U.S. Supreme Court justices divided in major voting rights case

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

#SUPREME COURT OCTOBER 3, 2017 / 10:13 AM / UPDATED 29 MINUTES AGO

U.S. Supreme Court justices divided in major voting rights case

Andrew Chung
5 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared divided over whether to issue a ruling that would curb the ability of politicians to draw electoral districts purely on partisan lines in a major voting rights case out of Wisconsin.

Some of the conservative justices questioned whether Democratic voters challenging the maps drawn by Republicans in Wisconsin had legal standing to bring the case. But the potential swing vote, conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, asked tough questions of the state’s lawyers.

The liberal justices appeared more eager for the court to rule that partisan electoral maps could violate the U.S. Constitution. The justices heard about an hour of arguments in the case.

Wisconsin is appealing a lower court’s ruling that the electoral map devised by state Republicans had such extreme partisan aims that it violated the constitutional rights of voters.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-election/u-s-supreme-court-justices-divided-in-major-voting-rights-case-idUSKCN1C81P2

[Gothmog]

1. I am closely following this case

[rurallib]

2. I am not holding out a lot of hope

there was a reason the Repugs blocked Garland. This case is one of the reasons.

At his core, Kennedy is a Republican.

[procon]

3. Why wouldn't Dem voters have legal standing in this case?

Is the court saying Democrats can be legally treated as second class citizens and have their voting rights diminished while Republicans get to tilt the scales in their favor?

I tried google, but there's no discussion or explanation about why Republicans get preferential treatment. Anyone have an idea about why Dems wouldn't have legal standing?

[FBaggins]

4. The standing issue may just be a way to dodge the underlying question

It isn't that the republicans get preferential treatment from a standing perspective... because there isn't a group of Republican voters that were found to have standing while a group of Democratic voters were not. "The Republicans" in this case is really "The Wisconsin Legislature" - which of course has standing in a challenge to a law that they wrote.

[BigmanPigman]

5. This is a very big deal since other states will use it as

a precedent.