
Supreme Court rules federal courts cannot invalidate partisan gerrymandering [pdf] - andrewla
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
======
bsamuels
This is actually a fascinating read, despite the disappointing decision.

This section really resonates:

> It is not even clear what fairness looks like in this context. It may mean
> achieving a greater number of competitive districts by undoing packing and
> cracking so that supporters of the disadvantaged party have a better shot at
> electing their preferred candidates. But it could mean engaging in cracking
> and packing to ensure each party its “appropriate” share of “safe” seats. Or
> perhaps it should be measured by adherence to “traditional” districting
> criteria. Deciding among those different visions of fairness poses basic
> questions that are political, not legal. There are no legal standards
> discernible in the Constitution for making such judgments. And it is only
> after determining how to define fairness that one can even begin to answer
> the determinative question: “How much is too much?”

~~~
blakesterz
That's Roberts writing?

"It is not even clear what fairness looks like in this context."

Except it IS clear what unfairness looks like, and it's this.

“How much is too much?”

This, what they are doing right hear right now, this is too much. I have to
assume it's obvious to the majority here and they know what they're doing.

Kagan's dissent is great and finishes with this which REALLY resonates with
me:

"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. With respect but deep sadness, I
dissent. "

~~~
rossdavidh
I think the decisions' example is pretty telling. Does every voter have a
right to a competitive election in their district, so that their vote matters
at least potentially? Or does every voter have a right to their political
party getting representation at least approximately equal to their share of
the electorate? Those two both sound good, and they point in opposite
directions.

So, it's not a question of what the law says, it's a question of _values_, of
what the law _should_ say. You could argue either side of that, but saying
that the Constitution or precedents give a clear guideline for a judge to use
in deciding it, is not tenable.

Let's say the courts decided to intervene here. What standard should they
give? "If it seems really unfair, strike it down?" What looks really unfair to
a Democratic-appointed judge is going to be different than what looks really
unfair to a Republican-appointed judge.

~~~
bb88
Except that courts do weigh get asked to weigh in murky situations and come
out with a ruling all the time, which is the reason they exist.

As Ruth Bader Ginsburg said recently, "However one comes out on the legal
issues, partisan gerrymandering unsettles the fundamental premise that people
elect their representatives, not vice versa."

[https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/ruth-bader-ginsburg-
par...](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/ruth-bader-ginsburg-partisan-
gerrymandering-census)

~~~
rossdavidh
No, the reason they exist is to rule on what the law says, even in very murky
situations. But I have read no credible case that there is any statement in
the Constitution or elsewhere, which they could go by to determine the
standard here.

The fact that RGB says "However one comes out on the legal issues..." looks
like evidence that, at some level, she knows there's not a legal argument here
to arrive at the right result. Because the right result is surely to not do
things the way we do now. Probably, some kind of multi-rep district system is
the right solution. But, that's not a thing the courts can fix, or should
attempt to, and they know it.

------
cardamomo
Gerrymandering is enabled by data collection and algorithms that were once
impractical to implement. In declining to take up the issue of gerrymandering
in the previous Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy identified this issue.

As reported by NPR [0]:

> "Technology is both a threat and a promise," he wrote, noting that with the
> advent of computer technology, the temptation to leverage partisan advantage
> would "only grow" unless constrained by the courts. His hope, he wrote, was
> that "new technologies may produce new methods of analysis" for the courts
> to use in identifying and remedying the problem.

So. Let's talk about ethics. This is a community that sees the issue,
understands the subtle ways in which data and algorithms can be manipulated to
systematically disenfranchise people, and has the power to create the tools
that Justice Kennedy wrote about. This is also a community that has the power
to resist -- to not let its expertise and skills fall under the employ of
those that would harm democracy.

Where's the action?

[0]: [https://www.npr.org/2019/03/25/704523712/the-supreme-
court-t...](https://www.npr.org/2019/03/25/704523712/the-supreme-court-takes-
another-look-at-partisan-redistricting)

~~~
rossdavidh
It might be helpful, if there were publicly available algorithms that could
balance the various aims (competitive districts, compact districts, majority-
minority districts, etc.) for a given set of geography and census data. That
would enable legislators to at least say, in legislation, that algorithm such-
and-such (publicly defined and available) will be used with such-and-such
inputs (e.g. 1/3 competitive districts, majority-minority for any minority of
at least 9% of the overall pop, etc.). Right now, the legislators would have
to specify the algorithm themselves, or else specify a proprietary code
business product, which seems icky. So, I suppose the dev community could make
the tools for drawing maps available, and educate legislators in their use.

------
ashelmire
The fact that Roberts actually wrote this without his head exploding is
astounding: "Vote dilution in the one-person, one-vote cases refers to the
idea that each vote must carry equal weight. That requirement does not extend
to political parties; it does not mean that each party must be influential in
proportion to the number of its supporters."

How can each vote carry equal weight if 60% of the voters get to select 30% of
the elected officials?

