Supreme Court rejects limits to partisan gerrymandering

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday rejected efforts to rein in the contentious practice of manipulating electoral district boundaries to entrench one party in power by turning away challenges to political maps in Maryland and North Carolina. The justices, in a 5-4 decision, sided with Democratic legislators in Maryland and Republican lawmakers in North Carolina who drew electoral district boundaries, saying in a decision with nationwide implications that judges do not have the ability to curb the practice known as partisan gerrymandering.

The ruling delivered a setback to election reformers who had hoped the court would intervene over a growing trend in which parties that control state legislatures use the electoral district line-drawing process to cement their grip on power and dilute the voting power of people who support the rival party. The high court previously had struggled to resolve the legality of partisan gerrymandering, a longstanding practice in which boundaries of legislative districts are reworked with the aim of tightening one party’s grip on power. The justices in June 2018 failed to issue definitive rulings on partisan gerrymandering in two cases - this same one from Maryland and another involving a Republican-drawn electoral map in Wisconsin.

The boundaries of legislative districts across the country are redrawn to reflect population changes contained in the census conducted by the federal government every decade, a head count mandated by the U.S. Constitution. This redistricting in most states is carried out by the party in power, though some states in the interest of fairness assign the task to independent commissions. Gerrymandering typically involves politicians drawing legislative districts to pack voters who tend to favor a particular party into a small number of districts to diminish their statewide voting power while dispersing others in districts in numbers too small to be a majority.

Critics have said partisan gerrymandering, when taken to extremes, warps democracy by intentionally diluting the power of some voters and the electability candidates they support. Gerrymandering is a practice dating back two centuries in the United States. But critics have said it is becoming more extreme with the use of precision computer modeling to guide the creation of district boundaries that maximize the clout of one party’s voters at the expense of other voters.

While the Supreme Court has ruled against gerrymandering intended to harm the electoral clout of racial minorities, it has never curbed gerrymandering carried out purely for partisan advantage. Democrats have said partisan gerrymandering by Republicans in such states as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania helped President Donald Trump’s party maintain control of the U.S. House and various state legislatures for years, although Democrats seized control of the House in last November’s elections and made inroads in state legislatures.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-gerrymandering/supreme-court-rejects-limits-to-partisan-gerrymandering-idUSKCN1TS24Z

>>6854678

Interesting each side fights over this political map every time a restructuring is involved, each wants a say in the way the lines are drawn, when the other holds the majority. Question is this: Is this even necessary? Why aren't they just permanent markers no matter what the census result is?

>>6854724

The constitution talks about Gerrymandering? How so? Pardon my ignorance, this is the first time I am hearing this. While at the same time I did not hear the court mention the constitutional limits either.

>>6854791

Thanks for clearing that up, because this is how I remember it. The line drawing has always been at issue for either side for as long as I can remember.

>>6854790

>>6854785

I didn't think you were anon, I just questioned what you were saying because I remembered it differently another anon explained the way I remembered it here: >>6854791

>>6854838

>>6854844

>I think that's what SCOTUS concluded. That the constitution limits federal involvement in the lines, even though the constitution demands the concept of representation delivered by measuring population.

>

>Not gonna argue it. Like the way this one went down.

I agree anon, the only problem I have is this: The courts are constantly jammed up with this issue. I would just like to see it completely settled one way or another is all.

U.S. Supreme Court blocks Trump's census citizenship question, for now

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a significant defeat on Thursday, ruling that his administration did not give an adequate explanation for its plan to include a contentious citizenship question on the 2020 census and preventing its addition to the decennial survey for now. The justices - in a 5-4 decision with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s four liberals in the majority - upheld part of a federal judge’s ruling barring the question in a victory for a group of states including New York and immigrant rights organizations that had challenged the plan.

Opponents of the question have called it a Republican ploy to scare immigrants into not taking part in the population count. The court

ruled against the challengers on other claims, with the nine justices splitting in different ways.

Roberts, writing for the court’s majority, said that under a U.S. law called the Administrative Procedure Act, the federal government is required to give a reasoned explanation for its actions. “Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise,” Roberts wrote. Roberts said that the explanation provided by the government was “more of a distraction.” The ruling did not address litigation that is ongoing in lower courts over additional evidence challengers say show an illegal motive for adding the question, which the high court could yet weigh in on. The Republican president’s administration had appealed to the Supreme Court after lower courts blocked the inclusion of the census question. Opponents have said the question would instill fear in immigrant households that the information would be shared with law enforcement, deterring them from taking part.

The census, required by the U.S. Constitution, is used to allot seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and distribute some $800 billion in federal funds. The intent of the citizenship question, opponents said, is to manufacture a deliberate undercount of areas with high immigrant and Latino populations, costing Democratic-leaning regions seats in the House, benefiting Republicans and non-Hispanic whites. The administration argued that adding a question requiring people taking part in the census to declare whether they are a citizen was needed to better enforce a voting rights law, a rationale that opponents called a pretext for a political motive.

SETBACK FOR TRUMP The ruling marked the first major setback for Trump in a ruling at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, which includes two justices appointed by Trump, had handed Trump some major victories since he took office in 2017, in particular a June 2018 ruling upholding his travel ban targeting people from several Muslim-majority countries. The court in January also let Trump’s policy barring many transgender people from the U.S. military go into effect.

Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman ruled on Jan. 15 that the Commerce Department’s decision to add the question violated a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act. Federal judges in Maryland and California also have issued rulings to block the question’s inclusion, saying it would violate the Constitution’s mandate to enumerate the population every 10 years. Furman said the evidence showed that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross concealed his true motives for adding the question and that he and his aides had convinced the Justice Department to request a citizenship question.

Businesses also rely on census data to make critical strategic decisions, including where to invest capital. Citizenship has not been asked of all households since the 1950 census, featuring since then only on questionnaires sent to a smaller subset of the population. The Census Bureau’s own experts estimated that households corresponding to 6.5 million people would not respond to the census if the citizenship question were asked. While only U.S. citizens can vote, non-citizens comprise an estimated 7 percent of the population.

Evidence surfaced in May that the challengers said showed that the administration’s plan to add a citizenship question was intended to discriminate against racial minorities.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-census/u-s-supreme-court-blocks-trumps-census-citizenship-question-for-now-idUSKCN1TS1BL?il=0