High court to take new look at partisan electoral districts https://www.wral.com/supreme-court-sets-new-look-at-partisan-electoral-districts/18103899/ The Supreme Court is plunging back into the issue of whether electoral districts can be too partisan. Disputes have arisen in cases involving North Carolina's heavily Republican congressional map and a Democratic congressional district in Maryland, and the justices said Friday they will hear arguments in March. The high court could come out with the first limits on partisan politics in the drawing of electoral districts, but also could ultimately decide that federal judges have no role in trying to police political mapmaking. The court took up the issue of partisan gerrymandering last term in cases from Wisconsin and the same Maryland district, but the justices failed to reach a decision on limiting political line-drawing for political gain. Justice Anthony Kennedy had said he was open to limits. He has since retired, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has taken Kennedy's seat. He has no judicial record on the issue. The court again has taken one case in which Democrats are accused of unfairly limiting Republicans' political power and one in which Republicans are the alleged culprits. The court also has the entire North Carolina congressional map before it, but only the one Maryland district. In both cases, however, lower courts have found that the party in charge of redistricting — Republicans in North Carolina, Democrats in Maryland — egregiously violated the rights of voters in the other party. The North Carolina map was redrawn in 2016 because federal courts determined two districts originally drawn in 2011 were illegal because of excessive racial bias. In November, Republicans won at least nine of the 13 seats in North Carolina's congressional delegation and appeared to have won a 10th seat, in keeping with how many they held before the 2016 remapping. But state election officials have so far declined to certify the results in the 9th District in south-central North Carolina because of allegations of absentee ballot fraud. A key Republican in the North Carolina redistricting process, state Rep. David Lewis, has said that he drew 10 Republican districts because he did not "believe it's possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats." In January, a three-judge court found that the map violated the Constitution and ordered the state to come up with a new plan quickly, in time for the 2018 elections. But the Supreme Court delayed enforcement of the court order, mainly because the justices already were considering the partisan districting cases from Maryland and Wisconsin. When those cases did not settle the issue, the high court ordered the three judges to take a new look at their earlier decision. They reaffirmed the ruling in August, but also ruled there wasn't enough time to put new districts in place for 2018. In Maryland, Democratic Rep. David Trone was sworn into office Thursday to represent a district that runs from the Washington suburbs to the rural northwest corner of the state. Democrats who controlled the redistricting process overhauled the district in 2011, turning what had been a reliably Republican stronghold into a Democratic district. Several Republican voters sued over the new district's boundaries, claiming it unfairly favored Democrats. A day after the November elections, a three-judge panel agreed with the Republicans who sued and ordered Maryland officials to draw a new congressional redistricting plan that isn't tainted by partisan gerrymandering. Judge Paul Niemeyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said in his opinion for the panel that the Maryland congressional map removed roughly 66,000 Republican voters from the district and added around 24,000 Democratic voters, "bringing about the single greatest alteration of voter makeup in any district in the Nation following the 2010 census."
People wonder why this country is so divided politically and why there is so much discord in Washington- it’s because we are in the age of super gerrymandering. The house has not represented the will of the people for almost ten years because of gerrymandering. This is why nothing gets done. You can’t have a functional representative democracy when the minority are stealing power from the majority. If the Supreme Court gets this right, there is no reason to keep the filibuster either.
If the dems had not gerrymandered many safe districts for far left candidates... The democrat party would have to appeal to more moderates and centrists. The current set up has allowed the democrat party to lurch left. The majority of the is country are not liberals. 26 percent of the US identifies as liberal. 35 as conservative The rest are in the middle. The middle has been voting democrat because the Republican party has not be working for the middle and doing what they promised. Every time the middle has said hah the democrats have screwed up we are voting for the party that will lower taxes, stop the crazy spending and protect us from crazy immigration. The republican party comes back and screws the voters on every level. They have no where to turn.
This is not a very good analysis. The democrats have been called “too liberal” for more than 50 years by republicans. It’s an old trope. America is one of the most liberal countries in the world. It’s just a fact whether you like it or not. We are not even close to conservative as a country. Republicans however have jammed up the House with gerrymandering. To understand why this is important you need to understand that the House is specifically designed to represent the people. Gerrymandering in states like Pennsylvania North Carolina Wisconsin Mississippi and others turned the house from its original purpose. We ended up in a situation where the minority ruled over the majority in a representative democracy. That’s why government has been so broken.
The definition of liberal has change since the 60s. I think you are once again confusing classical liberal... which is a great thing.. Oliver Stone / Dershowitz types - those guys are 60s liberals. I agree with them on most issues today. Neo Liberal is what you are. The neo liberals of today are big govt socialists/ pre fascists. It's not really left or right anymore. Its freedom from govt/crony control vs you guys and the cronies. Some day you all will be seen as the selfish Americans who sold out freedom for ice cream.