~~~
ccleve
Because a voter's preference cannot be expressed solely through their
affiliation with a political party.

We look at gerrymandering through the lens of "fairness", and we find it
unfair when one group cannot get reasonably proportional representation in the
legislature. But we are all members of many groups. We belong to political
parties, racial groups, regional groups, economic groups, social classes and
personality groups -- how can all of them get a voice which is proportional to
their numbers? There's no clear-cut solution.

This is the core problem with most gerrymandering jurisprudence -- it looks at
at the problem mostly through a racial lens, and more recently, a partisan
one. But the world is more complex than that. Voter's interests are not solely
determined by the color of their skin or their political party.

The court is not saying that gerrymandering is okay. The court is saying that
they don't have a solution, or at least not one that can be imposed by courts.
The court is more constrained than a legislature in finding a solution,
because the court must override state laws based on a reasonable reading of
federal law, in this case the Voting Rights Act, or the Constitution. And
unfortunately, both of those sources are nearly silent on the matter. It is
not within the courts power to create law from nothing, notwithstanding
Kagan's dissent.

In the past, we decided that the appropriate grouping for the election of
representatives was geographic. It's not ideal, but it's the best of bad
options. Our current gerrymanders are a perversion of that principle, and we
are right to look for a solution that leads to cleaner, more compact
districts.

The court has said that it's not theirs to decide the issue. I'm not sure I
agree, because current gerrymanders are an incumbent protection racket, and
that looks to me like a civil rights violation. But in any case, it is well
within the power of Congress to fix the problem through an amendment to the
Voting Rights Act, and they certainly should.

~~~
WhompingWindows
"It is well within the power of Congress to fix the problem..."

Except that the Senate is controlled by Republicans and Republicans, on the
whole, benefit more from gerrymandering. Even when the words and intentions of
GOP are made clear, "we gerrymandered black peoples' districts to reduce their
representation", it's still hard to remove that entrenched power. What's more,
because of the pro-rural bias of the Senate, the rural allegiance to the GOP,
and the electoral college disadvantaging urban centers, this entrenched GOP
will continue to have a disproportionate share of power.

The Democrats try to play clean and fair, meanwhile the deck is stacked
against them, and they still naively don't shift back towards gaining rural
voters who they need for the Senate. Until the Fox News loving Silent Gen and
Boomers die off, the GOP will cling to a disproportionate share of power.

~~~
ccleve
This is completely, utterly wrong.

I was involved in a gerrymandering case in the 1990s. The group that brought
me in was challenging the Illinois congressional map, which had been drawn by
Democrats. It was, and is, atrocious. Back then, the map was a deal between
the white Democrats who wanted to hold some white seats that extended into the
suburbs, and some black Democrats who wanted incumbent protection.

Back then, the Democrats were the ones across the country who were protecting
racial gerrymanders because they wanted to ensure that any area with a
substantial black population was never represented by a Republican. They drew
the districts in Illinois to ensure as many black-majority districts as
possible (and one Hispanic-majority district). The districts were completely
convoluted. They made arguments that the Voting Rights Act actually _required_
racial gerrymanders.

Our side challenged the districts. The other side, defending the gerrymander,
was led by the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, and they brought in the
Clinton Administration Justice Department as defendant-intervenors. That's
right -- the primary defender of gerrymanders was the Clinton Administration.
They were involved in similar suits, making similar claims, across the
country.

Demographics have shifted a bit since then, and now we have more Republican
gerrymanders than Democrat ones. But make no mistake -- the original
convoluted maps were all Democrat, and virtually all Supreme Court
gerrymandering-related precedent during the era came as a result of Democrat
defense of the maps.

So don't try to claim that Democrats "play clean and fair". That's rubbish.
They created this problem, and only now are shifting their views of
gerrymandering because it is no longer working to their benefit. They, like
most politicians, are opportunists.

