I am prepared to be very depressed today. Two decisions expected today may put the final nail in the coffin of "free and fair" elections in the United States. The first nail was just hammered in when the Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering is not a Constitutional issue. The next question is what the Court does with the Census.

Apparently the Court believes parties of irrelevance should control Congressional politics.

It sounds so Constitutional.

I'm not just depressed, frankly, I'm really pissed. CJ Roberts basically told the Republican party "Hey, I'm with you guys on everything, but you gotta give me something to work with here." So, he goes along with partisan gerrymandering (foreclosing the issue for the future, or trying to), and remanding the census question to give them a second shot at creating a different pretext. Get REAL! Once the pretext has been established, the question is answered. You don't get a second bite at the rotten apple.

Once massive immigration reform has occurred the citizenship question won't be a problem. At present, using it as a weapon against non-citizens is just wrong as hell.

Gerrymandering, however, is wrong on every level. Has the constitution nothing to say at all about free and fair elections? Is it a state issue that should have been resolved and eliminated long ago?

Are our Republican counterparts so bereft of all sense of decency and fair play that they believe there is something good and right about cheating to win elections?

Sadly I am completely uninformed as far as election laws and whether they are federal or state mandated. I'm pretty well read up on what assh*les conservatives can be though.....

Yes.

The gerrymandering issue is far from closed: Each state can outlaw it, even for US representative districts. Some states actually have, and the Supreme Court let the state supreme court decisions stand as it was a state issue. So any state with a liberal supreme court can get a case to them, and get a decision that it violates the state constitution.

Maybe I missed something here.

No Republican state will outlaw it as it guarantees their continued political control of the several states AND it guarantees they will continue to have a significant presence in Congress



No Republican state has a liberal court ergo any case demanding gerrymandering cease for whatever reason will be thrown out.

You can not win with the fascists. They have rigged the system in their favor. The change will be in 2 or 3 generations.

Even red states are not made up entirely of Republicans. If it can be proven that partisan redistricting is un-constitutional at a state level then lawsuits, ballot initiatives, and general public grumbling can get districts redrawn.

"Gerrymandering" in and of itself, is a shameful old tactic that really has no place in this century. The Supremes didn't say it was a good thing, they just said it wasn't an un-Constitutional thing.

It could probably be constitutionally legislated into illegality though.

At least one state already has. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said it violates the state constitution, and the US Supreme Court refused to intervene. Gerrymandering by Republicans yields more US House seats, but it has no effect on the state Governor's office. A state can be very "red" in terms of US House seats and still have a democratic majority in their state senate. That's kind of the point of gerrymandering: To overcome the democratic majority. Since everybody in the state votes for Governor, and state supreme courts are either selected by the governor or elected state-wide the gerrymandering does not affect the state supreme court makeup.

Florida has made some headway in that regard too, but the battle has been fierce.
Miami Herald