a new level after 2010 & largely got away with it.

 

[LPCTech]

If Bernie supporters had their way, we would all be paying 40% tax so everyone can get free shit. I'm glad the Repubs are ensuring that the SCOTUS won't liberally stacked with you nitwits.

During WW2 people who made over $250K a year were taxed at 90%...not a typo 90%.

40% tax for people making over 10 million dollars a year would be very very fair.

Also a law should be passed that says that congressional districts must be shaped as closely to a square as possible.

 

[FerrelGeek]

I'm no lover of them, either. But it's the pot calling the kettle black. And all it sounds to me, based on discussion in these threads is that it's fine for libs but evil when non libs do it. Plenty of sh*t to go around, son.

you really don't get the irony here do you? the Republicans are supposed to be the religious party of love and tolerance yet they have been fighting every such law for decades now.

once again, the irony is so thick you could run right into it. you can't be a "lib" because of hypocrisy, yet it is Republican politicians who are regularly caught doing the exact opposite of what they say and how they vote.

 

[Fern]

Gerrymandering takes 2 forms, cracking & packing. If you can't crack the opposition into districts where they can't win then you try to pack them into as few districts as possible, apparently what they tried to do in NC.

As I pointed out earlier, gerrymandering has to be extreme for the court to address it at all. Repubs took it to a new level after 2010 & largely got away with it.

As regards packing AAs in a district it seems not terribly so as they barely constitute a majority (unlike the Alabama case).

It also seems political gerrymandering has to be extreme for them to become involved; not so, however, for racial gerrymandering (which this was found to be).

Nevertheless, there are several reasons why opponents of gerrymandering should pause before they break out the champagne.

First, the North Carolina case resembles the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama which expressed skepticism of a similar racial gerrymander. The Alabama case, however, involved a much more aggressive gerrymander — Alabama packed some districts so that over 70 percent of the population would be black, while the two North Carolina districts were only a little over 50 percent black. And the Supreme Court’s decision was only 5-4 in Alabama. It’s possible that conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, in particular, will see the North Carolina case differently than he saw Alabama’s.

Additionally, while the Supreme Court has drawn boundaries around states’ ability to engage in racial gerrymanders, a majority of the Court has left states free to draw politically gerrymandered maps. The result, as Judge Cogburn laments in his concurring opinion, is that “the fundamental principle of the voters choosing their representative has nearly vanished. Instead, representatives choose their voters.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...inas-gerrymandered-maps-are-unconstitutional/

Fern

 

[Jhhnn]

As regards packing AAs in a district it seems not terribly so as they barely constitute a majority (unlike the Alabama case).

It also seems political gerrymandering has to be extreme for them to become involved; not so, however, for racial gerrymandering (which this was found to be).


http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...inas-gerrymandered-maps-are-unconstitutional/

Fern

I'm sure the NC Repubs knew what they were doing. When they can't win fairly in the marketplace of ideas they change the rules of the marketplace so that they can win.

As your linked article points out they got what they wanted through 2 election cycles before the Court caught up to them so there's no incentive to be reasonable in the first place.

 

[theeedude]

GOP couldn't win for dog catcher if they didn't pull every dirty trick in the book.

 

[Jeff7]

So are there any good reasons why this bullshit is legal? (If I think of the actual reasons, the word "corruption" keeps coming to mind.)

Any reason why the districts shouldn't be drawn on something that's based more on a basic latitude/longitude grid?


(This is something of a serious question. I'm certainly not an expert on districting, but giving the elected body the effective ability to choose their electors seems like it's very much the opposite of how things were meant to be in a system that even remotely resembles a representative democracy.)

 

[werepossum]

[/b]
holy Christ
this is SOOOOOO ignorant and full of stupid I don't even know where to start

Of course, when Democrats were saying the exact same thing in the last TWO years of the Bush Presidency, that was completely different.

 

[Jhhnn]

Their constitutional duty is to ensure a conservative like scalia is appointed to replace him and stat quo preserved. If you don't like it, too bad. Obummer is powerless to do anything about it.

[/b]
holy Christ
this is SOOOOOO ignorant and full of stupid I don't even know where to start

Of course, when Democrats were saying the exact same thing in the last TWO years of the Bush Presidency, that was completely different.

Except that they weren't saying the same thing at all. Their rhetoric was hypothetical, referring to a situation that never happened. Repubs' rhetoric refers to a real nominee in the real world who has yet to be named. We'll see how they play it, but they've lined up for a hail Mary pass- throw the ball into the end zone & pray one of their guys is there to catch it.

Desperate times in Republican land.

 

[buckshot24]

NC went 50.6%/48.4% Romney/Obama in 2012. Tell me how the fuck you work a 10R/3D congressional split from that without some serious underhandedness.

Crap candidates?

 

[Aegeon]

So are there any good reasons why this bullshit is legal? (If I think of the actual reasons, the word "corruption" keeps coming to mind.)

Any reason why the districts shouldn't be drawn on something that's based more on a basic latitude/longitude grid?

(This is something of a serious question. I'm certainly not an expert on districting, but giving the elected body the effective ability to choose their electors seems like it's very much the opposite of how things were meant to be in a system that even remotely resembles a representative democracy.)

While this is mostly me stating the devil's advocate position rather than actually buying it, there are some arguments that have been made for picking districts deliberately because you can potentially combine like minded communities with similar interests rather than arbitrarily happen to divide them into different Congressional districts where they really don't get their interests represented properly in any of them.

