Maryland redistricting lawsuit can go forward, federal judges rule

A lawsuit challenging Maryland’s contorted congressional district map on First Amendment grounds has merit and should go forward, a three-judge federal panel ruled Wednesday.

The map, drawn by Maryland’s Democratic lawmakers following the 2010 Census, essentially ensured that seven of the state’s eight congressional seats would be under their party’s control

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danarhea said:

This is absolutely huge, as it will impact districts across the country if the plaintiffs ultimately prevail. The really big irony here is that this suit was filed by Republicans, and Republicans stand to lose many more gerrymanders, and thus many more seats in the House, than Democrats if the suit is successful. It could actually lead to the loss of the House for Republicans. One possible outcome of this lawsuit could be the Supreme Court itself drawing district lines in a few states if they are not settled before then by lower courts.

This development will not impact this year's races, but 2020 will be extremely interesting if 2018 isn't. In fact, I will say that, if this suit is successful, we could see the House flip to the Democrats in 2018, while the Senate, which will become Democratic this year, flips back to the Republicans, keeping us with divided government, which IMHO is a good thing.

Finally, let's face it. Gerrymandering, in order to gain an advantage by skewing populations into unnatural patterns, is wrong. Kudos to the GOP for finally doing something about it, even if it ends up hurting them more than Democrats in the process.

Article is here.

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EMNofSeattle said:

Gerrymandering doesn't functionally exist. It's a myth perpetrated by losing parties, in this case the GOP can't win so they are claiming gerrymandering. The people who gripe the loudest about gerrymandering are the losers who never attending districting commission meetings, don't even know who their legislator is, and would rather badmouth the system then understand the tough work public officials have.

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danarhea said:

The Republican Party thanks you for that statement. LOL.

But, seriously, how can you believe that? Gerrymanders which dilute the black vote have been in courts for generations now. And gerrymandering is not new. The term actually came into being in 1812, when Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massechussets drew the first whacked out district lines in order to gain more representatives for his party than the opponents. thus the representation of his opponents was greatly diluted. A cartoon about it appeared in a Boston newspaper, showing the districts as salamanders, called Gerry Manders. The rest is history. And yea, Democrats are just as guilty as Republicans when it comes to gerrymandering. In fact, Republicans learned the worst of gerrymandering from the Southern Democrats of the early to mid 20th Century, who routinely used it to deny those blacks they couldn't intimidate into not showing up to vote representation in Congress.

Example: Suppose an area of a state is half black and half white, and suppose that area consists of 8 districts. What you do is create one district all black, and dilute the rest of the black areas equally among the white population. The result is 7 white districts and 1 black district versus 4 and 4. And gerrymandering like this definitely exists. The same can be applied to Democrats and Republicans instead of blacks and whites. For you to not know this blows my mind. This is taught in Middle School. I first learned about gerrymandering in my eighth grade civics class.

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