Should the Federal Courts Decide Elections?

Every 10 years America performs the census. Although the modern census is used for all sorts of social BS, the original purpose was to determine how many congressmen each state got. How many is easy. Deciding the districts is harder. Elections do have consequences and the majority party gets to draw the lines. This Is a great analysis of the current Supreme Court’s role in Helping.

Will the federal judiciary start supervising elections by taking over the reapportionment process? For more than 30 years, Democrats have filed suits in federal court challenging Republican majorities in state governments on the issue of the decennial redistricting mandated by the census and accusing Republicans of “political gerrymandering.”

Now, a new case, Gill v. Whitford, is before the Supreme Court, with oral argument scheduled for today [October 3]. Wisconsin Democrats have sued the Republican legislature’s redistricting plan, which has resulted in a state house with 64 of 99 seats, that is, 64.6 percent, being held by Republicans. By contrast, the suit argues, the total statewide vote for Republicans for all the house seats was 52 percent in 2014. (For some reason, the makeup of the state senate, currently 20 of 33 seats in favor the Republicans, is not a subject of the lawsuits.) In November 2016, a three-judge panel in federal district court, by a vote of 2 to 1, found the Republican redistricting plan unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Read more here.