Home » Pennsylvania Supreme Court redraws Congressional districts

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Pennsylvania Supreme Court redraws Congressional districts — 10 Comments

  1. 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?

  2. 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.

  3. “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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. Ymar sakar:

    In the state of Pennsylvania, Supreme Court judges are actually elected. There are seven of them, elected to terms of 10 years.

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. 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.

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