Argle-bargle! Still no ruling from the Supreme Court on South Dakota v. Wayfair, the big online sales tax case.
We did get an unhappy ruling from the Supreme Court this morning on a gerrymandering case from Wisconsin, which I mentioned in a blog post on redistricting last July. Ruling today on Gill v. Whitford, the Court continued to avoid establishing any hard standard for how much gerrymandering is too much. Instead of saying how far partisan considerations may influence the drawing of legislative districts before violating Constitutional rights, all nine Justices said the plaintiffs, twelve Democratic voters who are upset with the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature’s “packing and cracking” of Democratic voters into districts that favor a Republican majority, lack standing to bring this case.
Briefly, the Court held that the individual plaintiffs’ grievances stem from harm done within their specific districts. They cannot extend their argument to claim statewide harm, and they can only argue for remedy via changes in their own districts and adjoining districts, not an overhaul of the entire state legislative district map.
The Court acknowledged that four plaintiffs did offer a better argument that Wisconsin Republicans’ packing and cracking “dilut[ed] the influence” of their votes. Unfortunately, those plaintiffs failed to establish their standing by showing that their own districts were indeed packed (lots of Democratic voters drawn into an already strong Democratic district, like what South Dakota Republicans did in 2010 when they carved the northwest chunk of Brown County into strongly Democratic District 1 to the east) or cracked (a cluster of Democratic voters is split into several neighboring districts where their voting power will be diluted among Republicans, as South Dakota Republicans did when they split Frank Kloucek’s Bon Homme County base between Districts 19 and 21).
The ruling does not kabosh the challenge to Wisconsin’s gerrymandering. The Court vacates the District Court ruling but “express[es] no view on the merits of the plaintiffs’ case.” The Court “remand[s] the case to the District Court so that the plaintiffs may have an opportunity to prove concrete and particularized injuries using evidence—unlike the bulk of the evidence presented thus far—that would tend to demonstrate a burden on their individual votes.” Wisconsin’s plaintiffs thus get one more shot at using their data—the same statistical analysis that shows South Dakota has the worst gerrymandering of any state—to show that savagely partisan redistricting violates voters’ Constitutional rights.
Wingnuts in Wisconsin have openly b\bragged about disenfranchising voters through gerrymandering. That is the worst kept secret after Walker is a phony and a fraud.
Sad to see the Supremes ducked the issue. I’m in a packed legislative district. We rarely get a chance to vote for a Republican here. Sometimes Republicans put up a sacrificial lamb, generally someone who is libertarian, because they think drugs will attract a certain set of old hippies and young college students. I always vote, but my vote doesn’t mean much in legislative races.
And it’s not just Democratic votes that get diluted by packing. Although people think this is a solidly blue area of the state, statewide Republican candidates usually get around 40 percent of the county vote. So, that 40 percent of the vote that goes to Republicans gets thrown out due to the need to pack in the Democrats. I’m sure the legislative districts could be made more competitive here.
Actually, SCOTUS also ducked a gerrymandering case in Maryland today that protects a Democratic U.S. House seat. Their ducking today was bipartisan; in both cases, related to questions of standing – who can sue and on what basis?
So would they need to get voters from every district in Wisconsin to join the suit? Or do the current plaintiffs need to show that their particular district was gerrymandered? Does that mean SCOTUS would only rule on that one district, or would they write a general opinion on partisan gerrymandering?
I cannot understand why there is any doubt that any type of gerrymandering is bad for democracy.
The standing issue does puzzle me, Debbo. If I understand the ruling correctly, the Court did not say that no single voter has standing to bring the complaint; the Court is just putting some strict requirements on the kinds of arguments they have to make to prove they have standing. The challenge with gerrymandering is that the harm it does is diffuse, spread out across all voters. It’s hard to quantify how much any individual is harmed by gerrymandering. The plaintiffs have that really good quantitative analysis of the statewide effects; they now have to tie that analysis to their individual situations and demonstrate the possible remedies.
Lori, I understand the need to prevent disruptions at the polls. We don’t want shouting rallies right outside the voting booth. However, I’m open to a discussion of what constitutes appropriate speech within the voting zone. Might there be a distinction between vocal campaigning and silent speech displays in terms of disruption and intimidation?
I don’t think getting plaintiffs from all over the state would fly with an activist wingnut court that does not like class actions. These justices are well aware if each individual has to make the case,the case goes away due to lack of finances.
Looks like South Dakota won their wayfair case.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/21/technology/wayfair-vs-south-dakota/index.html
What’s Jackley’s future? Will he get a private attorney job or hang around waiting for another cushy government gig? Has he ever had a non-public job?
According to Wikipedia, he was a lawyer in private practice in Rapid City for about nine years (1997-2006). He could return to private practice, or he could be appointed to a state judgeship (think Mark Barnett).
A federal judgeship isn’t out of the question. He was U.S. Attorney for South Dakota from 2006-2009. In addition, he has served as the president of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), which means he’s probably known nationally within legal/political circles.
A state or federal judgeship will give him a nice income, nice retirement, and job security. But it won’t give him the high income that could easily flow from private practice.
Thank you, Mr Wyland. About being well known attorney, Kansas SOS Kris Kobach was roundly sassed in court by a judge for his appalling lack of decorum and knowledge in the courtroom and she is making him take refresher courses as punishment for contempt of her courtroom.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a21623362/kris-kobach-judge-order-take-law-classes/
There’s nothing new about lawyers behaving badly in court and judges ordering additional training for them. This also happened to Justice Dept. attorneys under the Obama administration who were arguing both immigration/DACA cases and IRS scandal-related cases.
Scotus sent unanimous 3 judge panel vote that North Carolina wingnuts gerrymandered districts to give themselves large margins of victory is unconstitutional.
Scotus wants the 3 judges to determine the case based on whether the complaining partys had standing. This looks to be a pattern of this court developing as a way to skirt federal laws.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/supreme-court-largely-backs-texas-republicans-electoral-maps/
Texas as well. Same 5-4 majority.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/supreme-court-ruling-backs-republican-congressional-maps-north-carolina/
Not sure of the court split here. This is what happens when a Scotus seat is stolen from the rightful party that should have been allowed to fill it.