Yes, in that place was a terrorist bombing, but in that place was a Supreme Court ruling on redistricting, in addition to I'm an proficient on the later, thence I'll write nearly that one.
The Supreme Court struck downward North Carolina's redistricting excogitation based on their continued full incoherence on the champaign of report of redistricting. It all boils downward to this, in addition to volition maintain to boil downward to this: use race, but don't role race. Use
just the correct amount of race, or we'll strike downward your redistricting plan.
Here's the bind. Definition time. Descriptive representation: having people inward part amongst similar demographic traits to your own. The Voting Rights Act effectively requires that states depict "majority-minority" districts, which are districts inward which a bulk of the population is of a racial or ethnic minority because, basically, white people volition only vote for white people, thence the only manner non-whites larn descriptive representation is if plenty of the population of the district is non-white that the minority grouping gets to alternative their ain Representative.
But, you lot can't create things
exclusively based on race. So, role race, but non too much. There's the bind. Every redistricting excogitation gets challenged, on the dry reason of race. Well, I suppose you lot can't challenge a redistricting excogitation inward Wyoming, but fuck Wyoming. (In principle, you lot could challenge a
state legislative excogitation there, but isn't the country all-white anyway? No, I'm non going to bother to await it up. I'm going to brand an donkey out of u in addition to me. It's fucking Wyoming. Fuck them. If you lot are reading this from Wyoming, no you're not.)
Then there's the work that race in addition to political party are
really closely intertwined, especially inward the South.
That way nosotros involve to speak nearly party, in addition to partisan gerrymandering. So, here's a lilliputian demonstration I similar to role when I instruct nearly how to accept partisan payoff of the redistricting process. Imagine a grouping of 33 people, 21 Democrats in addition to 12 Republicans, to locomote grouped into three districts. How could Republicans manipulate that process? Imagine if they could pack xi Democrats into i district, in addition to and then "crack" the remaining 10 into groups of five in addition to 5? That way, inward District 1, you lot larn xi Democrats in addition to 0 Republicans, in addition to inward Districts ii in addition to 3, you lot larn half-dozen Republicans in addition to five Democrats each? This is called a "pack in addition to crack" strategy. You know what that packed district is? It is a majority-minority district. Republicans receive got strategic incentives to pack every bit many minorities every bit possible into those majority-minority districts because they are wasted votes. The manner to larn a partisan payoff is to brand your majorities efficient in addition to to brand the other party's majorities inefficient.
And if you lot are doing thence for minority representation nether the Voting Rights Act, that's totally cool. If you lot are doing it for partisan advantage, um... And this is where nosotros motility into the essence of the case, in addition to the broader query of the "justiciability" of the partisan gerrymander, which isn't fifty-fifty actually what Cooper v. Harris was about. However, the Court has been tiptoeing around that i for decades. They sorta-kinda
want to locomote able to strike downward plans that plow over too much of a partisan payoff to i party, but can't determine where to depict the work (and besides, since the Justices are form of partisan, volition they actually locomote consistent over fourth dimension in i lawsuit they start?).
Anyway, the Supreme Court didn't plow over a clear work for how much race tin lavatory locomote taken into account. They'll never create that. Why? They
can't. The stance of creating such a dominion is absurd in addition to stupid. It'll never happen. As long every bit they receive got the Voting Rights Act working against the regulation of "it can't locomote all nearly race," they volition locomote inward similar binds.
No,
Rick Hasen is pretty much correct here, in addition to people who actually assist nearly obscure topics similar this should follow the Election Law Blog. This simply opens upwards the overflowing gates for challenge after challenge. That representative I used higher upwards for the partisan gerrymander? It is the same i I role inward every course of teaching inward which I instruct the subject, in addition to I e'er indicate out that the district amongst xi Democrats is a majority-minority district.
The Supreme Court has straight off recognized that fact, in addition to decided that it way that a partisan gerrymander inward the South basically is a racial gerrymander. That way they volition locomote to a greater extent than willing to strike downward partisan gerrymanders, at to the lowest degree inward the South. When Trump fired Comey, I referenced Ben Bradlee in addition to the "holy shit" thing. Rick Hasen is a mellow class of guy who wrote things like, "wow," and, "holy cow."
Fuck that. Holy shit.