Disclosure: I'm now the chairman of the Chicago Republican Party.

~~~
WhompingWindows
Okay, you're chair of the Chicago Republicans. Chicago and Illinois, like my
town of Providence, RI, was absolutely devastated by corruption amongst
Democrats. We shouldn't ever have single-party control, that's not good for
anyone.

What are your stances on climate change? If you have a sane, science-backed
viewpoint, it'd be much easier for me to vote for you, given you're a GOP
member. As it stands, 95% of your entire party has abandoned the planet's
future, and I can not in good conscience vote for anyone who takes the GOP
label and doesn't speak out against denialists and the fossil fuel cabal.

I went to UChicago, FWIW, and there are some decent economics-based policy
proposals about climate change from right-wing thinkers. It's a shame your
party is so beholden to fossil fuel interests.

------
tomp
If my understanding is correct, this is a misleading title. _Federal_ courts
cannot invalidate partisan gerrymandering - it's left to the _individual
states_.

~~~
HaloZero
That is correct, I imagine he's arguing that each state should decide on how
to setup it's districting vs the courts. It's already happened in a few states
with independent redistricting setups (but mostly in blue/purple states) but
it will be much harder in deep red states.

~~~
tomp
Presumably the less purple a state is (i.e. the more pure red or pure blue)
the less it matters, no?

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
The particularly red/blue states are where this matters the most. Imagining a
state with 10 districts and a split of 80-20 along party lines (and this is
relatively as extreme red/blue you can get; americans aren't that homogenous).
Ideally you'd expect that state to send and 8 - 2 split to the house of
representatives to best represent their population. With gerrymandering it's
trivial to insure those 20% are silenced as far as federal influence is
concerned. That's a lot of people and, I would argue, not an ideal situation.

~~~
tialaramex
Note that if the people are literally just randomly red or blue like this in
an 80:20 split across the state, it actually takes a LOT of work to ensure you
get an 8:2 split of ten representatives out of that and you'd expect 10:0
instead if representatives are one-per-district.

One fix is to use multi-representative districts, e.g. you draw only two
districts in that 10 member state, and in each district people are voting for
_five_ representatives. If there are parties you can use this thing called the
Jefferson system (yes named after that Jefferson) to pick members of parties
to fill those five seats per district with a single vote per person in a fair
way. We can expect that in this 80:20 scenario each district would send one
minority party member and four majority party members. The way Jefferson
works, getting five out of five members is going to need you to really _crush_
your opponents, because in effect for that last seat every vote helps them
five times more than you - even "useless" votes like somebody who wrote in
"Michelle Obama" make it harder for them to win that last seat.

In reality though things aren't that conveniently mixed. Most likely an 80:20
state has very different ratios in its big cities than in rural agricultural
land, or on an Indian reservation, or between a college town and an otherwise
similar town with no students. Gerrymandering is about drawing lines on a map
so that say 40% of the people in one district are blue, even though it's 20%
state wide, whereas maybe if you'd just "naturally" put the line around the
big city it'd be 56% blue and they'd get a blue representative. This feels
intuitively unfair, and it's frustrating that a Supreme Court felt able to say
well, too bad, we don't "know" what fair even is.

------
jimbob45
[https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-
project/](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/)

For those who want a more in-depth look at gerrymandering and why it's not
simply or easy to fix, I highly recommend this series from 538. They do a
great job highlighting complicated wrinkles with common gerrymandering
solutions and pointing out ideas you may not have previously thought.

------
w8vY7ER
This is just so disappointing. We cannot allow this to be the last word on the
topic, they must be made to address this!

~~~
klipt
You can override a court decision (which interprets the law) by changing the
law itself. All you have to do is vote for ... oh wait.

------
xpe
I’ve read some knee jerk reactions here on HN. I would encourage everyone to
dig deeper. I suggest starting by reading this Atlantic article:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/partisan-g...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/partisan-
gerrymandering-supreme-court-north-carolina/592741/)

~~~
xpe
A quote from the above Atlantic article:

“Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem
unjust,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts. “But the fact that such
gerrymandering is ‘incompatible with democratic principles’ does not mean that
the solution lies with the federal judiciary. We conclude that partisan
gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the
federal courts.”

~~~
avs733
This is one of those quotes that sounds great in the abstract but fails in any
form of reality.

The chickens protest to the farmer that the fox is eating them. The farmer
says, right but what can I do it's the fox eating you?

Everything is a political question...especially when you make it one.

The case in front of the courts was about redistricting being politicized. To
use the fact that it is being politicized to claim you can't take action to
protect people's fundamental right to effective representation is an
embarrassing argument. It's willful ignorance towards a goal.

------
throw0101a
An observation from David Frum:

> _1\. Partisan gerrymandering is lawful._

> _2\. Racial gerrymandering is not lawful._

> _3\. Race is among the strongest predictors of partisanship._

> _4\. Square this circle - go!_

* [https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1144251011432878080](https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1144251011432878080)

------
bwb
I just feel like this is another nail in the coffin that is trust in democracy
in this country. You look at the stats on how much young people in the USA
trust their political system and it just keeps falling for reasons like this.

Oh please vote... just remember that we can make your congressional distracts
meaningless by overloading it with one side. Oh and ya the electoral college
will overwrite the vote of the majority. Democracy?

