On April 15, a 3-judge U.S. District court invalidated the current Texas U.S. House district boundaries for districts 27 and 35. Perez v Abbott, w.d., SA-11-cv-360. The vote was 3-0. This case was filed in 2011. The original boundaries drawn in 2011 had already been invalidated. The new decision invalidates district boundaries drawn in 2013. Here is the decision.
The court asked the state to say whether the legislature intends to draw new boundaries. If the state says it won’t, then the judges will begin to process for a court-drawn plan. Texas plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the new decision. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
I guess BAN never paid any attention to Lani Guinier in 1996 … too busy promoting biased pluralism for 25+ years to care about the Harvard Dean and former TX AG.
Harry Browne (Libertarian), Colin Powell (Independent) and Noam Chomsky (New) won top three spots in 1995 in First USA Parliament Election (with 125 consecutively ranked POTUS candidates but BAN wants to keep you 150 years behind the times.
No principles here with regard to PR.
Interested in pure proportional representation (PR)?
The 10th USA Parliament has been using it for more than 22 consecutive years and PR works fine.
Nobody has it as good as the new United Coalition.
Save Democracy
ALL of the major legislative bodies in the U.S.A. since 4 July 1776 have been evil and vicious ANTI-Democracy OLIGARCHIES due to minority rule pack/crack gerrymander district election systems – both houses of the Congress, all houses of all State legislatures and many, many local legislative bodies.
1/2 or less votes x 1/2 rigged districts = 1/4 or less CONTROL — since 1964 SCOTUS gerrymander cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
Much worse before 1964.
Much, much worse primary math which nominates the extremists who later get elected in the rigged districts.
Major result – lawless tyrant U.S.A. Presidents, State governors, local mayors, etc. – esp. with undeclared foreign wars.
Save Democracy remedies —
1. One election day – no robot party hack primaries, caucuses and conventions.
2. Ballot access only via nominating petitions or filing fees.
3. Proportional Representation for ALL legislative body elections – both majority rule (Democracy) and minority representation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
4. NONPARTISAN elections for all elected executive officers and all judges using Approval Voting – vote for 1 or more, highest win.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
5. TOTAL separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers.
The new boundaries were not drawn in 2013. They were drawn by the federal district court in 2012 (before the primary). The legislature enacted the boundaries drawn by the federal district court in 2013. The federal district court is now saying, in 2017, that the legislature should not have blindly followed what the federal district court had done. The state argued that they should have been able to trust the federal district court.
Ironically, when a federal district court draws boundaries, they don’t (or didn’t) have to be precleared under Section 5 of the VRA. If a legislature or state court draws district boundaries, they do (or did) have to be precleared. The statute was signed into law in 2013, after the Shelby County decision.