A PhD liberal is in the left in the political spectrum and fascist on the right. I know democrats are “too liberal.” They said exactly the same thing about the founding fathers. Yet here we are in liberal glory with women wearing pants and gay people entering into marriage contracts. O’ the humanity.
1. Look at it from a govt control of your life stand point. Did it matter after the World War 2 to East Germans if they were controlled by Hitler or Stalin? When govt controls you it does not matter if the govt is identified as far left or far right. Venezuela and Cuba still suck even though they are on the left. this is the 70s the free speech movement... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement This is the left today... the anti conservative speech movement... https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...lawsuit-will-pay-70-000-to-conservative-group 2. You have been taught this before... todays liberals are nothing like classical liberals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism Classical liberalism is a political ideology and a branch of liberalism which advocates civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom. Closely related to economic liberalism, it developed in the early 19th century, building on ideas from the previous century as a response to urbanization and to the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States.[1][2][3] Notable individuals whose ideas contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke,[4] Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Robert Malthus, and David Ricardo. It drew on the classical economic ideas espoused by Adam Smith in Book One of The Wealth of Nations and on a belief in natural law,[5]utilitarianism,[6] and progress.[7] The term "classical liberalism" was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier 19th-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism.[8] Evolution of core beliefs[edit] Core beliefs of classical liberals included new ideas—which departed from both the older conservative idea of society as a family and from the later sociological concept of society as complex set of social networks. Classical liberals believe that individuals are "egoistic, coldly calculating, essentially inert and atomistic"[9] and that society is no more than the sum of its individual members.[10] Classical liberals agreed with Thomas Hobbes that government had been created by individuals to protect themselves from each other and that the purpose of government should be to minimize conflict between individuals that would otherwise arise in a state of nature. These beliefs were complemented by a belief that laborers could be best motivated by financial incentive. This belief led to the passage of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which limited the provision of social assistance, based on the idea that markets are the mechanism that most efficiently leads to wealth. Adopting Thomas Robert Malthus's population theory, they saw poor urban conditions as inevitable, they believed population growth would outstrip food production and they regarded that consequence desirable because starvation would help limit population growth. They opposed any income or wealth redistribution, which they believed would be dissipated by the lowest orders.[11] Drawing on ideas of Adam Smith, classical liberals believed that it is in the common interest that all individuals be able to secure their own economic self-interest. They were critical of what would come to be the idea of the welfare state as interfering in a free market.[12]Despite Smith’s resolute recognition of the importance and value of labor and of laborers, they selectively criticized labour's group rights being pursued at the expense of individual rights[13] while accepting corporations' rights, which led to inequality of bargaining power.[14][15] Classical liberals argued that individuals should be free to obtain work from the highest-paying employers while the profit motive would ensure that products that people desired were produced at prices they would pay. In a free market, both labor and capital would receive the greatest possible reward while production would be organized efficiently to meet consumer demand.[16] Classical liberals argued for what they called a minimal state, limited to the following functions: A government to protect individual rights and to provide services that cannot be provided in a free market. A common national defense to provide protection against foreign invaders.[17] Laws to provide protection for citizens from wrongs committed against them by other citizens, which included protection of private property, enforcement of contracts and common law. Building and maintaining public institutions. Public works that included a stable currency, standard weights and measures and building and upkeep of roads, canals, harbors, railways, communications and postal services.[17] They asserted that rights are of a negative nature, and therefore stipulate that other individuals (and governments) are to refrain from interfering with the free market, opposing social liberals who assert that individuals have positive rights, such as the right to vote, the right to an education, the right to health care and the right to a living wage. For society to guarantee positive rights, it requires taxation over and above the minimum needed to enforce negative rights.[18][19] Core beliefs of classical liberals did not necessarily include democracy or government by a majority vote by citizens because "there is nothing in the bare idea of majority rule to show that majorities will always respect the rights of property or maintain rule of law".[20] For example, James Madison argued for a constitutional republic with protections for individual liberty over a pure democracy, reasoning that in a pure democracy a "common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole...and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party".[21] In the late 19th century, classical liberalism developed into neo-classical liberalism, which argued for government to be as small as possible to allow the exercise of individual freedom. In its most extreme form, neo-classical liberalism advocated Social Darwinism.[22]Right-libertarianism is a modern form of neo-classical liberalism.[22]
That was great video. So succinct. So correct. "Dear Liberals the right is not your enemy. The left is."