The Supreme Court may change ‘one person, one vote.’ This would hurt Latinos and Democrats. (Karen Bleier, AFP/Getty Images) On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Evenwel v. Abbott. The main issue in the case is who must be counted when district lines are drawn. The “one person, one vote” principle in operation since the 1960s has typically been interpreted to mean all persons — including people who cannot vote, such as children and non-citizens. The consequences of such a move are already being debated. Klarner uses new data from the American Community Survey to estimate the hypothetical consequences of equalizing the number of eligible voters in each congressional and state legislative district. …drawing districts on the basis of citizens of voting age would reduce the power of Democratic state legislators by 1.4% in state houses, 1.2% in state senates, and 1.1% in the U.S. The representation of African-American legislators would also decline, but by less than that of Latino legislators. Who would benefit from a shift to eligible voters?
Bernie Sanders lawsuit: Ohio official changed law to block 17-year-olds from voting Husted, however, insisted that there had been no change in the law. "The secretary of state has decided to disenfranchise people who are 17 but will be 18 by the day of the general election," Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told reporters in Detroit Tuesday afternoon. "Those people have been allowed to vote under the law of Ohio, but the secretary of state of the state of Ohio has decided to disenfranchise those people to forbid them from voting in the primary that is coming up on March 15." In a statement, Sanders said minorities would be most affected by what he said was Husted's "unconstitutional attempt to block young voters from casting ballots." "It is an outrage that the secretary of state in Ohio is going out of his way to keep young people -- significantly African-American young people, Latino young people -- from participating," Sanders said. Weaver told reporters that the campaign expects the matter to be resolved before Ohio holds its primary next Tuesday.
Courts Are Shaking Up House Elections in 2016 Courts Are Shaking Up House Elections in 2016 After every U.S. census, states redraw the boundaries of their congressional districts to account for changes in population. This sets off a decennial exercise in partisan gamesmanship, with Democrats and Republicans seeking to alter the lines to their advantage. Lawsuits inevitably follow. One of the most acrimonious redistricting fights in the nation came to an end on Wednesday, when Florida's Supreme Court replaced the Republican-drawn congressional map with one that shakes up all but three districts in the state. In 2012, the League of Women Voters of Florida and other groups challenged the redrawn lines in court. Nonwhite voters accounted for 63.8 percent of the 5th District’s voting-age population. The 5th district’s wandering path is especially stark when you zoom out to see the whole state. The Supreme Court mandated that the new map redraw the 5th District to run west along the Georgia border to Tallahassee.
To Build a Better Ballot No, this is not about the 2016 U.S. election. Not just that, anyway. First, I need to explain a weird glitch in our voting system. and Tracy Triangle , on a couple political axes. who simply votes for whoever's political position is closest. click & dragthe candidates and the voter: It's a tough choice. Of course, there's more than just one voter in an election. drag the candidates & voters around. Now let's consider a different election. , sees this. Now, you'd think giving the voters more of what they want should result in a better choice, or at least, not result in a worse choice, right? at first, beats . drag to just under , and see what happens: That's right. This is called the spoiler effect. In the Republican primary, one anti-establishment nominee, Trump, ran against sixteen GOP establishment nominees, who all "stole" votes from each other, letting Trump grab the nomination, easily. But again, this is not about the 2016 U.S. election. ...so yeah, no pressure. First objection. drag Yup.
Supreme Court takes case claiming racial gerrymandering in Virginia The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Virginia case that could clarify how much consideration of race is permissible when legislatures or other bodies redraw district lines. The justices announced Monday that they will wade into a legal challenge to Virginia's 2011 redistricting for the state House of Delegates. Civil rights groups and Democrats criticized the GOP-led process for packing too many African-American voters into so-called majority-minority districts. "This case gives the Supreme Court the opportunity to further clarify how exactly to determine whether race has been taken into account too much in the drawing of district lines," said Rick Hasen, a professor of election law at University of California at Irvine. The case accepted Monday, Bethune-Hill v. The two judges who rejected the Virginia challenge last year were 4th Circuit Judge Robert Payne, a George H.W.
Remembering Dale Bumpers If you’re a Democrat dreaming about your perfect presidential candidate, here’s where your fantasies might take you: Start with a child from a small town deep in the heart of a red state. Endow him or her with unusual intelligence and a strong set of values—honesty, compassion, civic engagement—passed down from a father who was a community pillar. Story Continued Below Give him a good education, a stint in the military and a gift of the gab that fuses eloquence with an inexhaustible supply of down-home humor. Put him through a crushing burden—the death of his parents in a car crash—that brings him back to the small town of his birth to manage his family’s store. Then, well into middle age, watch him mount a campaign for governor, with no money and 1 percent name recognition, against some of the most formidable politicians of his time—and watch as he vanquishes them one by one. Happily, this is no fantasy, but biography.
Why ending gerrymandering won’t solve Congress’s problems Arizona's congressional district boundaries for the 113th Congress. On its face, Monday's Supreme Court ruling that independent redistricting commissions can draw congressional districts might sound like a big win for democracy. Rather than politicians picking their own voters and districts, independent groups in certain states can create more competitive, less-gerrymandered districts. And in theory, Congress will work better. Except maybe not. [Justices rule 5-4 that independent panels can draw election district lines] There's a school of belief that says gerrymandering doesn't actually have much impact on how members of the House vote. As proof, he pointed to research showing a lack of correlation between what percentage of a congressman's district voted for a presidential candidate and how its member of Congress voted. Our partisan Congress is a relatively new thing. (via Pew) The reason for the change, Pew said, was geography.
Log In Perhaps most arresting is the assessment that , the Russian president, sees the election attack as payback — not offense, but defense. He has borne a serious grudge against Mrs. Clinton, who he believes denigrated him when she was secretary of state and encouraged the pro-democracy protests in Moscow that erupted against him in 2011. Mr. Putin, the report says, sees the hidden hand of the United States in the leaking of the Panama Papers, files stolen from a law firm that exposed the wealth of his closest associates, secreted in offshore accounts. He even blames the United States for the exposure — carried out mainly by international sports authorities — of Russian athletes for their widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs. “From the Russian perspective, this is punching back,” said Christopher Porter, a former C.I.A. officer who now studies cyberattacks at the firm FireEye. Mr. While most of Congress and much of the public appears to accept the agencies’ findings, Mr. Mr.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of redistricting commissions, explained The Supreme Court has yet to rule on partisan gerrymandering. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) The Supreme Court decided Monday it's OK for states to create independent redistricting commissions to draw electoral boundaries, possibly paving the way for more state legislatures to get out of the business of drawing lines. Monday's 5-4 decision ruled against the Republican-controlled Arizona state legislature, which sued to get its line-drawing power back from an independent commission that voters set up in 2000. In setting up the independent commission, Arizona voters were trying to get away from partisan gerrymandering -- or the process of lawmakers carving out often-oddly shaped district boundaries to rig elections for a given politician or party. [The increasingly ugly gerrymandering of America -- in 7 maps] Six states have some kind of redistricting commission, with another in Iowa that has considerable control over the map. Courtesy: Loyola Law School The crux of the case Republicans are not happy