SCOTUS shoots down Ohio voting district challenge

[fredtoast]

(10-09-2019, 01:13 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: So, before the district boundaries were drawn to favor the Republicans, which side do you suppose they favored?

I don't know if they favored either party.

I oppose gerrymandering no matter which party it favors.

[GMDino]

So I read that OH passed a constitutional amendment to have bipartisan redistricting in 2022 (following the 2020 census).

That is the STATE voting to change the districting.  The right way to do things.

That doesn't change the facts that local districts are still gerrymandered in 2019, 2020, 2021 and voters in those districts won't have much control over who wins there.

[SunsetBengal]

(10-09-2019, 01:41 PM)GMDino Wrote: So I read that OH passed a constitutional amendment to have bipartisan redistricting in 2022 (following the 2020 census).

That is the STATE voting to change the districting.  The right way to do things.

That doesn't change the facts that local districts are still gerrymandered in 2019, 2020, 2021 and voters in those districts won't have much control over who wins there.

I agree, that IS how it's supposed to be done.

We just went through this, here in NC.  The biggest problem was that State Reps didn't want to be put into the same district as another incumbent from the same party (both sides were grieving about this).

[Benton]

(10-09-2019, 10:17 AM)SunsetBengal Wrote: My entire point is that establishment of State voter districts is a State matter, and of no concern to the Federal Courts, let alone the SCOTUS.  If enough people in each State become dissatisfied with how districts are drawn, then they need to vote out their incumbents, and demand that things change.

Which would be easy to do... if the districts weren't gerrymandered in favor of those incumbents. 

Gerrymandering flies into the face of the 15th in spirit, if not the letter of the law (although it could be argued some districts are designed to prohibit the effectiveness of votes based on race, religion or gender).

I'm more of a 'states should have more control than the feds' guy, but voting is one of those basic foundations of our democracy that only the feds really have the power to intervene and say "you're doing it wrong."