IT seems Sen john mccain r AZ is doing penance for his blind support of the right wing republican agenda that is partly responsible for the political and socio-economic state our nation is in. I am thankful for his change of heart and admire his courage and I hope he is able to motivate others in congress to stand for the American people and not just those who can afford to buy their politicians. Hang in there Sen mccain, and keep giving congress hell!
McCain shocks again, calls partisan gerrymandering 'wasted votes, silenced voices and hidden power'
Sen. John McCain has taken another surprising stance, partnering with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), to call on the Supreme Court to strike down Wisconsin’s partisan redistricting. The senators did not mince words in calling for the Supreme Court to affirm previous rulings:
In an amicus brief filed in Gill v. Whitford on Tuesday, McCain and Whitehouse argue that the redistricting map is the result of excessive partisan redistricting.“Americans do not like gerrymandering,” McCain and Whitehouse wrote in the brief, first highlighted by The Huffington Post. “They see its mischief, and absent a legal remedy, their sense of powerlessness and discouragement has increased, deepening the crisis of confidence in our democracy.""We share this perspective," they continued. "From our vantage point, we see wasted votes and silenced voices. We see hidden power. And we see a correctable problem.”
Wow! Sen. McCain and Sen. Whitehouse correctly calling partisan redistricting exactly what it is: “wasted votes, silenced voices” and hidden power.
Gerrymandering and partisan redistricting are the key to Republican control of the House. From the Associated Press analysis of the the 2016 election:
The analysis found four times as many states with Republican-skewed state House or Assembly districts than Democratic ones. Among the two dozen most populated states that determine the vast majority of Congress, there were nearly three times as many with Republican-tilted U.S. House districts.Traditional battlegrounds such as Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Virginia were among those with significant Republican advantages in their U.S. or state House races. All had districts drawn by Republicans after the last Census in 2010.The AP analysis also found that Republicans won as many as 22 additional U.S. House seats over what would have been expected based on the average vote share in congressional districts across the country. That helped provide the GOP with a comfortable majority over Democrats instead of a narrow one.
Even if Democrats turned out at full strength, gerrymandering would limit their chances in key districts:
Yet the data suggest that even if Democrats had turned out in larger numbers, their chances of substantial legislative gains were limited by gerrymandering.“The outcome was already cooked in, if you will, because of the way the districts were drawn,” said John McGlennon, a longtime professor of government and public policy at the College of William & Mary in Virginia who ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Democrat in the 1980s.
That has got to change. Kudos to Sen. McCain and Sen. Whitehouse for publicly asking the Supreme Court to strike down Wisconsin’s partisan redistricting.
McCain, Whitehouse Make Bipartisan Appeal To SCOTUS Against Wisconsin Gerrymandering
“Americans do not like gerrymandering. They see its mischief, and absent a legal remedy, their sense of powerlessness and discouragement has increased.”
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to uphold a lower court’s ruling that Wisconsin’s electoral maps for the state legislature were unconstitutional.
The senators made their argument in a friend of the court brief filed in Gill v. Whitford, a potentially monumental case the Supreme Court is set to hear on Oct. 3. The nation’s highest court has never said whether an electoral map, drawn by state lawmakers every 10 years ― often by the party in power ― can be unconstitutional simply for favoring one party too much over the other.
The Supreme Court could make such a determination in the Wisconsin case, which could remake American politics by requiring states to draw maps that put lawmakers in more competitive races.
In the brief, McCain and Whitehouse said the case “implicates the effective functioning of American representative democracy.”
Redrawing electoral maps to weaken the electoral influence of a particular group, often called gerrymandering, can now be done with extreme sophistication, using algorithms and complex software, the senators wrote.
“This new breed of ‘bulk’ partisan gerrymandering distorts statewide votes, systematically diluting the effect of votes based on political affiliation and leading to the election of congressional and state legislative delegations that do not represent the will of the voters,” they wrote. “This practice violates ‘the core principle of republican government, namely, that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.’”
Both Republicans and Democrats have benefitted from gerrymandering, the brief notes. The progressive Brennan Center for Justice estimates that gerrymandering accounts for 16 or 17 current Republican seats in the House of Representatives.
In a 2004 case called Vieth v. Jubelirer, the court ruled 5-4 not to strike down Pennsylvania’s congressional maps as an unconstitutional gerrymander, and four justices wrote the Supreme Court couldn’t even hear the case. Despite voting with the majority, however, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that he believed a standard for determining whether a map was unconstitutional could in fact exist. Because of that opinion, Kennedy is being closely watched in the Wisconsin case and the plaintiffs are hoping he sees a standard that he likes.
The brief argues the court does not need to establish a comprehensive test in the Wisconsin case about gerrymandering. But it says that affirming the ruling of the lower court that the maps in that case were unconstitutional would send a strong signal about the Supreme Court’s attitude on the issue.
“The district court’s test provides a workable framework for distinguishing between district maps drawn based on legitimate political considerations and those constituting unlawful partisan gerrymandering,” the brief says. “Beyond remedying the constitutional violations present in this case, affirming the district court’s decision will send a clear message that partisan gerrymandering will not be tolerated.”
In a separate brief filed Tuesday, 65 current and former state lawmakers (26 Republicans and 39 Democrats) from eight states also asked the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court’s decision and say Wisconsin’s map was unconstitutional.
In the brief from McCain and Whitehouse, the senators noted that gerrymandering weakens confidence in the electoral system.
“Americans do not like gerrymandering. They see its mischief, and absent a legal remedy, their sense of powerlessness and discouragement has increased, deepening the crisis of confidence in our democracy. We share this perspective,” they wrote. “We see wasted votes and silenced voices. We see hidden power. And we see a correctable problem.”
More than three dozen current and former Republican lawmakers have signed onto briefs urging the court to say the Wisconsin maps were unconstitutional. The Republicans ranged across the political spectrum and included House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (S.C.), former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
This article has been updated with more information about which GOP lawmakers have signed onto briefs.
No comments:
Post a Comment