On January 6, a 3-judge U.S. District Court struck down the South Carolina U.S. House boundaries for the First District as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP v Alexander, 3:21cv-3302. Here is the decision. The court asks the legislature to draw new boundaries by March 31, 2023. If the legislature does not do that, presumably the court will appoint a special master to draw new boundaries.
The decision is from Judge Toby Heytens (a Biden appointee), Mary Geiger Lewis (Obama), and Richard M. Gergel (Obama). Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.
I have an alternative way to draw legislative boundaries. Instead of leaving the boundaries in the hands of the duopoly, the Greens, Libertarians, and Constitutionalists should draw the legislative boundaries in each state.
PR IN ALL REGIMES
This Libertarian thinks each voter should be able to pick a district instead of being picked for a district. Draw any lines you want, but voters should be able to choose regardless of partisan boundaries. Consider.
@DFR,
How would you make sure that each district had the same number of voters.
@RW,
Almost certainly it will be appealed to the SCOTUS. The court’s findings appear to be based on constitutional grounds rather than the VRA.
VRA – PERVERSION OF 15 AMDT —
15 AMDT — ONLY *NEGATIVE* ABOUT ELECTOR DEFINITION.
NOOOO GUARANTEE THAT ANY RACE, COLOR OR EX-SLAVE GETS ELECTED TO ANY OFFICE.
———
1868-2023 – FAILURE TO ENFORCE 14-2 AMDT – FOR USA CITIZEN MALES 21 PLUS.
CONGRESS MORON HACKS FAILED TO UPDATE 14-2 IN 19 AND 26 AMDTS.
If all reps in a state were elected at-large, and proportional ranked choice, or approval voting were used, the voters would, by their very votes, be creating their own “virtual” districts.
Not the same as having your local rep for your particular area.
“Not the same as having your local rep for your particular area.”
No, its BETTER, because then you could have YOUR rep, not someone that you didn’t vote for.
But, I can compromise on this, IF we have minimum district size. With a minimum district size, then rural districts would tend to remain single member, while metro districts would tend to be multi member. I would recommend a minimum district size of 1,000 square miles, about the size of Rhode Island (which, BTW, would make RI a multi member district with 2 reps)
I don’t see how constituent services would work under your system. I’ll guess that you are probably for secret ballots. I’m not, but even if we moved to open in person voting in the manner of a caucus or town meeting as I advocate, by what process would one of X number of representatives elected from whatever party you vote for determine that they are “your” representative? It seems unwieldy and a formula for them to each pass the buck thinking that another of the representatives chosen from their party might get around to it. An in person district office local to your area where it would be relatively easy to meet interested constituents in person would be rather difficult to arrange logistically. Etc
Distance to the rep’s district office does not sound like an insurmountable problem to me. After all, we can’t expect voters in remote parts of, say, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming etc to have congressional district offices right near where they all live. However, making representatives responsible only to the supporters of their party and not at all to the district does sound like a problem in terms of constituent services.
Suppose you were a Democrat living in the rural West (without looking at the map I don’t know where Republicans living in Democrat strongholds might face a similar problem – perhaps New England). The closest congressional representative of your party may be not just not in your states, but not even in a neighboring state. Or suppose you are a third party supporter; you may not have any congressional representatives to provide what are currently considered constituent services at all, or on the optimistic assumption that multimember districts will result in someone from your party in Congress somewhere, it may be clear on the other side of the country from you. Or suppose you are a nonpartisan – perhaps the multimember districts would result in some nonpartisan representatives, but would that make those representatives feel responsible to offer something akin to constituent services to all nonpartisans, including ones with very different views from their own who live far away? I doubt it.
Of course, how would a representative even know who their partisan supporters are, unless they wear their party stance on their head or unless dispense with secret voting and eliminate split ticket voting as Bob suggests? And given that party identification is one of only several ways that representatives use to identify their voters/supporters consider the plight of, say, white Democrats in the South under your proposed system. While they will have some Democrats representing areas not too far away from them, those Democrats may consider black voters to be their primary constituency, rather than all Democrats regardless of race.
I’d be concerned that under such a system a representative might feel no real responsibility at all to even pretend to offer anything like constituent services to anyone other than their financial supporters of their reelection campaigns. Maybe you think that would be a good thing as well?
Additionally, making representatives responsible solely to their party sounds like a recipe for worsening partisanship and factionalism. Making representatives responsible to all voters of their district, including those who don’t vote for them, has a moderating effect on political division. It might be even worse or more intransigent without that moderation. Would that be good too?
Sam,really, what are you even talking about? The plight of Demomrats in the rural West and White Demonrats in the South? Get a clue before we burn a cross on your lawn and move somewhere where your kind is welcome. We don’t want you and your ilk living anywhere near us.
It would be better if we could deport y’all from the country altogether, put y’all in quarantine work camps, or drop you out of helicopters. But in the meantime, at least go move to the urban demon rat crapholes in the Northeast and west coast that your idiotic policies have created and leave the rest of us the hell alone. We don’t want to see you, hear you or smell you. Leave. Get out. Scram. Today!
Better yet, y’all go move to Canada, Europe, Africa, North Korea, or wherever you think aligns more with the BS you believe in before we round you up and make you move. Or just put yourselves and more importantly the rest of us out of your misery. Do it now. Why wait?
Max is harsh, but not completely wrong. Leftist idiots who insist on living rural should be allowed a few options though, short of leaving the country or quarantine work farms. Off the top of my head I’m thinking Vermont and some predominantly black rural areas in the deep South. Maybe a few old hippie carveouts in the West Coast states. Perhaps Indian reservations if non-indians are allowed to own or rent lane there, that sort of thing. Just because someone has no clue whatsoever about economics, military service, law enforcement, God, Jesus, Trump etc does not in and of itself necessarily mean they should have to live like sardines in a can with only a couple of feet if that between themselves and neighbors on all sides of them, including above and/or below.
Ed, actually it should mean exactly that, at a bare minimum. The policies leftists advocate lead to gulags, killing fields and mass starvation. The only question and difference among them is how quick we get there and through what combination of means that end result is achieved. Therefore, they should all be punished, and punished very harshly, for holding such twisted beliefs and expressing them through whatever means they choose to act on them. Making them live right on top of each other is a bare minimum, and in my opinion not nearly harsh enough of a punishment (many of them apparently don’t even consider it a punishment at all, and inflict it on themselves and each other of their own free will), but it’s better than nothing.
I tend to agree with Max. Shoving leftists into cramped quarters is a good start but they need more supervision and punishment than that. I’m thinking not being allowed to choose their bunkmates, armed guards, mean dogs, daily counts and shakedowns, doors locked from the outside and razor wire fences with guard towers, mandatory hard labor, limited subsistence rations, getting sprayed with hoses, physical punishment in front of other assembled leftist scum for getting out of line, etc. If we can’t do this with a privatized system of work camps that can turn a profit on their labor, I also agree with looking at other solutions such as deportation, euthanasia, etc. With deportation we need to weigh the costs of securing the borders enough to make sure none of them can ever sneak back into the country, but we need to secure the borders a lot more for other reasons too.
In the name of Jesus I pray that something along these lines comes to pass soon!