'The Battle Continues': Gerrymandering Wars Go To States After SCOTUS Ruling

[DonViejo]

By Allegra Kirkland

June 27, 2019 2:35 pm

The Supreme Court may have decided that federal courts have no say in policing extreme partisan gerrymanders, but the fight for fair maps is far from over.

In a Thursday afternoon press call after the 5-4 ruling from Chief Justice John Roberts came down, the lawyers and voting rights groups that brought the cases before the court acknowledged that they’d been dealt a serious blow. Upholding a GOP-gerrymandered map in North Carolina and a Democrat-gerrymandered one in Maryland was a “green light” and “rubber stamp” for partisan operatives to draw congressional and state legislative maps that benefit their party, they said.

Still, a menu of options remains available to address the wrongs caused by extreme partisan gerrymandering.

Michael Kimberly, the attorney who has spent the past five years fighting to overturn the Maryland map, called the states “the new front moving forward.”

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gerrymandering-supreme-court-states

[Takket]

1. What needs to happen is...

States need ballot initiatives to have independent commissions draw the maps.

[ProudLib72]

5. Wow! You would think that was obvious, right?

Seems like the way we have it now was intentionally set up to create gerrymandering. So democratic!

[AJT]

2. The state supreme court here in WI is extremely rightwing.

So we are screwed. We have one of the most gerrymandered maps in the country.

[NewJeffCT]

3. didn't the Wisconsin voters

pass a law to make sure that it's done more fairly? Or was that Michigan? Or both?

[Buckeyeblue]

4. Michigan did