Gerrymandering & Legal Election Rigging

Supreme Court Law 101 drums it into students’ heads legislative gerrymandering or election rigging is UNSSAILABLE so long as it’s not “racially” based. Dems say ANY change in GOP’s favor is inherently biased, but Justices say NO (ONE) WAY.

The latest analysis of the election rule by the WSJ’s editorial board focused on a recent South Carolina case, in which a 6-3 majority “clarified” aka reiterated that there’s a very high bar required for judicial intervention to overrule legislatures when any ruling party tries to change a federal voting district's boundaries. It's pretty much been that way since 1791. Since the 1960s, however, the Democrats have tried to rewrite this long-standing precedent by carving out a “racial bias” exception that encompasses redistricting moves by a Republican-controlled legislature. Notably, this exception is never applied by Dem lawyers to a Democratic-controlled legislature; the Dems’ theory is that only white people discriminate against blacks, never the other way around.

As the majority opinion written by Justice Alito reminded, the trick is telling the difference between gerrymandering motivated by brass knuckles politics & unconstitutional racial bias. The short answer given is that the former is still legitimate as always &, if not, there has to be “direct evidence” shown that race, not just trying to rig future elections, is the “dominating” motivation. Put another way, lower courts must ask whether a given voting district was redrawn to exclude more Democrats, who happen to be black? Or, was it drawn to exclude more black voters, who happen to be Democrats? If the former, it’s ok. If the latter, it’s not. The same would be true if & when Republicans challenged a Democratic gerrymandering effort in court.

Davd Soul