4528

Recall though, that there was a separate case regarding gerrymandering in VA based on race, which the SCOTUS refused to overturn on Monday.

So, that separate ruling means that those districts need to be redrawn, I believe.

4529

Continuing my thoughts on how this Supreme Court decision will allow a one party state to become permanently enshrined, even with surges in turnout.

As an example, let’s look at a state with 1 million voters and 100 districts, 10,000 voters per district, to keep things simple. Let’s imagine an even split with 500K GOP and 500K Dem voters, and the GOP managing to get a 51/49 majority by means of tie breakers or rounding of results. For this example, we’ll assume the maximum “packing” that can be achieved is 80% to one party (by creating a district packed to the gills with voters of one party, causing that district to have many many “wasted” votes - more than necessary to ensure representation).

In the most efficient model, the GOP packs 120,000 of the Dem voters into 15 80/20 districts, “spending” only 30,000 of their own voters to do so. This leaves the GOP to split 470,000 voters into 85 districts, versus 380,000 Dem voters, a 55% versus 45% margin, turning a split/swing state into a massively dominant 85/15 GOP one-party-super-majority-dominance. However, this efficiency does mean the gerrymander is vulnerable to a turnout surge of 10% or so, as in 2018.

So let’s bulletproof that gerrymander. Let’s pack 200,000 Dem voters into 25 districts, at a cost of 50,000 GOP voters. This leaves 450,000 GOP voters versus 300,000 Dem voters in 75 districts, resulting in a 75/25 legislature, but with 60% to 40% margins on average in the GOP districts. For turnout to overcome that 20% gap, well I don’t think that’s at all likely.

And heck, if you want to be really bulletproof, let’s go with packing 240,000 Dem voters into 30 districts, at a cost of 60,000 GOP voters, leaving 70 districts with 440,000 GOP to 260,000 Dem, or 63%/37%. That’s a 26% gap, incredibly secure, and still results in a 70/30 supermajority.

Bottom line is, as a practical reality, the USSC has just enshrined one party perpetual dominance in many states. Every state with a current GOP majority in its legislature and Governor, that does not have strong voting rights in the Constitution or voter referendum powers, which is something like 15 states off the top of my head (most in the South). Sure those states are red states, but the Supreme Court has just enshrined that status in perpetuity unless/until we can make huge changes (including rebalancing the Supreme Court itself).

I guess the only silver lining to this mess is that this is a clarion call that our current Supreme Court is a terrible one, in a specifically partisan way, and needs to be rebalanced by means of major changes. (Expanding the court being the most straightforward).

4530

Has anyone made good sense of the Census question decision yet?

It’s kind of a dog’s breakfast:

What I get is:

  1. The district court was right that the plaintiffs had standing.
  2. The administration has the authority to add a citizenship question to the Census.
  3. The decision to do so is reviewable under the Administrative Procedures Act.
  4. The Secretary’s decision to add the question was supportable by the evidence in front of him.
  5. The district court was wrong about some ancillary stuff.
  6. The government lied about their reasons for adding the citizenship question, and the district court was right to find that fact and to remand the matter back to the agency.

Where does that leave us? I can’t figure it out.

4531

No I am too busy losing my shit over the gerrymandering decision. Check back later :O.

4532

Yeah, the gerrymandering decision is bad. It’s a bad argument to a bad end.

4533

I think that it means it needs to be reviewed again, taking into account the information that has since come to light saying they were doing it for entirely partisan reasons.

4534

Isn’t the problem going to be with 2 and 4? Why can’t they figuratively wipe the slate clean, then add the question and produce the good reasons they added it and move on?

4535

That decision is simply one more brick in the path to political violence. I fully expect that in the next decade we start seeing 60’s level assassinations and the like, if the trend does not change.

And once that happens, god help us all.

4536

This is a little more clear:

The citizenship question is out per the district court order, while the Commerce Department can still try to add it by providing a rationale that isn’t a lie. And it’s unclear whether there is enough time to do that.

I guess the other complication is that the appellate court ordered the district court to review the merits of an Equal Protection claim, in light of the new evidence of racial intent. So presumably the Commerce Department has to deal with that if they want the question in.

4537

I’m sure they will try again, but if they had an actually good answer they would have provided it already. Whatever bullshit they throw out next will be even worse than what they already said, so it will get challenged again, for sure.

4538

About that census case… looks like the asshole wing of the GOP doesn’t like it.

4539

“Illegal residents” here meaning “registered non GOP voters”.

4540

And really, the thing is… there’s nothing suggesting that illegal immigrants vote. Because, you know, they aren’t legally allowed to.

4541

Yeah it’s a non-issue to keep that fear of The Others going.

4542

Trump heard Roberts decision loud and clear. Come up with a better excuse, and you’re good to go

4543

Schlapp’s concern is that undocumented immigrants tend to reside in Blue states. This increases the population of those states and awards those states more seats in Congress (per Article 1), even though non-citizens are not permitted to vote.

4544

Of course that’s his concern. What isn’t his concern is that the Constitution requires a count of all the people in the United States.

So, I guess he isn’t too concerned about the Constitution.

4545

Lego cracked the code!

4546

Or as some morons like to say, a ‘do over’.

4547

The progressive justices are right to worry. As Gorsuch put it in Kisor , “today’s decision is more a stay of execution [for deference to agencies] than a pardon.” His opinion, which Thomas and Kavanaugh joined, in whole and in part, respectively, crafted a new exception to stare decisis. His opinion maintained that stare decisis allows the justices to abandon any opinion that merely tells the courts how to interpret a statute or the Constitution vs. an opinion that affirmatively declared the meaning of a particular statute or constitutional provision.

This might sound like a fine point. But this exception would free the justices to overrule precedents that direct courts to defer to administrative agencies’ interpretations of statutes or regulations. Taken for all it might suggest, this exception could release the justices from the obligation to respect stare decisis in some constitutional cases as well. Who knows what their new, ill-defined exception might embolden them to do.

But that is what stare decisis does — it is supposed to prevent the court from flip-flopping just because a majority of justices thinks a case is wrong — or even really wrong. Four other justices — Samuel A. Alito Jr., Gorsuch, Thomas and Roberts — have also signaled they are open to reconsidering well-settled doctrines of administrative law that allow the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate pollutants and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to oversee the mortgage industry. And Kavanaugh’s vote in Kisor and his lower court opinions make clear that he is willing to join them in deconstructing the administrative state, stare decisis be damned.