Justice Elena Kagan: I Will Never Accept Supreme Court's Gerrymandering Decision

[DonViejo]

by Jerry Lambe | 6:14 pm, July 18th, 2019

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on Thursday said she would “never accept” the Court’s majority ruling allowing political gerrymandering, referring to the practice as an “undermining of democracy.”

In a 5-4 decision last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal judiciary could not intervene in striking down congressional voting maps drawn with the specific intention of creating a political advantage for the party in power. In a blistering dissent, Kagan said the decision was “tragically wrong,” warning that it could have disastrous consequences.

“Of all times to abandon the Court’s duty to declare the law, this was not the one. The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the Court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections,” Kagan wrote.

Speaking in front of the Washington Council of Lawyers at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Kagan said that she didn’t “pull [her] punches” in her gerrymandering dissent because of how important the issue is to our political system.

“There’s no part of me that’s ever going to become accepting of the decision made, essentially that courts shouldn’t get involved in gerrymandering no matter how bad it is and no matter how destructive of our political system it is, which is the decision the court reached,” Kagan said.

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https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/justice-elena-kagan-i-will-never-accept-supreme-courts-gerrymandering-decision/

[FoxNewsSucks]

1. She's right,

and I don't accept it either.

But republicons don't care what any of us accept.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. whatever happened to equal justice under the law?

The RW majority has eviscerated the 14th Amendment. States are now free to make laws which do indeed "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".

[Botany]

3. The court ruled that the politicians can pick their voters instead of the voters picking their ...

... politician. OH is totally fucked.

[NewJeffCT]

4. just imagine

Merrick Garland instead of Neil Gorusch as the 5th vote...

[Farmer-Rick]

5. If congress were Not gerrymandered, they would correct this by passing laws against gerrymandering.

But because partisan RepubliCON hacks, and rapist and sexual abusers, have been appointed to the dancing supremes, the Congress is too gerrymandered to even pass reasonable laws. Capitalism has destroyed democracy.

Every uber rich capitalist king is to blame for this. The Koch Bos, the Waltons, the Gates, the Google billionaires, the Rothschilds, the Lemanns, the Buffets, the Bezos, the Zuckerbergs and the Berkleys...(I could go on) did this by enabling, or supporting directly, Traitor Trump.

They wanted an orange, ignorant buffoon and his Slovenian Sex Worker to represent the United States of America. All they care is they don't have to pay taxes to the country they were able to manipulate into allowing them to hold excessively mass amounts of wealth. The traitorous fool and his surgically manipulated nude model and escort are perfect representatives of our capitalist kings.

Take a good hard look at the white trash in the white house, their faces are the faces of capitalism.

[usaf-vet]

8. Bravo! Now tell us what you really think!

I have some of the same feelings.

I think the current RepubliCON hacks are going for broke. In the card game HEARTS you take the chance and "shoot the moon" if you make it you win it all if you fail you lose.

The RepubliCON hacks act and behaves like they can see the brass (gold) ring with reach. Grabbing it would lead to the near-total overtake of the levers of power needed to kill the remanence of our fragile democracy.

In my mind, it started in earnest with the Bush v Gore election in 2000.

That election enabled them to implement electronic voting thus enabling them to manipulate future elections.

Which led to gerrymandering more and more congressional districts.

Which led to more electoral wins.

Which led to stacking state, federal and Supreme Courts. Which has come full circle to enable the courts to further fine-tune the near-total overtake of our fragile Democracy?

Now they want it all. They intend to manipulate the future demographics of the voting public to ensure them TOTAL dominance of our future.

[Farmer-Rick]

12. Yeah, if we don't crush them in this next presidential/Senate election

They will turn the US into their private little playground. You think Epstein is awful? Well their ultimate goal is even worse.

[moreland01]

6. Dems have to get on board

Until every state has, by law, an Independent Redistricting Commission, Dems need to learn to play that game as well as the republicans and gerrymander the crap out of every state that we have control of after 2020 census. Hopefully it's a game changing election for the Dems. Once it's happened to them on a grand scale (a la 2010 for the Dems), the R's will get on board with changing the laws in their own states.

It freaking sucks, but if SCOTUS isn't going to get on board, the state legislatures will have to.

This is the same thing happening with abortion rights and will have to be dealt with in the same way: by the State Legislatures.

[TryLogic]

7. This is time to apply: All politics are local.

[theaocp]

10. We did it with Prop 2

and a large part was due to cross-party appeal and grassroots activism. I was at Noel Night downtown and screaming to the closest folks available that 3 out of 4 reindeer agree that gerrymandering sucks. If Rudolph knows what's up, we can tell the fascists to fuck off. Piece by piece, folks. We have to stay vigilant and watch for fuckery after the vote, since we poked the bear.

[CaptainTruth]

9. Things I wonder about: New federal law, state laws, & state Constitutions.

Federal law:
Can Congress/POTUS pass a law (must be Constitutional, of course) that restricts gerrymandering for political purposes? Then a case like this one won't be about gerrymandering per se, it'll be about whether or not someone broke the law. Courts can't just pass on that.

I would think this would work because the court noted that districts can't be gerrymandered for purposes of racial discrimination, because there are laws against racial discrimination. There are no laws (federal, anyway) against gerrymandering for political advantage. If there were laws against gerrymandering for unfair political advantage (in a way that deliberately misrepresents the electorate) it would seem that such districts could be challenged under that law.

State law:
We can work to pass state laws that require districts be drawn by independent non-partisan committees.

State Constitutions:
One anti-gerrymandering case was upheld by SCOTUS because the State Supreme Court ruled the gerrymandering violated the State Constitution. (In VA I believe.)

We really need to look at the specific wording in the VA State Constitution that was cited in this case & the arguments made in court. They may provide a guide to bringing similar cases in other states.

[William769]

11. Always knew she was one smart lady.