Supreme Court Once Again Strikes Down Racial Gerrymandering In North Carolina

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

The justices scrapped 28 state legislative districts drawn to disadvantage black voters. A special election may be on the horizon.

North Carolina can’t catch a break at the Supreme Court.

The court on Monday upheld a lower court ruling that invalidated 28 state legislative districts because they were “racially gerrymandered” — drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature with the objective of disadvantaging black voters.

The justices offered no reasoning alongside their decision, and simply affirmed the ruling in a one-line order. But a three-judge panel of federal judges last year explained why such map-drawing by North Carolina lawmakers was unconstitutional.

“When a legislature relies on race as the predominant factor in drawing district lines ... it reinforces the perception that members of the same racial group — regardless of their age, education, economic status, or the community in which they live — think alike, share the same political interests, and will prefer the same candidates at the polls,” the judges wrote.

As a result of that ruling, the same judges left the state legislative maps — nine for the state Senate, 19 for the state House of Representatives — in place for the November election.

The court later ordered the state General Assembly to come up with new state legislative maps and to hold a special election in 2017, with anyone elected before and after that election to serve a one-year term. That forced newly elected lawmakers to urge the Supreme Court to put the ordered redistricting and special election on hold while they filed a broader appeal.

The justices on Monday rejected that appeal and affirmed the lower court’s decision that found the legislative districts violated the Constitution. Notably, the Supreme Court, in a related ruling, scrapped the special election order and the related remedies.

Instead, the justices told the lower court to go back to the drawing board and use the proper analysis for deciding how to best cure the racially drawn districts — which may or may not include a new round of elections later this year.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/supreme-court-racial-gerrymandering_us_59358387e4b0fa3f6ae64670

Edited June 5, 2017 by ccneat

[CaliCat 3,957]

 

 

You would think at this day and age Jim Crow would have been relegated to history books. Yet, it's alive and well in some states.

[Amica Nostra 4,803]

40 minutes ago, CaliCat said:

 

 

You would think at this day and age Jim Crow would have been relegated to history books. Yet, it's alive and well in some states.

Gerrymandering On Steroids': How Republicans Stacked The Nation's Statehouses

 

It was never a secret. In 2010, the conservative political strategist Karl Rove took to the Wall Street Journal and laid out a plan to win majorities in state legislatures across the country.

"He who controls redistricting can control Congress," read the subhead to Rove's column.

The plan, which its architects dubbed REDMAP for Redistricting Majority Project, hinged on the fact that states redraw their electoral maps every 10 years according to new Census data. REDMAP targeted states where just a few statehouse seats could shift the balance to Republican control in the crucial Census year of 2010.

That plan worked spectacularly. It's why today Republicans have a majority in nearly two-thirds of the country's state legislative chambers. And it's why in 2012 Democratic statehouse candidates won 51 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania, which voted for Barack Obama in the presidential election, yet those candidates ended up with only 28 percent of the seats in the legislature.

Here & Now's Robin Young learns how this happened from David Daley, editor-in-chief of Salon and the author of "Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy."