Supreme Court tells Alabama NOPE!

Poor Richard Saunders said:
My statement applies to any group that gerrymanders to stay in power. I didn't say it only applied to one party.
Tell us again where I said it only applied to the GOP.
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The real issue is the courts that make these decisions.

NY, a Blue state, happened to have a Republican run legislature 10 years ago when new districts were drawn. It did create some safe Red districts that were redrawn before the '22 midterms. Democrats, regaining control of the state, attempted to undo some of the more heinous districts, but were overturned by a judge who appointed a special master from another state to come up with a map.

It heavily favored Republicans, and handed the House to them. That has finally been successfully challenged in another court, and will be fixed. Too little, too late.

We expect state level partisans to attempt to secure safe districts. What's troubling is the way each court either ignores the more troubling districts, or recognizes the problem.
 
Damocles said:
In Colorado they created districts that cut out strong republican areas, put them together in oddly shaped districts gerrymandered to build districts that would no longer be contested but would be sure victories for the democrats. This had a combined effect in that it created rural districts that have fewer representatives than they had before when there were more fairly structured districts, and they got a majority in both houses of the legislature for the past two elections after their gerrymandering. This created fewer districts with votes that would go like 75% for republicans, as they carefully cut them out of districts where they were often winning by close votes 52% to 48% and the like and gaining one or the other house of the legislature....

What the courts are enforcing is to have Alabama create carefully structured districts that will ensure that there are two districts with majority black voters. The courts are carefully creating oddly shaped districts to give one historically underrepresented group an advantage in more than one district, while Alabama was demanding that the district they constructed that ensured one district only was the way to go. The SCOTUS, largely made up of conservatives, decided against Alabama in this case.
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I thought that had been rectified?


https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/redistricting-rundown-colorado/

“In the 2018 elections, Colorado voters approved Amendments Y and Z to the state constitution to reform the state’s redistricting process. Previously, congressional districts were drawn by the state Legislature and legislative districts were drawn by a panel of 11 members appointed by the governor, Colorado Supreme Court chief justice and legislative leaders. Critics argued that partisanship played too big of a role in redistricting and a coalition of politicians and activists across the political spectrum joined together to push for the amendments, including then-Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (D), former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and actress Jennifer Lawrence.
Both amendments put control of redistricting in the hands of two independent commissions — one for state legislative maps and one for the congressional map. Each commission has 12 members: four Republicans, four Democrats and four unaffiliated voters. New districts require a supermajority vote of eight in favor — including at least two of the unaffiliated members. Any voter in Colorado (with some exceptions) can apply to be a commissioner. The application pool is then whittled down through a combination of random selection and screening by a three-judge panel with limited input from state political leaders. Commissioners must reflect the state’s racial, ethnic, gender and geographic diversity, with at least one from each congressional district and at least one member from Colorado’s Western Slope — the portion of the state west of the Continental Divide.
Once the commissioners are chosen, a nonpartisan staff helps the commissions draw new maps. The staff first draws up a preliminary map. From there, the commissions hold public hearings throughout the state to collect feedback, which the staff can use to amend the preliminary map before settling on a final proposal. When drawing maps, staff must first ensure districts are of equal population and geographically contiguous. Then, in descending order of importance, the districts must comply with the Voting Rights Act, keep “communities of interest” and political subdivisions intact where possible and draw compact districts. Only after these requirements are satisfied can the commission attempt to maximize the number of competitive districts. The commissions are also prohibited from drawing districts to protect incumbents or give a party an advantage.”
 
Phantasmal said:
I thought that had been rectified?


https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/redistricting-rundown-colorado/