~~~
tptacek
"Another" nail? If it's a nail, it's one of the first ones in the coffin.
Precedent for this decision stretches all the way back to the founders.

~~~
jacobolus
In the US context, voting rights were dramatically expanded between the 18th
century and the 1960s.

A regression to Jim Crow era practices is a serious setback.

~~~
tptacek
Gerrymandering has been a constant since the time of the founders.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
That's wrong, and wrong in really interesting ways.First off if we want to
argue from the founders districts were never supposed to be more than 10k
people and the number of districts would naturally grow with population. We
threw that out the window in the early 20th century precisely to make the
representation of power less democratic.

Ignoring all of that history, and taking your statement in good faith, it
still is reductive to pretend that we're in the same state as the 18th
century. Voters are much more diverse, and the technology exists to precisely
draw districts to achieve very precise outcomes. The increased precision and
ability to do things at scale is a differentiating factor, as well as the
increased consequences; a voting population that's just "land owning white
males" might see gerrymandering as less extreme that the much more diverse
distribution of beliefs we have in the current voting population.

The current problems with gerrymandering are huge. Issues that have super
majority support among the population (reproductive rights, immigration
reform, drug reform, gun control) are controlled by an increasingly small
population of voters. You can (and even may be correct) claim that this
represents the wills of the founders; it's a much harder sell to claim that
this is a "good thing" that the people shouldn't be able to push back against.

~~~
tptacek
So by "wrong in interesting ways" you mean "right, but in ways not relevant to
my particular argument".

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
No, in the you're wrong unequivocally, but the ideas that we can "know the
will of the founders" and "the will of the founders somehow matters" is really
interesting in 2019.

~~~
tptacek
I generally don't think we can, but since "gerrymandering" was coined to
describe an instance of it occurring in _Boston_ during the presidency of
_James Madison_ , I think we have a clear signal in this one case.

------
weioruowiuer
I'm 99% sure things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

~~~
linuxftw
What makes you think they're going to get better?

~~~
weioruowiuer
good point

------
weioruowiuer
I think any reasonable / rational human being could use the single word
"equality" as the criteria and decide unequivocally that what is being done
with gerrymandering is not that.

Looks like SCOTUS needs congress to hold their hands and spell everything out
in laws that will almost certainly contain loop holes.

Why is this supreme court unable (unwilling?) to think for themselves?

------
jasonlotito
That should be federal courts, not state courts. This is important, because
states like Pennsylvania have had its Supreme Court hand down rulings on
gerrymandering because of its constitution.

I should note that this didn't go to the Supreme Court because it was purely a
state matter, and ruled based on the state's constitution.

~~~
ashleyn
Pennsylvania is neither uniformly red nor blue, so this kind of judgement will
not be possible in a state like North Carolina.

~~~
jacobolus
North Carolina has a “liberal” majority on its Supreme Court,

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Justices_of_the_North_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Justices_of_the_North_Carolina_Supreme_Court)

------
deskamess
So what is the recourse to this decision to prevent partisan gerrymandering?

Basically what I am seeing is a class of laws that can be appealed at a state
level, but not at a federal level. Not an expert on the legal system, but is
there precedent for this on a constitutional topic (like voting)?

------
duxup
It seems inherently unfair, and maybe undemocratic that a party (any party)
could control state government with a disproportionately small number of
overall votes.

Or that any party could gather a large majority of votes, and not actually
have any control.

