Arizona redistricting goes to Supreme Court

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What's the legal justification for striking down commissions?

A hyperliteral reading of Article I Section 4 so that only a State legislature may devise district maps for the House of Representatives.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Remember: Gerrymandering's only frowned upon when Democrats do it.

No other Democrats on this board(not sure if you did)cried when the GOP did it in 2011.

Arizona has done some weird things like SB 1070, the denial for a bakery to refuse to make a wedding cake  for a same-sex marriage couple and now this. Even Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming aren't this crazy but they are more Republican than Arizona is.

The answer is demographics and history. The state was first settled by white Southerners and then a flood of midwestern Paleocons moved in from the midwest after World War II.

[pbrower2a]

What's the legal justification for striking down commissions?

A hyperliteral reading of Article I Section 4 so that only a State legislature may devise district maps for the House of Representatives.

But that ignores that State legislatures can delegate the drawing of Congressional districts to non-partisan commissions. What they cannot do is to draft districts that grossly disenfranchise large segments of the population. Michigan is a prime example: if you live more than ten miles west of US 23 or to the north of Bay City and you are a Democrat, your voice is unlikely to be heard in the House of Representatives. The Koch syndicate owns your Representative and pulls the strings.   

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What's the legal justification for striking down commissions?

A hyperliteral reading of Article I Section 4 so that only a State legislature may devise district maps for the House of Representatives.

But that ignores that State legislatures can delegate the drawing of Congressional districts to non-partisan commissions. What they cannot do is to draft districts that grossly disenfranchise large segments of the population. Michigan is a prime example: if you live more than ten miles west of US 23 or to the north of Bay City and you are a Democrat, your voice is unlikely to be heard in the House of Representatives. The Koch syndicate owns your Representative and pulls the strings.   

As I recall it was an initiative and not the legislature that set up the Arizona commission, hence it wasn't them who did the delegating.  Plus who says it is a power that can be delegated?  I don't agree with that interpretation, as if for nothing else it flies in the face of a number of existing precedents, but it isn't totally illogical.

[krazen1211]

What's the legal justification for striking down commissions?

A hyperliteral reading of Article I Section 4 so that only a State legislature may devise district maps for the House of Representatives.

But that ignores that State legislatures can delegate the drawing of Congressional districts to non-partisan commissions. What they cannot do is to draft districts that grossly disenfranchise large segments of the population. Michigan is a prime example: if you live more than ten miles west of US 23 or to the north of Bay City and you are a Democrat, your voice is unlikely to be heard in the House of Representatives. The Koch syndicate owns your Representative and pulls the strings.   

This is a hilarious batch of malarkey given that John McCain only won 2 of the 14 districts on the Michigan congressional map. It's not like, say, the Massachusetts congressional map.

[Landslide Lyndon]

This is a hilarious batch of malarkey...

But enough talking about your posting history.

[hopper]

What's the legal justification for striking down commissions?

A hyperliteral reading of Article I Section 4 so that only a State legislature may devise district maps for the House of Representatives.

But that ignores that State legislatures can delegate the drawing of Congressional districts to non-partisan commissions. What they cannot do is to draft districts that grossly disenfranchise large segments of the population. Michigan is a prime example: if you live more than ten miles west of US 23 or to the north of Bay City and you are a Democrat, your voice is unlikely to be heard in the House of Representatives. The Koch syndicate owns your Representative and pulls the strings.   

Michigan is not heavily gerrymandered. Most of the Democratic areas are in and around Detroit. There are Democrats in Southwest MI but its still culturally conservative I would think thus  that area of MI elects Republicans to Congress.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What's the legal justification for striking down commissions?

A hyperliteral reading of Article I Section 4 so that only a State legislature may devise district maps for the House of Representatives.

But that ignores that State legislatures can delegate the drawing of Congressional districts to non-partisan commissions. What they cannot do is to draft districts that grossly disenfranchise large segments of the population. Michigan is a prime example: if you live more than ten miles west of US 23 or to the north of Bay City and you are a Democrat, your voice is unlikely to be heard in the House of Representatives. The Koch syndicate owns your Representative and pulls the strings.   

