Posted on 05/24/2019 1:39:46 PM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings ordering Republican legislators in Michigan and Ohio to redraw U.S. congressional maps ahead of the 2020 elections, dealing a blow to Democrats who had argued that the electoral districts were intended to unlawfully diminish their political clout.
The justices granted requests from Republican lawmakers in both states to put those decisions on hold, halting further action in the cases and the need to rework electoral district boundaries. The justices did not provide any explanation for their brief orders.
The lower courts found that the electoral maps in the two states had been drawn to entrench Republicans in power by manipulating boundaries in a way that reduced the voting clout of Democrats - a practice known as partisan gerrymandering - in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
While both disputes involve U.S. House of Representatives districts in the two states, the Michigan case challenges districts in the state legislature as well.
The decisions in Michigan and Ohio that were put on hold by the justices were the latest rulings by federal courts determining that electoral maps designed by a state’s majority party unconstitutionally undermined the rights of voters who tend to support the other party.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Winning! Why oh why did the Republicans in Pennsylvania not appeal what happened to their districts?????????
….because a district that extends from the west side of Cleveland to Toledo makes so much sense. As much sense as the district I’m in, which throws away a few small traditional towns so the east side of Cleveland can be connected to Akron’s minority neighborhood and guarantee a black district for Cleveland.
Because they are spineless. I think the only thing keeping the Republican Party afloat in PA is Trump. It doesn’t seem like there are very strong Republican leaders in this state.
Ever notice how the left whines when others do to them the very thing they do to others?
I am in PA and Federal Court either denied it or wouldn’t hear it to the best of my recollection. A shame.
SCOTUS refused to hear the PA case.
There are 2 possible reasons why not:
A) It was a PA state court that ruled the districts unconstitutional — not a federal court. SCOTUS may have reasoned that it was a state issue and didn’t want to get involved.
B) The PA refusal was pre-Kavanaugh. So it could just be that we have the numbers now and we didn’t when Kennedy was on the bench.
Wonderful news
I wondered the same thing. Here is what I found.
Alito denies stay in Pennsylvania redistricting case
There is no way to know why the Supreme Court put the North Carolina ruling on hold while refusing to do so in Pennsylvania, but two factors may have contributed to the Pennsylvania denial: The state supreme court relied on the state constitution, of which it (rather than the U.S. Supreme Court) is generally the final arbiter; and the state supreme court has not yet issued an order describing its reasoning in any detail. However, the fact that Alito did not refer the request to the full court, as Chief Justice John Roberts did with the North Carolina case, strongly suggests that he did not view the case as an even remotely close call.
Source: https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/02/alito-denies-stay-pennsylvania-redistricting-case/
Boom
*ping*
Hahahaha.
All bullies are like that.
And probably a hint to how the cases from Pennsylvania and South Carolina, heard early this year, will go when those opinions are released next month.
Screwed in Pennsylvania. Can’t we pull out the old democrat judge shopping routine?
It’s a nonjusticeable political question.
This is a much harder case than it appears.
In past, federal judges have paradoxically found that minority votes cannot be diluted into several districts, but *also* that minority votes cannot be concentrated into districts. Both arguments have *some* reasonableness, but both together create the correct impression that “minority votes are worth more than everyone else’s votes”.
I live in a PA. district that had been GOP for as long as there has been a GOP Party. Thanks to the ILLEGAL ruling of the State Supreme Court, we are now a hopelessly Dem. district. I can only hope that there is some way to remedy this with a favorable SC ruling.
It’s only disenfranchisement when Republicans do it.
Winning...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.