------
milsorgen
Specific instance aside the court is wise to remain aloof from the role of
king maker. A rare bit of propriety in today's disgruntled political arena.

~~~
germinalphrase
Maybe the Supreme Court is not the right entity to decide this issue, but
gerrymandering is obviously anti-democratic. By permitting it for political
gain, the court allows our two dominant political parties to act as
“kingmakers” by controlling the relative level of impact for each vote. With
the sophistication of modern data collection and modeling, we’re increasingly
seeing politicians win popular vote counts in state races while losing the
election.

We need a wholesale reconsideration of our election fairness and security
practices in this country.

------
lordCarbonFiber
The cognitive dissonance required to wax poetically about how voters should
just get their representatives (elected and permanently in power because of
these broken districts) to pass laws to redraw the broken districts is
astounding to me. Checks and balances, never heard of them.

i can't wait to see what districts look like in a few years now that there's 0
potential for voters to be heard.

~~~
andrewla
The thing is that there is potential for changes at the federal level to
contradict this. If Congress is controlled by the Democrats, and they see many
states with Republican-gerrymandered districts, they might see a way to
increase their influence by legislatively preventing gerrymandering on the
national level, forcing states to make their districts more fair.

There's of course always the chance that the party in power will see that
preventing gerrymandering will hurt them more than it will help them, but that
won't always be the case.

~~~
klodolph
How would they do that? Pass a law? Does the federal government have that
authority?

~~~
evgen
They can do it without passing a law actually (which is a bit scary if you
think about it.) Congress and congress alone has the power to determine its
membership. They can simply pass a resolution stating that no member who was
elected by a district that was gerrymandered by some specific criteria will be
seated in the future. The courts can go pound sand if they don't like it.

~~~
pvg
Some of this has been litigated and it's not quite that black and white. Take
a look at

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_v._McCormack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_v._McCormack)

~~~
evgen
Yes, the court can make such claims as they do in Powell, and Congress can
ignore them. It is pure power politics, but the reputation of the court has
been so diminished that Congress could easily get away with refusing to seat a
member or two and there is really nothing that anyone could do to stop them.

~~~
pvg
You can make that argument about anything, though and it be would be equally
applicable. 'The branches of the US government can start ignoring each other'.
Sure, they could but that possibility doesn't really offer any useful insight.
It's like saying I can become world heavyweight boxing champion by shooting my
opponents.

------
mrkstu
A good ruling. Everyone getting upset at this should take a couple things into
consideration-

1\. Both parties do this now and have done it historically. It is no more a
danger today than it has ever been in the past and the Republic has lived and
thrived with this system. Generally what it does it create a magnification of
power for a party that is in a slight majority position, which can create more
continuity in government and allow their ideas to make it into actual law over
opposition. This is not a necessarily a bad thing. Voters get to see the full
affects of a party's agenda take place and then if they don't like it, the
party tends to get thrown out wholesale and the other 'team' ends up with
similar magnification to implement their agenda. See Texas and California
where this has played out in opposite directions in recent decades.

2\. Modesty in the judiciary is a very _good_ thing. Notice that the new
'ultra-conservative' judges have regularly been crossing over to join with the
court liberals this term. Why? Because their underlying philosophy is to
interpret the law and constitution as written. I appreciate here that they are
calling out that the actions taken by the legislatures are not necessarily
appropriate, but respecting the boundaries of what their constitutional role
will often play to the advantage of those who disagree with this particular
ruling. If they were true 'movement' conservatives dictating by desired
outcome rather than the law, they could easily slip into a tyrannical mode
from the POV of many here. Instead the worst you can say is that they are
trying to enforce the law and Constitution as written and you can use your
vote to get those changed.

~~~
xpe
Your argument about the magnification of power is interesting. I agree that
gerrymandering tends in this direction. I’m not convinced this is (1) a
healthy thing overall, (2) compatible with reasonable definitions of
representation, nor (3) a particularly efficient way to give party or
ideological continuity given the huge risks of corruption that come with
gerrymandering.

~~~
mrkstu
I just think it is more like first past the post parliamentary government- the
party in power gets to implement its agenda whether its a large majority or
even a plurality. Not out of the norm around the world or considered anti-
democratic.

------
rayiner
I'm not sure whether this is a good decision for the country, but it's a good
decision for protecting the integrity of the federal judiciary (which is the
whole point of the political question doctrine):

> In considering whether partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable, we
> are mindful of Justice Kennedy’s counsel in Vieth: Any standard for
> resolving such claims must be grounded in a “limited and precise rationale”
> and be “clear, manageable, and politically neutral.” 541 U. S., at 306–308
> (opinion concurring in judgment). An important reason for those careful
> constraints is that, as a Justice with extensive experience in state and
> local politics put it, “[t]he opportunity to control the drawing of
> electoral boundaries through the legislative process of apportionment is a
> critical and traditional part of politics in the United States.” Bandemer,
> 478 U. S., at 145 (opinion of O’Connor, J.). See Gaffney, 412 U. S., at 749
> (observing that districting implicates “fundamental ‘choices about the
> nature of representation’” (quoting Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, 92
> (1966))). An expansive standard requiring “the correction of all election
> district lines drawn for partisan reasons would commit federal and state
> courts to unprecedented intervention in the American political process,”
> Vieth, 541 U. S., at 306 (opinion of Kennedy, J.).

One of the cases underlying this Supreme Court decision involves egregious
Democratic gerrymandering in Maryland, my home state. The Congressional
district my house should be in looks like this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland%27s_3rd_congressional...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland%27s_3rd_congressional_district#/media/File:Maryland_US_Congressional_District_3_\(since_2013\).tif).
It's shaped that way to dilute the republicans in Annapolis with democrats
from Prince Georges County, and push the rest of the southeast Maryland
republicans into district 5.

This is clearly bad. But the question is, is it the role of the federal courts
to do something about it? What do you think the reaction in Maryland would be
if a Trump-appointed federal judge invalidated this district on constitutional
grounds? This decision protects the federal judiciary from the inevitable shit
show that would ensue in that and similar situations.

