So, Partisan Gerrymandering is apparently cool now...

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

It's always BEEN cool. Today's ruling didn't change anything.

I can understand being disappointed at the ruling, and I sympathize with the sentiment behind Kagan's dissent, but the sad truth is that there's not much Constitutional basis for the courts stepping in here. The Constitution just doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room. It's up to the States and/or the Congress to set the rules regarding elections unless it runs up against protected classes, and political parties don't fall into that category.

The good news is that some states have already passed laws to try and clamp down on this. Hopefully more follow.

I agree. Countless people seem to get confused about what the judicial branch is actually supposed to be doing. Granted, both wings of the Supreme Court (and lower courts) can be conveniently hypocritical about the scopes and limits of their power, but this simply isn't where legislature is meant to be created.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I start to disagree, or more humbly if you will, start to maybe not understand.

The courts are a completely unilateral check to Congress, in that any part of Congress can be yelled by either another part of Congress/Executive or the states to be heard by the courts.

It's not just protected classes, it's mainly the citizenry I'd argue who are the courts concern that are protected by the constitution, so I'm not sure what LR means by protected classes being a seemingly exclusive circumstance to give attention to.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The state is technically who is voting, but if a citizen is denied the right to vote, then I'd think that's very much grounds for objection in the eyes of the courts. And I suspect that that would apply to marginalized votes due to gerrymandering, which does tend to be inexplicably intended to hamstring protected classes in their House votes.

[LittleRaven]

The courts are a completely unilateral check to Congress, in that any part of Congress can be yelled by either another part of Congress/Executive or the states to be heard by the courts.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

The Court is most certainly not a 'unilateral check to Congress.' The Court cannot just say "Yo, Congress....we don't really like that 2.5% tax rate on resold vehicles. Change it to 3.5%. XTHXBYE!!!" The Court can only strike down legislation when someone has been operating outside the bounds of their Constitutional authority.

The Constitution is pretty clear that it is up to the legislature to draw up districts. It doesn't offer up any guidance on how they're supposed to do that, so a legislature can't really be in violation of the Constitution by doing so....UNLESS, of course, protected classes are involved.

What does that mean? Well, the SC has found in the past that 15th Amendment (which says that no citizen shall be denied the right to vote based on race) CAN be invoked when it comes to drawing up districts. If you draw up districts in such a way as to purposefully deny people of a specific race representation (as many states have done in the past) then the Court CAN step in and invalidate those maps. I've never heard of a case where it was done on the basis of sex, but presumably the same logic could apply based on the 19th Amendment. But political parties are NOT a protected class, so the majority in the case found that the Court has no standing to get involved just because a legislature draws up maps to disenfranchise a specific political party.

Mind you, Roberts didn't say doing that was good. Quite the opposite, actually. Pretty much everyone who isn't involved with politics professionally thinks it's bad. But just because something is bad doesn't mean the Court has standing to correct it. In Robert's view, the Constitution makes it clear that this is a problem to be solved by the legislature, not the Court.

Kagan basically took up your argument (hey, this is bad for EVERYONE, so we should do something about it!) but failed to convince 4 of her fellow wise men to go along, so here we are.

[CmdrKing]

The ability of a political party to diminish the voting power of supporters of another political party is a pretty flagrant violation of the 1st and 14th amendments, and Robert's is being tauntingly disingenuous to pretend otherwise in this decisions.

Also in ignoring that the current political makeup of the voting bases of the two parties very obviously DOES invoke the previously-established 15th amendment violations, but you just expect that.

Then again if the court was paying the slightest goddamned attention to the 14th amendment most Republicans in government, including at least two of its own members, would be out of office, so presumably Roberts doesn't want to think about that too deeply.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The courts are a completely unilateral check to Congress, in that any part of Congress can be yelled by either another part of Congress/Executive or the states to be heard by the courts.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

The Court is most certainly not a 'unilateral check to Congress.' The Court cannot just say "Yo, Congress....we don't really like that 2.5% tax rate on resold vehicles. Change it to 3.5%. XTHXBYE!!!" The Court can only strike down legislation when someone has been operating outside the bounds of their Constitutional authority.

This doesn't make them "not a unilateral check" though. Nobody ever interpreted checks and balances as three people in a room with direct veto power over each other. Though legislation does start to work that way between the executive and legislative, the system of checks and balances is broader than that, between those two branches, and also the third, with each having a separate protocol to follow. They don't participate in the drafting of legislation, but as far as validating it they are the principal body to do it (in conjunction with the executive that initiates/enforces it).

The notions brought up by Chiggy is that the judicial doesn't draft legislation, which isn't an issue, on my end at least. Then about your claim, the idea that the constitutional validation can only serve in the interest of protected classes doesn't seem accurate.

[LittleRaven]

This doesn't make them "not a unilateral check" though.

I'm not 100% certain what you mean by "unilateral." What I'm trying to say is that the power of the SC to overrule Congress is explicitly conditional. The Court may overrule the Congress when they determine that Congress has violated the Constitution. That's it.

They don't participate in the drafting of legislation, but as far as validating it they are the principal body to do it (in conjunction with the executive that initiates/enforces it).

That's...a rather large simplification of how the Court actually functions, but even to the extent that they 'validate' legislation, they only validate whether or not Congress has stepped outside it's authority. They don't determine whether a law is a good idea or not, or whether or not it serves the public interest. All they can do is determine whether or not a law is Constitutional.

Then about your claim, the idea that the constitutional validation can only serve in the interest of protected classes doesn't seem accurate.

Because that's not my claim. My claim is that constitutional validation can only serve in the interest of protected classes when it comes to the issue of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering along racial lines puts you afoul of the 15th amendment, so the Court can intervene. Gerrymandering along partisan lines doesn't go against anything in the Constitution, the Court can't do anything, even though it's clearly scummy.

And we know that's the case because that's what the SC has actually said. I realize that I'm making an appeal to authority here, but there isn't really any way around that in this case. The SC is the ultimate arbiter here. They've handed down a ruling. Until they change their collective minds (always possible, but I'm not holding my breath) this is what we're stuck with.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I agree with what CmdrKing said. I don't feel I'm challenging or misrepresenting the procedural practice of how SCOTUS works as a part of checks and balances unilaterally opposite the Executive or Legislative branch. It's a chief justice herself that was trying to set a further precedence for illicit gerrymandering.

[Karha of Honor]

Your skills at detecting sarcasm are astounding. Truly amazing. Just... astonishing.

You go on long rants and use a rotating cast of strawmen.

[ProfessorDetective]

The ability of a political party to diminish the voting power of supporters of another political party is a pretty flagrant violation of the 1st and 14th amendments, and Robert's is being tauntingly disingenuous to pretend otherwise in this decisions.

Also in ignoring that the current political makeup of the voting bases of the two parties very obviously DOES invoke the previously-established 15th amendment violations, but you just expect that.

Then again if the court was paying the slightest goddamned attention to the 14th amendment most Republicans in government, including at least two of its own members, would be out of office, so presumably Roberts doesn't want to think about that too deeply.

This! All of this!