A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!
The reason for this is simple. That same approach to the Constitution produced Lochner v. New York. Whenever you take words that have some meaning, and you try to stretch those words to mean what you want the Constitution (or any law) to do, for reasons you think are morally or politically important, you get bad results.
While I certainly don’t want to be accused of taking a Scalia-like view of the Constitution, I do not believe that trying to make words like “due process” and “equal protection” mean whatever I think it is important for them to mean at this moment is a good idea, because while that might serve my current purpose, it most certainly creates the potential that they will be subverted to mean something diametrically opposed to what I want later, all justified by the very approach I put in place in the first place.
Which doesn’t mean that I don’t think overt partisan gerrymandering cannot be found to be a violation of these concepts. It simply means I’m not in favor of saying, “the Constitution SHOULD be found to forbid it, because I find it offensive to the ideals of Democracy.”
But that’s ridiculous. First, if that’s your purpose, just say that shit, don’t challenge people to recreate the arguments that the courts have already heard and accepted multiple times. Second, instead of saying, “What do the courts say it means?” how about you read what these courts say it means?
If you think those court rulings will not hold up (and I agree, but not because the arguments are weak, because our courts are almost fatally politicized, viz., the destruction of the Voting Rights Act that led to similar shenanigans in the first place), it’s be far more interesting for you to quote specific arguments that the court accepted and explain why you reject them.
The game you’re playing now just looks like you’re trying to force people to cite things you can easily access yourself, on the assumption that if they, with a layperson’s knowledge and resources, cite them incorrectly, you can mock them for their ignorance, and claim victory without actually making any substantive arguments of your own.
You pretty much have to go first. How can he explain how you are wrong unless you speak first. And you are fairly required to, seeing as how you are the one who is wrong.
Also, while we’re at it, leaving aside the constitutionality of this for just one moment, do you think this kind of explicitly, overtly, admitted partisan Gerrymandering should be illegal?
I’m suggesting that you NOT do so, that you indeed follow the principles and spirit of the Constitution.
Well, you are. Scalia invented meanings to reach preferred results, and you’re doing it too.
Please provide an example or two. If you’re objecting to gay marriage, I suggest you don’t accept the full meaning of “equal protection”, for instance.
It’s not that hard. Rulings and laws that uphold and strengthen democracy and the principles of the constitution are inherently better than ones that find clever ways to evade them.
But you fail to comprehend (or conveniently disregard) the fact that “strengthen democracy and the principles of the constitution” is very much in the eye of the beholder. And you completely ignored in doing so the one case I raised in support of my thesis: Lochner v. New York. While you may not think Lochner was designed to “strenghten democracy and …”, the people who were in favor of that decision very much thought that was exactly what they were doing. So it isn’t the case that there is some touchstone that allows us to look at a legal theory for why something should or should not be constitutional and say, “oh, yeah, that one strengthens democracy and the principles of our Constitution.”
So let’s look at same-gender marriage. I don’t know why you would conceive that I’m opposed to the result in Obergfell; nothing I’ve ever said on this Message Board would indicate that is the case. But I would be opposed to the decision if it was based upon your viewpoint of constitutional interpretation. If the Court had to completely re-write constitutional jurisprudence regarding the Equal Protection clause (or the Due Process clause) to obtain the “proper” result (meaning the one that would “strengthen democracy and …”), that would be very problematic. If that was done simply by re-interpreting language that has been held to have a specific meaning, simply to accomplish the goal, that would be wrong, in my opinion, for the reasons given. Because while that might give the result you want in Obergfell, it provides you with no protection 50 years from now, when some future Court decides that Obergfell doesn’t “strengthen democracy and …”, and overturns it, and uses as their justification exactly the same concept of what should be constitutional as you want to use.
Indeed, we can look at one of the most seminal cases to understand what I’m saying: Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954). The Supreme Court in Brown upended the notion of “separate but unequal” facilities as complying with the Equal Protection clause. But it is instructive to note how the Court did that. The Court did NOT simply assert that “separate but equal” is inherently wrong. That would be your approach (clearly, “separate but equal” is not something that would “strengthen democracy and …”, by your viewpoint). Rather, the Court specifically cited studies that showed that, even in Topeka, where the facilities were pretty much equal, students of color could not obtain an equivalent education. So the Court simply found that the Equal Protection clause was violated by “separate but equal” educational facilities, without having to come up with any special new legal interpretation of “equal protection of the laws” in the process. As a result, CJ Warren got a unanimous opinion.
The words of the Constitution (and its amendments) have meaning. They aren’t written down just to provide some sort of nebulous guidelines for how to promote democracy and fairness in society. There are going to be times that our society falls short of being fair in ways that the Constitution didn’t anticipate; we shouldn’t just ignore the words of that document in order to get a “right” result. The alternative would be to eventually enshrine legal chaos (see, for example, any number of countries in Latin America, where back-and-forth swings in the legal system follow the back-and-forth swings in their politics).
