SCOTUS' conservative majority makes a surprise decision

[Meowzltov]

But there is no systemic racism in America.

If by America you mean our government, I agree. The racist laws have been wiped off the books.

However, there are non-governmental institutions that are still systemically racist. There are still employers who will not hire minorities for senior positions. There are banks that continue to be sued due to their racially discriminatory lending practices. Hospitals still give substandard care to racial minorities (and women). Appraisal companies still routinely undervalue homes owned by minorities. Coverage of crimes continues to show racial bias.

And its well worth noting that DEI policies are inherently racist. The victims in these cases are white males, Asians, and Jews, so they have a different victim pool. But DEI is certainly a common form of systemic racism today.

 

[essentialsaltes]

If by America you mean our government, I agree. The racist laws have been wiped off the books.

Although they have been stopped by the courts, this thread is about the attempts of state governments to racially gerrymander their districts to reduce non-white political power. Other states have been able to enact their racist maps.

 

[Meowzltov]

Although they have been stopped by the courts, this thread is about the attempts of state governments to racially gerrymander their districts to reduce non-white political power. Other states have been able to enact their racist maps.

Yeah, I remember the rulings. The logic of the Supreme Court was that racial gerrymandering was unconstitutional, but partisan gerrymandering was okay. That set the stage for these states to say, "Oh we aren't trying to disenfranchise Blacks. We are trying to gerrymander Democrats" as if most blacks weren't Democrats.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Alabama ‘purposely’ diluted Black votes with congressional plan, court finds
The three-judge panel – made up of a former President Bill Clinton-appointee and two appointees of President Donald Trump – said that its conclusion that Alabama was acting with a discriminatory intent was “unusual” but not a “particularly close call.”

The legal war over Alabama’s congressional map has waged for nearly half a decade. The 2020 redistricting cycle was the first since the passage of the Voting Rights Act that Alabama and other states in the South were not required to get so-called “preclearance” for the maps.

Federal court says Alabama must use map that creates 2nd Black majority district​

Alabama must use independently drawn congressional maps that created a second Black-majority district more favorable to Democrats in the state for the rest of the decade, a federal court said Thursday.

In May, the same panel of judges ruled the state’s 2023 map violated the Voting Rights Act, and chastised Alabama’s legislature for deliberately ignoring court rulings to draw the maps with a second predominantly Black district.

Alabama Republicans have previously signaled they may appeal the rulingagain to the Supreme Court, potentially offering another opportunity to rule on the Voting Rights Act’s statutes on race-based redistricting. The court is already weighing a similar issue regarding Louisiana’s congressional maps.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

In theory, if the Black community of a particular state was more evenly spread out across the state (to a degree where there was no district that was majority-Black), what would the recourse be in that type of situation?


It seems like the concept of "districting" in the first place was a bit of a ill-thought out approach.

No matter how it's done (even if it's done by an "independent bipartisan redistricting committee"), you're still going to end up with a wacky looking map in most cases.



The more I've looked into it, the more I like what Germany has with their MMP system (Mixed Member Proportionality)

From my understanding (and any Germans on here, feel free to correct any misinterpretations I have)

German voters get two votes on their ballot. The first vote is for a local candidate in their district (like the US system), and the second vote is for a political party.

The final composition of their parliament must match the proportional party vote.

So half of legislature is populated by regional winners, and the other half is assigned by party leadership for the "filler seats" based on who needs to get what to make the numbers line up.


So, how that would work would be... (let's pretend the number is 700 just to keep the math easy)

350 of those seats would be populated by the regional winners, the other 350 would be assigned seats by party leadership.

Each "district" would be about 950,000 people (the states can divvy those up how they'd like, because gerrymandering would be a non-issue)


The results come in...
195 Republicans Won the local races, and 155 Democrats won local races
The party vote came in, and 53% of voters said "D", and 47% said "R"

How that would shake out for the "proportionally ensured seats"

• Democrats need: 371 total - 155 won = 216 proportional seats
• Republicans need: 329 total - 195 won = 134 proportional seats

That system not only makes gerrymandering "moot" in terms of unfair advantage, it actually make gerrymandering a liability if someone tried it.

If a party drew some wacky looking districts just to help a few specific guys get a victory, they'd actually be handing more proportional seats to the other party's leadership to assign (not elect), so there's almost an incentive to keep districts as proportional as possible, because you can strategize to beat someone in an election, there's no strategizing if the other party's leader can pick whoever they'd like to fill a seat.