Federal Judges: Wisconsin's GOP Redistricting Maps Unconstitutional

MSN NBC ^ | November 21, 2016

[Republican Wildcat]

State legislative districts, yes.

[Freedumb]

As usual your Democrat fixers in MA and MD are all just pikers when compared to the King Rats that run the cesspool known as Illinois. I wonder what these esteemed judges in this story would say when presented a map of the 4th Congressional District of Illinois:

[Reverend Wright]

"Will this mean that we can take Maryland’s Congressional district map to court?"

how about Illinois ?

[Reverend Wright]

Beat me by 2 min.

But I’m sure those judges will “get right on it”

[vette6387]

“And needs to be a good one. The 2 judges in this case were a Reagan and a Carter appointee - the dissenting judge was a Bush (W) appointee.”

This is why we need to have citizen oversight on ALL judges. Once they get to the point where they no are longer ever held to account, they often start their anti-american mischief. I mean who, based on his entire history as California’s governor, would have ever thought Earl Warren would be the kind of Chief Justice he turned out to be. In order for our Constitutional Principles to be forever maintained, there needs to be direct accountability for EVERY person in government, most especially ALL of our judges.

[Freedumb]

Yours is actually the current one. My image was the district from 2003-2013. I’m sure our tremendous Illinois Attorney General will be all over this travesty once she gets permission from Daddy Madigan.

[vette6387]

Yeah, you can see by this map why California is the way it is today.

http://c365736.r36.cf2.rackcdn.com/maps_congress_20110815_all.pdf

Los Angeles really has all the cards. Even San Francisco isn’t the powerhouse that LA is. Five Million Mexicans make a big difference, and 80% of them are in the Los Angeles Basin.

[dpwiener]

I would love to have the Supreme Court rule that blatant gerrymandering is unconstitutional, and that redistricting must meet minimum standards of ojective neutrality. As a practical matter this would hurt Republicans in some states and hurt Democrats in other states. But it would make districts much fairer and more competitive, thus offering voters real choice. Right now gerrymandering tends to lock in incumbents for Congress and for state legislatures, thus making it very difficult to throw the bums out.

[C210N]

A federal judge would be absolutely fine with the IL 4, since it is clearly a regular geometric shape.

It’s obviously one of ‘em RatRoidialCrisisocelesRhamahedrons. Actually, looks like a safety pin.

[trebb]

More like: ... so blatantly partisan that they denied Democrats a fair shotunfair edge at electing candidates of their choosing.

[Dr. Sivana]

It would be helpful if states were forced to only draw lines using present and existing county lines, so that an entire county were in district (not bits and pieces of six countries).

Some counties (Cook County, IL) have millions of people. Some states, like Connecticut, barely have counties, which are mainly for court purposes only.

These problems have to be resolved at the state level, and both sides are always going to try to draw the map to favor their side. There really is no good way around it, so it occasionally gets flushed with a good statewide election, as has happened in many states the last few years.

[Montaignes Cat]

I just saw your post. Thank you so much for that map. Amazing. And sobering.

[Reverend Wright]

the current map is very little changed from the previous “illegal” map

[Thud]

My father was a California Democratic Party apparachnik, and my godfather was Congressman Phil Burton of San Francisco, father of the modern political gerrymander. He taught me how to count votes.

Phil could do statewide gerrymandering in his head. When challenged about one of his plans being totally one-sided, he paused for a few minutes thinking about it, then replied, "Nah, we could have gotten another five seats if we wanted to."

His favorite was a district for his younger brother John that was contiguous only at low tide.

[Reverend Wright]

Phil Burton referred to his most particularly gerrymandered map as “my contribution to modern art”.

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/11/obituaries/rep-phillip-burton-democratic-liberal-dies-on-visit-to-california.html

When Democrats complain about Republican State Legislatures “gerrymandering” congressional districts, there is a lot of historic amnesia there.