I listened to some of it, and now I'm reading "Supreme Court hears pivotal Louisiana election map case ahead of 2026 midterms/The Supreme Court decision could reshape Louisiana's election map and may redefine rules for gerrymandering nationwide ahead of the 2026 midterm elections" (Fox News).
This is a painful topic — I've taught it in conlaw many times — because of the conflict between the constitutional requirement of equal protection (which one might think frowns rather severely on race discrimination), and the statutory interpretation, which requires that states create majority minority districts. The Constitution ought to win, you might think, but what if you really want the statute to win?
Unfortunately, the linked article doesn't tell us anything about the oral argument. I'll try to update with a better article or material from the transcript.
Posts
36 comments:
It's only Gerrymandering when Republicans do it. It's Equity-driven Redistricting when Democrats do ti.
couldn't we FIX All This? With Ranked voting?
white males can cast ONE Vote
white females can cast ONE and a HALF Vote
BLACK males can cast TWO Votes
BLACK females can cast TWO and a HALF Votes
non documented Democrats and Venezuelan Gang members can cast TEN Votes
This way, DEMOCRACY (or, at Least; the Democrat Party) WINS!
All Congressional districts should be Platonic Triangles
I thought the SCOTUS said the Federal judges were out of the Gerrymandering and redistricting business? I hope that for once, the SCOTUS will lay down some bright lines, but of course ACB like Grandma O'Connor doesn't like those. And neither does Roberts.
"but what if you really want the statute to win?"
If you think people ought to be treated differently based on their race, you might be racist.
@Gilbar - do you really think black women will be able to limit themselves to 2.5 votes? I smell racial oppression.
It’s 2025. If, in the United States of America, you can only be represented by someone of your own race, what hope do we have?
Did anyone listen to the oral argument this morning in the racial gerrymandering case?
No, but I'm interested in hearing the anile argument.
I suspect that whatever the courts decide the politicians will have a workaround handy, but I think the court should clearly state that racial gerrymandering is a no-no. After all it's Roberts who is quoted as saying "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
A legacy problem from DEI days where discrimination by color, sex, class, etc. was a progressive principle in liberal democracies.
ask yourself how if a candidate won most of the country, the congress is hanging by a handful of seats, that tells you how redistricting works, as well as the Congressional apportionment,
Using race for any legislative purpose is creepy. Obama had a White mom, so does he count as Black? Black men were three times more likely to vote for Trump, than Black women were, so Black folks obviously have a variety of political opinions.
Do other minority groups get similar majority minority districts?
Did Grok listen?
I'm so sick of the courts (and DoJ) screwing around with the NC gerrymander for over thirty years now. Constant litigation and fiddling. For the last three cong. elections in a row, I was in a different district. Some groups exist to make trouble.
Eventually the law will stop requirements for "majority minority" districts because they do indeed grossly conflict with Equal Protection, and they do it by by means of illegal discrimination.
"For the last three cong. elections in a row, I was in a different district."
They'll get it right one of these days. Probably.
No, but I'm interested in hearing the anile argument.
The anile argument will be assigned to Justice Thomas.
I had written signed (instead of assigned) above and was going to leave it, in ohmage to autopen. But then I reconsidered. Autopen was a flash in the pan; been over and done with.
If you don't vote for the Democrat, you ain't black.
For quite some time, in a case that is based on following the Constitution and exercising racial favoritism, the Constitution has taken a back seat most of the time. But then, the Constitution only means what a majority of Supreme Court justices say it means, actual text notwithstanding.
Congress needs their own DOGE to go in and chew up insane, inane statues like Gerrymandering. I loved the show Seinfeld but enough is enough.
gilbar said...
“couldn't we FIX All This? With Ranked voting?
white males can cast ONE Vote
white females can cast ONE and a HALF Vote
BLACK males can cast TWO Votes
BLACK females can cast TWO and a HALF Votes
non documented Democrats and Venezuelan Gang members can cast TEN Votes”
And the New Soviet Democraticals get to count the votes.
“the conflict between the constitutional requirement of equal protection … and the statutory interpretation”. So the conflict is not between the constitution and the voting rights act, but rather is between the constitution and one of a number of possible interpretations of that statute? If that is the case, I’m going to go ahead and be cynical and guess the conflict is really between the constitution and the voting rights act on the one hand, and the wishes of the interpreters on the other.
If scotus makes racial gerrymandering illegal will they still allow democrat gerrymandering? If not so, then all the money spent on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race will be wasted.
The Constitution ought to win, you might think, but what if you really want the statute to win?
That’s the current state of the union now, innit?
If you want it, but the Constitution doesn't provide for the federal government to do it? Pass a bloody constitutional amendment, like our more politically-honest grandparents/great-grandparents did with Prohibition.
Otherwise just obey the supreme law of the land.
Black interests would be better served in closely divided districts where every vote really matters than in one in which the outcome is a foregone conclusion. As evidence, black congressmen in Washington have clearly ignored their constituent's economic interests when it comes to trade and immigration. Surely the Supreme Court must be aware of this dynamic?
Luke Lea @ 3:17pm,
You write as if the Supreme Court were a legislature.
And as if races were monolithic enough that they could have singular interests.
In the UK, the requirement is for constituencies to have (roughly) equal sizes based on registered electors, and for the boundaries to respect local authority boundaries, which are drawn on geographic rather than racial or other bases. There are plenty of non white candidates elected, without there needing to be majority minority constituencies. The last Prime Minister (aConservative) was Rishi Sunak, a Hindu, whose constituency was Richmond in a very white part of Yorkshire.
The Conservative leader now is Kemi Badenoch, of Nigerian extraction (and very non-woke), who represents Saffron Walden, a very safe Conservative seat. There are many other examples of non white people being elected to Parliament, without rigged seats, so I think I would favour the Constitution over statute.
I grew up in Connecticut, where the big conflict then was between the OLD YANKEES and the recent (last 100 + years immigrants, that is EVERYONE ELSL). All WHITE though.
There weren't enough BLACK voters to worry much about. The Democrats always nominated a Black for a particular slot in State-Wide elections, I can't remember which. I think the Republicans followed. New Englanders are practical folks. I think they led the civil rights movement in the South.
That there are precisely definable racial entities as "minorities" and "majorities" here or anywhere else is an intellectual scandal. Only by defining every citizen as belonging to a precise racial category, which DNA tests show is an impossibility, and registering each individual as such could we accurately define where each person belongs.
Do that and then litigate if that's what we want.
If the constitution doesn't allow what you want you are likely wrong to want it. If you are right to want it you should amend the constitution to allow the thing you want not just pretend it does allow it. Just this morning I was thinking that since Social Security is almost certainly one of the unconstitutional things we pretend are constitutional, we should amend the constitution to allow it and set the actual parameters at a high level.
The topic always makes me chuckle when I recall leftists who bemoaned gerrymandering as applied to Senatorial races.
Racial-shmacial. Here in California we have an "independent" redistricting body. They don't care about creating racial or non racial districts. They do care about setting up districts that will guarantee Democrat control of Sacramento for time and eternity. Anything beyond pure preservation of Democrat party rotten boroughs, not so much.
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.