(There also at least historically was a time in the South when if a district was not close to 50% minority an African-American candidate essentially had no hope of getting elected so there was an argument for intentionally creating those situations so African-Americans in the South could be represented in congress including for their constituents.)

Of course even if you buy those arguments that still doesn't address why at least some independent committee or designated commission can't create the actual map. The main remotely plausible argument to me personally I've seen against it is the danger of getting it really wrong in how you create the commission or allowed to be corrupted in the wrong way because you could then run into a situation where those picking the districts are no longer conceivably directly responsible to the voters at all. (There also is specifically a Supreme Court case challenging an independent commission's constitutionality right now, but it seems pretty clear its going to end up with a 4 to 4 tie at worst for the moment so the lower court ruling allowing them is going to stand.)

 

[Jhhnn]

Crap candidates?

Hardly. It's a design feature.

 

[buckshot24]

Hardly. It's a design feature.

That is an assertion. Why should I believe it?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

So are there any good reasons why this bullshit is legal? (If I think of the actual reasons, the word "corruption" keeps coming to mind.)

Any reason why the districts shouldn't be drawn on something that's based more on a basic latitude/longitude grid?


(This is something of a serious question. I'm certainly not an expert on districting, but giving the elected body the effective ability to choose their electors seems like it's very much the opposite of how things were meant to be in a system that even remotely resembles a representative democracy.)

The short answer is the courts allow it, but maybe we'll see some movement now:

Also on redistricting, Scalia led the way in arguing that courts should have no role in policing partisan gerrymandering — the intentional drawing of district lines to give a political party an excessive amount of political power in a state. The only thing that stopped Scalia from getting his way on the court was the opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy. He essentially left the question open for new argument in a future case.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2016/02/21/appoint-another-scalia-kiss-democracy-goodbye/

 

[buckshot24]

NC went 50.6%/48.4% Romney/Obama in 2012. Tell me how the fuck you work a 10R/3D congressional split from that without some serious underhandedness.

So I took a look and you're being completely dishonest here. The spread from 2012 is completely irrelevant to what happened in 2014. The fact of the matter GOP congressional candidates got 11% more votes than the Dems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite...esentatives_elections_in_North_Carolina,_2014

It doesn't take much shady stuff going on to get that many seats with that kind of a spread.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

So I took a look and you're being completely dishonest here. The spread from 2012 is completely irrelevant to what happened in 2014. The fact of the matter GOP congressional candidates got 11% more votes than the Dems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite...esentatives_elections_in_North_Carolina,_2014

It doesn't take much shady stuff going on to get that many seats with that kind of a spread.

56%/44% of the vote, 77%/23% of the representation.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

During WW2 people who made over $250K a year were taxed at 90%...not a typo 90%.

Not many actually paid the 90% rate. I think it was just a handful of people

40% tax for people making over 10 million dollars a year would be very very fair.

Agreed. I'm amazed they somehow avoid the amt but a couple with two decent incomes get hit with the amt.

Also a law should be passed that says that congressional districts must be shaped as closely to a square as possible.

Can't you see the square. I see a square. That's what would happen.

I think the most effective way is how some states have Citizens do it. I believe they select similar to a jury pool. Set them in some room with maps & population data. Obviously someone who works in Politics or has worked on an election committee or similar is exempt.

 

[glenn1]

56%/44% of the vote, 77%/23% of the representation.

We don't use proportional representation. That's the same reason Obama won 100% of the Presidency despite only getting less than 56% of the vote, or why in California the Assembly is like 70% Democratic despite not having that big of a voter advantage.

 

[fskimospy]

We don't use proportional representation. That's the same reason Obama won 100% of the Presidency despite only getting less than 56% of the vote, or why in California the Assembly is like 70% Democratic despite not having that big of a voter advantage.

So let's do 51/49. What do you say?

You would never want that because you get bonus points. You can't win on the majority or the merits, so you rely on geography.

Sounds like loser talk to me. No?

 

[Jhhnn]

That is an assertion. Why should I believe it?

look at the map-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North...a_Congressional_Districts,_113th_Congress.tif

 

[buckshot24]

56%/44% of the vote, 77%/23% of the representation.

Are you admitting that you used the 2012 vote inappropriately?

In statewide elections 12 points is pretty much a landslide.

Obama won 51.1% of the popular vote but got 58.4% of the electoral votes.

Reagan won 58.8% of the popular vote but got 97.5% of the electoral votes.

Shall we go on?

New York congressional race.

Dems got 51.1% of the vote but have 67% of the representation.

Oregon

Dems got 53.6% of the vote but have 80% of the representation.

California

Dems got 58.9% of the vote but have 73.6% of the representation.

Georgia

Reps got 58.5% of the vote but have 71% of the representation.

Indiana

Reps got 58.8% of the vote but have 78% of the representation.

Texas

Reps got 60.3% of the vote but have 69% of the representation.

Sensing a pattern yet?

 

[glenn1]

So let's do 51/49. What do you say?

You would never want that because you get bonus points. You can't win on the majority or the merits, so you rely on geography.

Sounds like loser talk to me. No?

Who is this "you" that you're referring to? I don't live in NC. I care very little about how they redistrict or what system they use since absent national proportional representation it's educated guesswork and a moving target anyway. In your hypothetical 51/49 situation the 10R/3D election results from 2014 are one standard deviation from the expected "perfect" results. Which mirrors the skewed results from the other direction in 2008 when it was 8-5 Democrat representation. I realize you think your side is "owed" the control of the government but that's your problem to deal with, not reality's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite...esentatives_elections_in_North_Carolina,_2008