Dont forget that gerrymandering

[michael anderson]

Occurs in states too.

Just read an article about how we have gerrymandered the heck out of Alabama on a state level.

So part of our ability to keep the house is because we can gerrymandering the us house districts, but the reason we can do that is we control most state legislatures...and they themselves are often gerrymandered.

[xyzzy]

Enjoy it while you can because even the conservative controlled supreme court sees through your racism.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/under-the-dome/article151912142.html

You guys are enjoying the interval between the voting rights act being struck down, and the courts catching up with your racism. It's near an end.

[Emperor Wonko the Sane]

Just for the record, the voting rights act was not struck down. There was a provision that made certain southern states get pre-approval from the Justice Department if they made any change to their voting system. The Supremes curtailed that system. All of the VRA protections remain in place. They are now enforced in court, like every other right.

Doug

[xyzzy]

Which means 3-4 election cycles after the rights violation was committed... which is what the GOP is counting on.

[Michael Press]

In article <334903b0-49f4-4dff...@googlegroups.com>,

Thanks.

--
Michael Press

[michael anderson]

Xy- I think there will always be ways to gerrymander I certainly ways.

You are also overlooking one big thing some aspects of the left love- the way a do it now does guarantee African Americans many aa reps. If you drew the lines 'fairly', there is a good chance some of those aa congressman are going to lose out to Jon osoff types...and then you will have little to no as representation and that's another greviance. Jesus I can't spell....

[RSFC Moderator]

The funny thing is this overturned an earlier decision (Cromartie II) which upheld the Democrats gerrymandering the same district on the same bases. Apparently it was ok then because Democrats.

Most of the court pirouetted about the issue in these cases to support their party in both. Sad.

This decision is the right one, districts should not be draw on the basis of race. The VRA never required such; there was a dubious consent decree which had as it's aim creating Minority Majority districts such as the one ruled illegal here.

[xyzzy]

Long story short minority majority districts were always a Republican scam pushed in the post-1990 redistricting by the Poppy Bush justice department to pack black voters and weaken white Democrats.

It was in response to 1991 Bush justice department demands for an additional majority black district that the NC-12th, the infamous I-85 district that for decades was the gerrymandering poster child, was initially created by NC Democrats. The Bush administration was trying to pack black voters to weaken other Democratic districts. The NC Dems used advanced (at the time) technology to carve out the required additional black majority district while still preserving their other districts.

After 2000 census the NC Dems and Reps had split the legislature so since neither side had an advantage so they agreed to pretty much status quo, so it lasted 20+ years. The original GOP maps in 2011 preserved it, it was only redrawn after 2014 because of a court case.

It's actually pretty interesting political history.

[michael anderson]

If these districts ever are eliminated watching the infighting between Dems in the primary along racial lines will be fun at least.