Realistically, geographical representation is important. The low population, rural areas of any state deserve to have a voice, too. Just, not an outsized, disproportionate one that a lot of these shitty maps give them.
It'll go down just like Ohio. They were told they needed to redistrict, they drew a map, they were told it was unconstitutional and to redraw it, they redrew it, it was deemed unconstitutional and they were told to redraw it, it was deemed unconstitutional and they were told to redraw it. They then were out of time and used the 1st unconstitutional map for the election.
The issue is that many states task the legislature with drawing the map. The legislature gets to pick who voted for them. If they make an unconstitutional one, they just have to draw more unconstitutional ones until there is no time left. If the Court tried to do it themselves because of the legislature's failure, they can sue because that responsibility was directly assigned to them. They need to take that responsibility away from the legislature in their Constitution. This should happen in every state.
Of course, which is why they (republicans) have been working so hard to dismantle free and fair elections. They know they can't win if things are fair.
If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.
That one pisses me off so much. Democrats were working with them on a legal one. Republicans hummed and hawed that doing the assessment of it would put them over the deadline so instead they should just go with the last unconstitutional one.
Ohio doesn't actually care if it's policy is constitutional or not. The way school districts are funded was found unconstitutional back in the 90s.nothing has changed.
What's cynical about thinking Republicans who drew unconstitutional maps in Florida will pull the same shit Republicans in other states have gotten away with?
What else has ever happened? There has never been any sort of penalty for doing this, they just get away with it. What else is there to do but be cynical.
Let me keep track of the most recent gerrymandering rulings: Republican maps violate constitution. Republican maps violate constitution. Republican maps violate constitution.
Outcome: Republicans re-submit maps that violate the constitution.
Judiciary: Well, it's close to an election, we can't make them change it now.
They have exactly one district, right? They simply don't have enough liberals there.
Wyoming is a shit state tho. Actually scratch that the nature part is great. Too bad we all can't move there and take over two senators. Only need a few thousand voting age non fascists to move in right?
Yeah, state GOPs are figuring out that if they just ignore their state supreme courts, the two outcomes are: the opposition appeals to the federal Supreme Court with the same, or worse, outcome, or... nothing.
The states that can are at least addressing gerrymandering through ballot initiatives and state constitutional amendments. Ohio is on track for this. Ohioans shot down the attempts at undermining their ballot initiative process, and are now attempting to get a citizen redistricting commission on the 2024 ballot. We'll see how it goes.
A big thanks to Marc Elias and his law firm for fighting for democracy. If you're on Mastodon his account is worth a follow to see all the fights they're taking for voting rights.
https://mas.to/@marcelias/110997370778062859
As always: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
So, they took a page out of Alabama's "Modern Jim Crow" map. Sigh. I'm afraid we (as I am an Alabamian) will use it to bring to SCOTUS to strike down whats left of the Voting Rights Act. If only the "email lady" had won in 2016, we would have a scotus that would actually DO something about this gerrymandering and VRA shenanigan nonsense.
The best quote for this situation comes from the video game character QBert: "$#@!".