[EL] Breaking: Supreme Court, on 5-4 vote, holds partisan gerrymandering cases nonjusticiable

Thu Jun 27 10:16:02 PDT 2019

Relating to this quote from the chief justice on Congress having the power
to act to rein in partisan gerrymandering (and state legislatures the power
to do in their states), he does seem to be an optimistic man -- in the
spirit of this 2013 opinion in the Shelby case that Congress can come up
with new preclearance standards.

I'm curious about lurking catch-22 potential here. Does anyone on the list
want to opine on whether the current SCOTUS majority might allow states to
ignore requirements to create redistricting commissions on anti-commandeering
grounds
<https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2018/05/23/anti-commandeering-an-overview-of-five-major-supreme-court-cases/>
and
might also soon strike down state commission laws that were created by
initiative rather than by the legislature? Might we be left with these
options:

1) state legislatures acting to create commissions, giving away their power
to "keep up with the other guys" who aren't drawing commissions;

2) Congress establishing criteria to govern what state legislatures just do
along the lines of what Florida state law (for now) does, which pretty
easily can end up in court and be decided an election or two after first
being used;

3) a constitutional amendment clarifying what can be done, which the chief
justice could say simply takes a vote of two-thirds of Congress and
approval in 38 state legislatures;

4) putting voters permanently in charge of their representation with
multi-winner, proportional voting systems like the Fair Representation Act,
as I hope to see?

Rob Richie

On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 11:23 AM Paul Ryan <PRyan at commoncause.org> wrote:

> Not quite the final line, Trevor. That line’s followed by a list of
> pending federal bills to rein in partisan gerrymandering, which is then
> followed by the sentence:
>
>
>
> “We express no view on any of these pending proposals. We simply note that
> the avenue for reform established by the Framers, and used by Congress in
> the past, remains open.”
>
>
>
> *Paul Seamus Ryan*
>
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>
>
>
>
> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> *On
> Behalf Of *Trevor Potter
> *Sent:* Thursday, June 27, 2019 11:02 AM
> *To:* Pamela S Karlan <pkarlan at stanford.edu>
> *Cc:* Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Breaking: Supreme Court, on 5-4 vote, holds partisan
> gerrymandering cases nonjusticiable
>
>
>
> Final line of the Opinion...
>
> The Framers also gave Congress the power to do something about partisan
> gerrymandering in the Elections Clause. That avenue for reform established
> by the Framers, and used by Congress in the past, remains open. Pp. 30–34.
>
> Trevor Potter
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jun 27, 2019, at 4:38 PM, Pamela S Karlan <
> pkarlan at stanford.edu<mailto:pkarlan at stanford.edu>> wrote:
>
> Census case got remanded on the grounds that the VRA enforcement rationale
> can’t support the decision to ask the citizenship question.
>
> Pam Karlan
> Stanford Law School
> karlan at stanford.edu<mailto:karlan at stanford.edu>
> 650.725.4851
>
> On Jun 27, 2019, at 7:12 AM, Rick Hasen <
> rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>> wrote:
>
> https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-422_9ol1.pdf
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>
> --
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