Michigan is not heavily gerrymandered. Most of the Democratic areas are in and around Detroit. There are Democrats in Southwest MI but its still culturally conservative I would think thus  that area of MI elects Republicans to Congress.

Its the eighth district that is their primary objection if I am not mistaken. Though the current map has other flaws as well and the process was clearly rigged, hency why they need a commission in my view.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Wow, the entire California Republican party is rushing to defend the Arizona redistricting. They know that if Democrats got to draw the map, they'd be losing tons of seats. Only red states are allowed to gerrmanders, and Arizona is a small price to pay for California and New Jersey disarmed.

All 3 living GOP governors, plus the California Chamber of Commerce are involved.

http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/01/26/might-gerrymandering-return-to-california-via-arizona-lawsuit/

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I'll trade a mild Republican gerrymander in AZ for a major Democratic gerrymander in California any day.

[Brittain33]

I'll trade a mild Republican gerrymander in AZ for a major Democratic gerrymander in California any day.

And New Jersey and Washington. Maybe Jaime Herrera Beutler can move to Gilbert, AZ and take whatever new R fortress seat is created when Sinema's district is dismantled.

[muon2]

If SCOTUS overturns the AZ congressional law, the easiest fix is probably to have the commission submit the plan to the legislature for an up-or-down vote, and if it is rejected allow up to two additional tries before it would go to the courts. That resolves the constitutional requirement that the legislature approve the plan, but keeps the map-making independent from the politicians. It is the method used by IA for its redistricting.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This suit makes absolutely no sense.

[Brittain33]

If SCOTUS overturns the AZ congressional law, the easiest fix is probably to have the commission submit the plan to the legislature for an up-or-down vote, and if it is rejected allow up to two additional tries before it would go to the courts. That resolves the constitutional requirement that the legislature approve the plan, but keeps the map-making independent from the politicians. It is the method used by IA for its redistricting.

What do you suppose are the odds it goes that route vs. straight-up redraw of the map by Republican legislators?

[Boston Bread]

A bipartisan map is like allocating electorate votes by congressional district. In order to be fair (on a partisan basis, not on a democratic basis), do it in every state or no states at all.

[Torie]

A bipartisan map is like allocating electorate votes by congressional district. In order to be fair (on a partisan basis, not on a democratic basis), do it in every state or no states at all.

That would really ratchet up the incentive to gerrymander, now wouldn't it? Anyway, given the natural Pub bias in CD's due to Dem population concentrations, I can't imagine the Dems will ever go for it.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What Torie is missing is that Arizona has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, differiention in turnout between Democratic and Republican areas. In 2004 and 2008 (and likely 2012 as well but I didn't check), Ed Pastor's district had the interesting distinction of being simultaneously both the most Democratic and least Democratic district in the state depending on measure, it gave Kerry and Obama the highest percentage of the vote of all districts, but also had the lowest number of raw votes for them than any district in the state. And the other Democratic seats, though not to this extreme, have the same issue, so they will always provide less votes toward the Democratic statewide numbers. This may not be fair, but hey plenty of things about FPTP aren't.

And the Massachusetts analogy is flawed. Massachusetts is a state where the Republicans are shut out not by the state being so Democratic per se, but rather that it lacks any real Republican strongholds and the Republican voting enclaves are spread out and easily overwhelmed by any maps, mostly due to the fact that you can't go too far from an urban area in the state before you reach another urban area, thus preventing the growth of traditionally Republican exurbs. Obviously the existence of the Berkshire region and New Hampshire (which is basically where all the Republican exurbs in the Boston metro go) play a role in this as well. But Hennepin County is about as Democratic as Massachusetts, has 7 county commissioner districts, and if it had partisan elections for that would have one safely Republican district, and one probably at least Republican leaning district. If Massachusetts had 7 districts Republicans would be even more shut out than they are now. Concentration matters more.

That said, I'd be surprised if the Supreme Court strikes this down, and a 9-0 decision upholding the map would not surprise me. As noted it's not really a partisan issue and the precedent set is something I don't see any justice on the court wishing to usher in.

[Torie]

Not sure BRTD how your post responds to anything I wrote. Sure in AZ, POTUS electoral votes by CD would favor the Dems. That is not true overall across the Fruited Plain.