The latest GOP redistricing scam is going to the Surpreme Court.

[sufrommich]

he Supreme Court has agreed to consider a major shift in how political districts are drawn nationwide by only counting citizens who can vote, not the total population.

If the justices eventually rule for the conservative group that appealed the issue, the decision could dilute the political power of Latinos, especially in large states such as Texas, California and Florida.

In its appeal, the Project on Fair Representation based in Austin, Texas, says the districts should be balanced based on the number of eligible voters. The group sued on behalf of Sue Evenwel, a leader of the Texas Republican Party. She lives in Titus County in east Texas, where her state Senate district had 533,010 citizens of voting age in 2011. However, another Senate district had 372,00 citizens of voting age.

The appeal in Evenwel vs. Abbott argues that her right to an equal vote is being denied because Texas officials relied on the census data to balance the districts. Requiring states to switch to counting only citizens will "ensure that voters are afforded the basic right to an equal vote," her lawyers said.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-voting-districts-20150526-story.html


The GOP isn't even trying to pretend it's not trying to suppress votes anymore.They make me sick. I shudder to think of what this Supreme Court is going to do to help them out.

[MADem]

1. I think districts should be as close to square as is reasonable, based on population distribution.

I think that spaghetti strand districts are asinine--it's no wonder people don't feel like their congress-creature gives a shit about them....when they're representing a swathe about as wide as a city block and a mile long in a given town, that stretches into the next town and maybe even the next, it's just STUPID. They should represent geographically contiguous and "like" areas--like a whole town, or two--not ribbons of unrelated populations.

[sufrommich]

4. I do too. Redistricing has become such a scam. That's why

the GOP clings to it.

[merrily]

2. I'm guessing the Supremes will duck the issue somehow.

[sufrommich]

5. Then you're more optimistic than me. nt

[rock]

6. Ducking is what they are supreme at

The only thing as far as I can tell.

[world wide wally]

3. This Supreme Court will do whatever is politically expedient for Republicans

See Bush v Gore

[unblock]

7. this part of is why i'm such a big advocate for voting rights for felons and ex-felons

i do not trust governments to decide who gets their right to vote taken away.

yeah, yeah, felons are rotten people and maybe they don't "deserve" the right to vote; but the more important issue is that *government* doesn't deserve the right to disenfranchise people selectively.

that power is a recipe for self-preservation, self-selection, and corruption. it is anti-democratic to the core.

it is part of the reason you have racist laws and sentencing requirements (crack vs. cocaine, e.g.), selective enforcement, a system that lets the rich get off easy, etc.

and then, of course, it is part of the reason why right-wingers can do as well as they do electorally, even (especially) in the south, where there are often rather high concentrations of exactly the kind of people who you would expect to oppose them.

you would be surprised at how many of these people have been disenfranchised.

[sufrommich]

8. Their whole argument here is that our representatives should

only represent voters as opposed to the people who live in their districts.It's an incredibly cynical argument to make.

[unblock]

9. here's the relevant part of the 14th amendment:

Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age,* and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.


it appears that it's legal (much as i loathe this) to disenfranchise for crimes, but apportionment should be based on the number of "persons in each state".

[Fred Sanders]

11. "Excluding Indians, not taxed". Parts of the antique American Constitution need a complete overhaul.

If, as cons suggest, the Constitution is the written Word of God, God must have been writing high.

[unblock]

12. not to mention "male" inhabitants....

[tblue37]

10. Considering the way African-Americans and Latinos are disproportionately targeted

for arrest and incarceration, and the fact that the drug war has been used specifically to turn so many POC, and even so many poor whites, into felons, the fact that someone has a felony conviction on or her record is not necessarily evidence that he or she should be stripped of this essential right to representation.

Furthermore, DAs have an ugly habit of deliberately overcharging to force people--including innocent people--to accept a plea, and to force people who do not deserve a felony charge to give up someone else that they are really after. That's one of the reasons the US has had such a huge increase in the female prison population. They go after wives and girlfriends to use them against their men, and when the women won't flip, or when they really don't have enough useful information to offer, they get locked up on the worst charges the DA can come up with.

[bigbrother05]

13. If equal protection is meaningful, all residents will be counted for representation

Federal elected offices should represent the the interests of the people in their respective districts.

These folks better be careful, a favorable SC ruling could reduce the number in the TX/FL delegations that would more than offset any losses in CA.

Guess they don't want look out for the children either.

[Gothmog]

14. This case is being brought by some right wing nut cases