“In the 2018 elections, Colorado voters approved Amendments Y and Z to the state constitution to reform the state’s redistricting process. Previously, congressional districts were drawn by the state Legislature and legislative districts were drawn by a panel of 11 members appointed by the governor, Colorado Supreme Court chief justice and legislative leaders. Critics argued that partisanship played too big of a role in redistricting and a coalition of politicians and activists across the political spectrum joined together to push for the amendments, including then-Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (D), former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and actress Jennifer Lawrence.
Both amendments put control of redistricting in the hands of two independent commissions — one for state legislative maps and one for the congressional map. Each commission has 12 members: four Republicans, four Democrats and four unaffiliated voters. New districts require a supermajority vote of eight in favor — including at least two of the unaffiliated members. Any voter in Colorado (with some exceptions) can apply to be a commissioner. The application pool is then whittled down through a combination of random selection and screening by a three-judge panel with limited input from state political leaders. Commissioners must reflect the state’s racial, ethnic, gender and geographic diversity, with at least one from each congressional district and at least one member from Colorado’s Western Slope — the portion of the state west of the Continental Divide.
Once the commissioners are chosen, a nonpartisan staff helps the commissions draw new maps. The staff first draws up a preliminary map. From there, the commissions hold public hearings throughout the state to collect feedback, which the staff can use to amend the preliminary map before settling on a final proposal. When drawing maps, staff must first ensure districts are of equal population and geographically contiguous. Then, in descending order of importance, the districts must comply with the Voting Rights Act, keep “communities of interest” and political subdivisions intact where possible and draw compact districts. Only after these requirements are satisfied can the commission attempt to maximize the number of competitive districts. The commissions are also prohibited from drawing districts to protect incumbents or give a party an advantage.”
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Nope. Buck's district gets like 80% republican votes, because they cut republicans out of more competitive districts to add to his to ensure more democrats land in the state legislature. The courts are entirely, now that the one conservative appointment is on the SCOTUS, liberal and vote that way. Basically, they used Soros' money to make sure that Colorado will always be controlled by a majority democrats in all branches of state government. We had 2 state representatives redistricted right out of our district by "amazing" coincidence.

The redistricting board didn't help much, it was part of the plan... the "unaffiliated" vote on the board appears to be filled by "former" democrats who are now unaffiliated just long enough to serve...

Hopefully next time we do redistricting Colorado republicans will be smart enough to play politics, but republicans in Colorado are famous for circling up firing squads and firing away rather than smartly playing the politics game.
 
Damocles said:
Nope. Buck's district gets like 80% republican votes, because they cut republicans out of more competitive districts to add to his to ensure more democrats land in the state legislature. The courts are entirely, now that the one conservative appointment is on the SCOTUS, liberal and vote that way. Basically, they used Soros' money to make sure that Colorado will always be controlled by a majority democrats in all branches of state government. We had 2 state representatives redistricted right out of our district by "amazing" coincidence.

The redistricting board didn't help much, it was part of the plan... the "unaffiliated" vote on the board appears to be filled by "former" democrats who are now unaffiliated just long enough to serve...

Hopefully next time we do redistricting Colorado republicans will be smart enough to play politics, but republicans in Colorado are famous for circling up firing squads and firing away rather than smartly playing the politics game.
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Do you have any evidence of this? Soros is always a Republican scape goat.
 
Damocles said:
Nope. Buck's district gets like 80% republican votes, because they cut republicans out of more competitive districts to add to his to ensure more democrats land in the state legislature. The courts are entirely, now that the one conservative appointment is on the SCOTUS, liberal and vote that way. Basically, they used Soros' money to make sure that Colorado will always be controlled by a majority democrats in all branches of state government. We had 2 state representatives redistricted right out of our district by "amazing" coincidence.

The redistricting board didn't help much, it was part of the plan... the "unaffiliated" vote on the board appears to be filled by "former" democrats who are now unaffiliated just long enough to serve...

Hopefully next time we do redistricting Colorado republicans will be smart enough to play politics, but republicans in Colorado are famous for circling up firing squads and firing away rather than smartly playing the politics game.
Click to expand...

It seems you are out of touch with the latest redistricting in Colorado. Buck only got 61% of the vote in his district in 2022.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...ons/results-colorado-us-house-district-4.html

If anything, the argument could be made that the Democrats were disadvantaged since 2 of the districts they won were by 70% and 80% of the vote. When one party wins by that amount it can look like a packed gerrymander.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...sults&context=election_recirc&region=RaceLink


The maps as drawn were praised for making it possible for the GOP to win 4 of the 8 districts.
https://www.9news.com/article/news/...g-map/73-7e6cacf0-4545-4dd6-ac81-7d52daebd68b
 
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