~~~
weioruowiuer
I think if you took every case heard by the Supreme Court and treated it the
same way, they would likely make very few decisions. By these standards
nothing is literal enough in the constitution to warrant a decision on pretty
much anything really.

~~~
tptacek
That's what you'd hope! Supreme Court Justices have lifetime tenure and are
completely unaccountable to the public. We're not meant to be governed by a
panel of philosopher-kings.

~~~
throwaway2048
yeah, all you have to do is elect people that will change this law, hmm...

------
peteradio
What a crock of shit. Is there no such thing as equal representation under the
law? Expand the house.

------
Analemma_
The Governor of California should just say, "Thanks to today's Supreme Court
decision, we intend to redistrict California to make it mathematically
impossible for Republicans to win a single House seat". I bet you the Senate
would agree to a federal anti-gerrymandering provision right quick after that.

~~~
nwallin
I agree with you, however that's unfortunately not possible. The California
Constitution defines the redistricting process in terms of the California
Citizens Redistricting Commission. We would need a ballot initiative to
overturn it. I'm not aware of any initiatives to add such a provision to the
ballot in 2020.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistrict...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistricting_Commission)

------
mullingitover
It's pretty fitting that the justices who were appointed by presidents who
seized power against the wishes of a majority of voters were the ones to drag
this corruption-enabling decision over the finish line.

Pack the SC until they stop making corrupt decisions.

~~~
ctlby
Can you explain how the current president "seized" power? Was there some
extra-legal mechanism at work that I'm not aware of?

~~~
mullingitover
I don't know what else you call it when you get supreme executive power
despite a majority of the voters not wanting you to have it. I'm aware that it
wasn't illegal, but it doesn't mean it's legitimate.

~~~
ctlby
These have been the rules for nearly 250 years. Why are you only up in arms
about it now?

~~~
anon1385
Maybe you aren't old enough to remember but plenty of people were up in arms
in 2000 as well.

I can't comment on what popular sentiment was in 1888.

------
salawat
Well...

At least now we can honestly say the system is still as vulnerable to being
rigged as it was before.

I'm honestly at a loss for words.

EDIT: Words no longer 404ing. It appears the Court is not satisfied with the
State's criteria/legal reasoning to justify justicable action against the
districting plans. They hold the measure must be politically neutral, and have
some basis in being legally addressed.

They go at length to describe circumstances to describe cases with inherent
justicability (districting along racial demographics), but offer no hints or
grasps as to a measure of degree at which political gerrymandering becomes
"excessive".

It looks like Maryland attempted to use "likelihood of persistence" of the
gerrymandered district, but this was dismissed on allowability based on
previous precedent. "Intent" was also singled out in a couple different
wordings, but did not hold satisfactorally for the Court.

Of particular concern was of the Federal Courts to support State Court's
particular measures on what constitutes excessive gerrymandering. It seems the
Court is nudging State populations to appeal to the Federal Legislature to
oversee malconduct in individual State districting. I find this concerning,
seeing as our Federal Legislature has enough on it's plate with getting things
passed, and the last thing we want is to start having the different levels
trying to micromanage each other.

I can sort of see some tiny speck of Wisdom in their judgement. I don't
necessarily find it satisfying, but I have to grudgingly admit they at least
reasoned it out.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Constitutional amendment