Um… This is all well and good, but you do realize what you’re dealing with is a party using an exploit in the system to disenfranchise some voters and empower others based entirely on party line politics, right? If your eye beholds that as not weakening democracy, your eye is blind. It’s like how “racism” can be a fuzzy and confusing term, but any definition of “racism” that excludes the KKK lynching a black man is a shitty definition. This is one of those cases - “strengthening democracy”? Fuzzy, complicated. “Uphold the principles of the constitution”? Fuzzy, complicated. But that doesn’t mean that “explicit, admitted partisan gerrymandering” is fuzzy and complicated when we ask “is this strengthening democracy?”. It’s really not. It’s a slam-dunk case, up there with “ending elections” and “declaring that only certain parties are allowed on the ballot”.
It’s possible to be sincere but wrong, certainly. History has shown Lochner to have been an example of what I decry, finding a clever way to evade the Constitution instead of following it. If that’s your idea of a good example, you need another.
Just using that as the most popular **example **today of conservatives falsely claiming it to be a ruling that identifies a right not in the Constitution (*Heller *would be a much better example). Certainly if you’d prefer another, feel free.
The words “equal protection” are explicit. Interpretation is not required, only acceptance - which you’re not at yet.
Say what? The ruling said “We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Seriously, dude.
Perhaps you ought to reread the Preamble. That’s exactly what it does.
I am reminded of Barry Goldwater’s defense for voting against the Civil Rights Act. I take him at his word, that as a matter of principle, he felt compelled to support the Constitution’s dictates on State’s Rights. Oversimplified, the Feds have no business interfering.
Wrong, even if right. The situation was a desperate emergency. Roughly a tenth of our citizens were denied full participation, or any, for that matter. That could not stand, no one of conscience could permit it. If the Constitution stands in the way of redressing a brutal and pervasive evil, then the Constitution is complicit. A willing cooperation with evil is, in itself, evil. If God Almighty tells you to do something cruel and hateful, find a different God.
If the Constitution must be “interpreted” for a just government, well, so be it. Let us reason over it, let us choose whatever option favors justice and equality. Perhaps a solution can be found that does the least possible damage to the sacred writ of the Constitution. The Constitution does not enshrine and guarantee equality and democracy, it barely permits them!
But that is the wonder of the age, that even *that *level of justice was enshrined into law. The Constitution was very progressive for the eighteenth century. That was then, this is now.
I have firm and sincere doubts that any such thing as Divine Law exists. I have no doubt at all that men do not make them.
As far as I know, the Supreme Court has never ruled on whatever property damage law you claim has been violated, AND no charges have been pressed against anyone, in a lower court, so there is no court ruling and no supreme court precedent. Meanwhile in the Gerrymandering case, a court HAS ruled on the case and stated that it is in violation of the law. If you’re applying a consistent standard, why is something that’s alleged to be a violation of a local law but which has not been brought before a court worthy of condemnation as a threat to lawful society, while a violation of the supreme law of the land that has been ruled as such by a duly constituted court isn’t?
If you’d read the article, you’d see that a court has already ruled that they’re in violation of the Constitution of the United States of America. That’s the supreme law of the land, so violating it is certainly violating the law. Since articles making that clear have already been linked the request for a cite doesn’t seem genuine, but just to be fair here’s a link to the text of the constitution: http://constitutionus.com/
I suppose that if a gerrymandering occured that violated Constitutional principles were enacted by accident, that might not be illegal. Course, kinda hard to claim they didn’t know the gun was loaded when their fingerprints are on the cartridges.
I’ve a math problem I could use some help with. It’s probably simple, but it’s been a long day and my brain is fried.
AIUI, in at least one of the last elections in NC, Democrats got 45% of the vote, but only 3/13, or 23%, of the representation. Republicans got 55% of the vote, and 10/13, or 77%, of the representation.
So, my question. If districts were fair, how would you have to weight Democrats’ votes to achieve the same effect? Would you treat the vote of each Democrat as worth 1/2 the vote of a Republican? 68% of the vote of a Republican? What weighting would you do to achieve this result?
In a theoretical sense, in our first past the post system, 55% of the vote could yield 100% of the seats, even in completely fair districts. For example, if each district was comprised of a distribution of people where Republicans got 55% in every district, they would earn 100% of the seats. Pretty unlikely, but the vote% to seat% disparity is not sufficient to conclude gerrymandering. The quotes by the line drawers is pretty conclusive though.
If proportional representation were in effect, a Democrat vote would be worth only 36.7% of a Republican vote to achieve that.
Solve 10 / 3 = 55 / (x*45) to find x = .3666
However that’s not “fair” to the gerrymanderers. The majority is supposed to get disproportionate representation in America’s system, just not that disproportionate. Several months ago someone linked to a paper that IIRC developed a model from historical norms.