Comment by salawat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by salawat | Hacker News Reader

Well...

At least now we can honestly say the system is still as vulnerable to being rigged as it was before.

I'm honestly at a loss for words.

EDIT: Words no longer 404ing. It appears the Court is not satisfied with the State's criteria/legal reasoning to justify justicable action against the districting plans. They hold the measure must be politically neutral, and have some basis in being legally addressed.

They go at length to describe circumstances to describe cases with inherent justicability (districting along racial demographics), but offer no hints or grasps as to a measure of degree at which political gerrymandering becomes "excessive".

It looks like Maryland attempted to use "likelihood of persistence" of the gerrymandered district, but this was dismissed on allowability based on previous precedent. "Intent" was also singled out in a couple different wordings, but did not hold satisfactorally for the Court.

Of particular concern was of the Federal Courts to support State Court's particular measures on what constitutes excessive gerrymandering. It seems the Court is nudging State populations to appeal to the Federal Legislature to oversee malconduct in individual State districting. I find this concerning, seeing as our Federal Legislature has enough on it's plate with getting things passed, and the last thing we want is to start having the different levels trying to micromanage each other.

I can sort of see some tiny speck of Wisdom in their judgement. I don't necessarily find it satisfying, but I have to grudgingly admit they at least reasoned it out.

Ookay. Apparently something in my phrasing seems to have ruffled some degree of feather, but I'm not seeing much in the way as to response to substance, so perhaps a final clarification is in order.

On vulnerability to being rigged:

I Absolutely see gerrymandering as a form of systemic cheat. It is a legal option within the explicit constraints laid down by the Framers, however, from a systems oriented point of view, the practice of districting is meant as a way to geographically divide up up the space in a State in such a way as to allow representation to be ideally derived equitably via geographical proximity.

I find any attempt to try to engineer a district based on anything but geographical division to be highly suspect. I understand local footprints change, and redistricting may be required, but the process should be looked at as an technical apolitical consideration, rather than as a strategic way to exploit statistics to try to shift district lines into a more favorable arrangement for one party or another. My original statement was meant to clarify that the Supreme Court decision hasn't really changed anything in the grand scheme of things. I.e. no new vulnerabilities to gerrymandering were introduced. There was only a closing of the door on the Federal Courts picking sides.

On the rest; I find both Maryland and North Carolina's attempts to quantify and measure the effects of gerrymandering admirable, even if the Supreme Court chose to abstain from the fight. I'm not 100% clear, but I don't recall having seen SCOTUS overturning the lower court's judgements; they merely proclaimed that no precedent derived from either case had standing within the context of the Federal system, and further remedy would need to be sought either in the National Congress, or through State specific law. Then again, I may need to re-read.

Wasn't trying to start a flame war, even though apparently my initial knee-jerk reaction did. I could not understand how gerrymandering could have been casually tossed aside, even with their reasoning. It took a bit of stepping back to get the subtler points to crystallize.

Constitutional amendment

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