Okay, here’s the official link.
Oh, by the way, one of the dissenting judges failed to disclose campaign contributions from a GOP defendant in the gerrymandering suit.
What’s to stop the courts from invalidating every plan submitted to them by the Legislature, just so the courts can draw their own?
I’m pretty sure the courts have to go by the law, in this case the PA state constitution. They need to have a legal reason to reject a districting plan. Maybe if the GOP state reps would just create districts that follow the law they wouldn’t have put themselves in this position.
Supreme Court has denied cert application by GOP legislators.
ETA: oops, I see that was mentioned earlier. Missed it by that much!
I don’t really see why it is thought that courts would not have this authority.
I see this as not any different from a court’s ability to re-write contracts. If you sign a contract that has provisions in it that are not legally enforceable, the court does not necessarily throw out the contract, but will often re-write the contract so as to be in line with enforceable law.
Same with this. If you draw up a redistricting plan that is not legal, then the court may rewrite it so tat it is.
I recognize the issue is moot at this point, and after June SCOTUS will rule on the WI case so there will be much more guidance, but the above isn’t a good response for a couple reasons:
[ul]
[li]Yes the courts have to go by the law, but as many have said in this thread, the PA supreme court is the final arbiter of what the law means in the state, so in theory they could construe the law to mean whatever they want.[/li][li]The court does need a legal reason to reject a districting plan, but since the court thus far has not released their opinion, it’s hard to determine if they actually employed a legal reason. One would think the opinion would be released before the deadline the court imposed, but that’s this Friday. It’s unrealistic to expect the legislature to draft new districts in such a short time without any rationale listed for why the previous boundaries were violative of the PA constitution. So what law are the GOP state reps supposed to follow? Is there one or many that describe how they are supposed to craft districts?[/li][/ul]
As a side note, I had read before, but didn’t internalize the idea that the PA supreme court judges are elected. I know it’s common throughout the country for judges at various levels to be elected, but man that seems like a bad practice.
Do you have an example of the court re-writing an unenforceable contract? I think the doctrine of reformation for contracts is quite different, but that’s more about mutual errors/mistakes. I think the standard that you are describing is actually quite different from reality.
I would say that a good rule of thumb would be if they are making a decision on a district boundary based just on what is good for the GOP and bad for the Democrats, then they should not draw the boundary there. Same would be the case if the Democrats controlled the boundaries. Just draw them to represent their constituents as accurately as possible without regard for maximizing any particular electoral result. That should not be hard. Complaining that they aren’t sure how much GOP advantage they are allowed to bake in is not a legitimate excuse to refuse to do the job at all in my mind.
And the Legislature will presumably do its duty and craft districts.
It always amazes me in these types of arguments for judicial supremacy that we must assume that the Legislature will act completely outside their authority, but the courts will act with a firm, yet wise and comforting hand.
What happens when it is the other way? There is really no check.
That is *not *a good presumption.
There are checks in every direction. The legislative check on the judiciary is in approving nominees, and impeaching when necessary.
I disagree. Political gerrymanders have been a part of legislative power since the founding and if courts are going to limit that power by finding a heretofore unknown constitutional right…err…coming to a new understanding of old concepts, they should at least write an opinion saying how much they are limiting it.
The Supreme Court Justices in PA are elected, the voters are a check on them, just as they are a check on the state legislators.
What you are arguing for is that the courts are not a check on the legislature and if they make a ruling that the legislature does not like then they can just ignore it forever. That is rendering the court moot. Why would they need to issue any rulings if they are able to be ignored without consequence?
Well, the US Supreme court disagrees with you. They will not be taking up this case, so it stops with the PA Supreme Court which has already ruled. I don’t know what recourse your side has now. I understand someone within the PA state legislature is trying to get the Democratic PA Supreme Court Justices impeached. Do you think that is a justified response to a ruling that you disagree with?
It’s not that the US Supreme Court “disagrees” so much as it is not a federal issue.
Impeachment is not a justified response and as such is not a meaningful check on the judiciary. Elected judges are even worse: We don’t want 5-4 (or 3-2 or whatever) opinions swinging back and forth each time new judges are elected. They have a principle of stare decisis which is why judges shouldn’t be acting like legislators.
Non-compete contracts are re-written by courts.
In looking for cites, I did find that this was more of a state by state thing, and that some states have forbidden or discouraged the practice, though some are still just fine with it.
Having different experiences is not the same as being separated from reality. The changes made are far more than correcting errors or mistakes.
Some excerpts from the cites:
Interestingly, this one (above) is still being appealed.
Ok then the PA Supreme Court disagrees with you, and since that is the highest court with jurisdiction here, that would seem to be that.
So what are the courts supposed to do when the legislators refuse to act like legislators? They are currently refusing to do their job and redraw the districts per court orders. If they refuse to comply what do you suggest the court do? Nothing? Then why even have the court if their rulings are completely without teeth and can be ignored without consequence? I still fail to see why they can’t just draw districts without trying to artificially inflate their advantage. “But I really want to cheat” doesn’t seem like a valid reason to ignore a court order. Nor does “But we really want those extra seats that we don’t deserve”.
Thanks for the cites, that’s good reading. I’m not sure how germane this is to the particulars of the topic due to the differences in underlying fact pattern, but it’s interesting none the less.
The PA court gave the legislature just over 2 weeks to redraft new districts, and have the governor sign off. Do you think that’s a reasonable amount of time to conclude that the legislature is refusing to comply? I don’t. The legislature made parallel moves - they contested the court order and they also started the process to pass legislation for new districts.
If the court gave the legislature a longer time period, and they still did not advance a new district plan, then I’d agree that they were refusing. This short a time window, I don’t agree.
It’s called SCOTUS. And they agreed with the PA Supreme Court.
As it is very important in my industry, with most of my competitors, including national chains, requiring people to sign non-compete, I’ve been very aware of how that plays out locally.
I did not realize that the scope of re-writing such contracts was as limited as it is, both in terms of types of contracts (I didn’t come across other types that were re-written regularly), and in geography, as all states seem to have their own rules.
So my example ends up being more of an exception than the rule. I did not realize that when I made my first post about it.
The deadlines are not arbitrary. Primaries are coming up relatively soon, and candidates need to know what the districts are in order to run for them.