WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is choosing not to take on a new case on partisan redistricting for now. Instead, the justices are sending a dispute over North Carolina’s heavily Republican congressional districting map back to a lower court for more work.
The court’s order Monday follows a ruling last week in which it declared that Wisconsin voters who sued over the state’s GOP-drawn legislative districts had not proven they have the right to bring their case in court. The justices ordered the court in North Carolina to examine the same issue.
On the surface, the North Carolina case doesn’t appear to have the same problem the high court identified in the Wisconsin lawsuit. It could return to the Supreme Court quickly, perhaps in time for the term that begins in October.
The case concerns a congressional districting plan in which 10 seats are held by Republicans and three, by Democrats. State Republican Rep. David Lewis said that he drew 10 districts because he did not “believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.”
In January, a three-judge court found that the map violated the Constitution and ordered the state to come up with a new plan quickly, in time for the 2018 elections.
But the Supreme Court delayed enforcement of the court order, mainly because the justices already were considering the partisan districting cases from Maryland and Wisconsin.
Count this as a success for the voter suppression group. They have delayed long enough that a fix for 2018 will likely not be possible
I wish the lower court could impose sanctions. Or a criminal referral.
Once again, the Roberts court uses “standing” to preserve the corrupt status quo for one more election cycle.
But now in another case they’ve upheld Texas’s districts that lower courts found were racially discriminatory. So the damage is done.
Getting tired of repeating it, but: except for publicity purposes, Dems can forget about gerrymandering reform as far this GOP Supreme Court is concerned. Even if the legislators drew up the maps at the local KKK meeting, the Supreme Court would uphold it. Supreme Court is Plan C.
Plan A: focus on a much more achievable goals: winning back state government control in November and most crucially in 2020; and themselves gerrymandering the GOP into oblivion. Only then might a GOP-controlled Supreme Court be prompted to do something about it.
Plan B: win back control of state Supreme Courts and attack gerrymandering under state law. That is not as good as Plan A, because as the Pennsylvania decision shows, the resulting map is still likely to slightly favor the GOP.
Vote locally, vote hard, gerrymander the fuckers into the dust and force them to come begging for reform. It’s the only way. Exemplary nonpartisan redistricting by blue states does nothing except tilt the playing field in favor the GOP. States like NY and CA should take the lead here.