Pennsylvania Supreme Court redraws Congressional districts
Actually, it appears that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has rubber-stamped a professor’s redrawing of Congressional districts in the state. Here’s the story:
Republicans probably just lost at least 4 or 5 seats in the House.
This afternoon, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unveiled its remedial Congressional map for the midterm elections in November. [See Featured Image] The Supreme Court Order issuing the map is here.
According to NYT data expert Nate Cohn, the new districts are arguably more advantageous to Democrats than the ones Democratic lawmakers themselves proposed a week ago. The map was actually drawn by Nathan Persily, a Stanford professor who is frequently retained by courts to “remedy” alleged gerrymandering…
Recall that on January 22, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled””on a party-line vote””that the districts adopted by the legislature in 2011 intentionally “diluted” the votes of Democrats, in violation of the state constitution’s guarantee of “free and equal” elections. The court commissioned a new map, ordering that districts be “compact and contiguous” and avoid dividing localities. The Republican legislature was given three weeks to devise such a map and get the Democratic governor to sign off on it. If no agreement was reached, the court promised that it would adopt its own map by February 19.
The state Speaker of the House and president pro tempore of the Senate asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. It declined to do so, with Justice Alito turning down a stay application without comment or referring it to the full court.
Chastened, the Republicans in the state legislature proposed new districts, and even though no one denied that their map conformed to the court’s neutral geographic indices, analysts determined that Republicans still intended for the map to help their party. Governor Tom Wolf rejected the proposal.
FiveThirtyEight elections expert Dave Wasserman explains that the court’s remedial map intentionally compensates for Democratic clustering in urban precincts.
The Supreme Court earlier declined to hear the case.
According to the NY Times (and in my opinion, this is the heart of the matter):
In general, partisan balance is not usually a goal when redistricting. You could certainly argue that partisan balance and maximizing the number of competitive districts should be among the criteria, but, in general, they are not. Instead, a nonpartisan map usually means a partisan-blind map. It strives for compact districts that respect communities of interest, with little regard for the partisan outcome.
…a partisan-blind map will tend to favor the Republicans by a notable amount.
That’s because Deomcrats tend to cluster in certain areas.
Gerrymandering is an old political tool, but ordinarily it refers to drawing very weird boundaries that defy logic except the logic of political partisanship. In other words, maps are drawn in very strange ways to create advantages for the winning party, who gets to draw them at certain times (usually according to the powers given the legislature by a state constitution). This is “fair” in the sense that to the winner belongs the spoils, and if a party wants to get to draw new districts it has to win. Either party can (and does!) do it when it is victorious.
The courts seem increasingly unhappy with that admittedly imperfect solution. One would think that the fix would be to draw districts with more normal lines—in other words, just as the Times states, a “partisan-blind map…striv[ing] for compact districts that respect communities of interest, with little regard for the partisan outcome.”
But, as the Times also points out, that tends to favor Republicans because of the Democratic-clustering effect. So, “partisan balance” had become a goal. This to me smacks of the judiciary taking over the function of a legislature—but hey, the judiciary has gotten more and more powerful in recent decades, hasn’t it?
That will be the basis of a GOP appeal:
Republicans say they’ll go to federal court this week to try to block new court-ordered boundaries of Pennsylvania’s congressional districts from remaining in effect for 2018’s elections.
Top Senate Republican lawyer Drew Crompton said Monday a separation of powers case will form the essence of the GOP’s argument. Crompton won’t say whether Republicans will go to a district court or the U.S. Supreme Court or what type of legal remedy they’ll seek.
But the case will involve making the argument the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures and governors, not courts, the power to draw congressional boundaries.
In my opinion, the outcome will depend on the political composition of the court in which the appeal is filed. Courts are almost always politically predictable these days. The original Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling establishing this was along straight political lines, as well.
I suggest everyone only be allowed to draw right angles, whatever they draw, you know, rectangles squares, up to the state lines.
That provides some variability, but still offers strategic planning..
Fair, though, how do you make it fair?
Fairness at work:
[Illinois’s 4th congressional district] was featured by “The Economist” as one of the most strangely drawn and gerrymandered congressional districts in the country and has been nicknamed “earmuffs” due to its shape. It was created after federal courts ordered the creation of a majority-Hispanic district in the Chicago area. The Illinois General Assembly responded by packing two majority Hispanic parts of Chicago into a single district
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois%27s_4th_congressional_district
This is Rep. Luis Guitierrez’s district. Guiterrez is perhaps the most outspoken immigration activist in Congress. He stormed out of Trump’s SOTU speech and has declared Trump, “the first racist president of the United States of America.”
Thank God for fairness.
By-line:
How the Republicans lost Pennsylvania.
“even though no one denied that their map conformed to the court’s neutral geographic indices, analysts determined that Republicans still intended for the map to help their party. … This to me smacks of the judiciary taking over the function of a legislature–but hey, the judiciary has gotten more and more powerful in recent decades, hasn’t it?”
So, the GOP met the Court’s guidelines, then the Court moved the goalposts.
Yep.
Really non-partisan there.
The very fact that, if the party identifiers had been reversed in all the previous districts, the Pennsylvania court would have acted the exact opposite is the reasoning behind having the legislature draw the lines. You aren’t taking the gerrymandering away- you are just changing which body in the state gets to do it.
Selected, not elected.
Democracy is a poison. It is an intentional con. In many ways, it has similarities to the Jesuits’ Bellarminian Liberation Theology.
Down with Tyrants. Death to all Tyrants! The people have the right to revolt and overthrow the government.
Ymar sakar:
In the state of Pennsylvania, Supreme Court judges are actually elected. There are seven of them, elected to terms of 10 years.
The old Republican map was stupid and annoying, but it was within the legislature’s right to screw that up just as much as they tend to screw up everything else in Pennsylvania.
Republicans and Democrats separately proposed revised lines that were improvements in the old map. Even the Democrats were surprised that the PA Supreme Court came back with another map that favored Democrats beyond their wildest dreams. The new map looks nice and somewhat sensible until you dive into the details.
They moved some R-leaning districts around such that two incumbents now share the same district. The special election in March will be a fiasco, a close race to win in a district that will completely disappear soon thereafter. The R candidate’s home was moved into a strongly D Pittsburgh district, the D candidate’s home was redrawn into a very competitive district with an R incumbent.
A couple of strong R candidates for separate old districts are now in the same new district. No D incumbent or leaning district was in any ways penalized.
The PA Supreme Court, an elected body full of hacks from both parties, has been a bad joke for a generation, corrupt and incompetent. Now they have really made their mark.
Possibly a federal court may say that they have usurped a clearly-defined legislative authority on specious grounds. I’m not holding my breath, however.
The federal courts didn’t intervene because the case was not yet ripe- with the newly imposed districts, it is possible that a federal judge will now take the case up.
neo-neocon Says:
February 21st, 2018 at 12:27 pm
Ymar sakar:
In the state of Pennsylvania, Supreme Court judges are actually elected. There are seven of them, elected to terms of 10 years.
If you are referring to my line about selected not elected, that was not a statement about judges but elected officials.
People pretend to elect them and the politicians pretend to care about their imaginary districts, complete with imaginary district lines.
It’s mostly just an illusion to fool the masses into thinking democracy has their back. Meanwhile those who have rigged the game are selecting winners. Electing them is merely the pretext to keep the masses inline.
Thus selected, not elected.