Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on whether contorted voting maps drawn by both parties to

[riversedge]

Dems do come out to vote in WI--more than Repugs do, yet our state legislature is filled with Repugs due to gerrymandering. If The SC can not help us we are doomed.


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Gerrymandering, a Tradition as Old as the Republic, Faces a Reckoning

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gerrymandering-a-tradition-as-old-as-the-republic-faces-a-reckoning-1506698255?mod=e2tw


Supreme Court will hear arguments Tuesday on whether contorted voting maps drawn by both parties to cement power have finally gone too far


https://www.wsj.com/articles/gerrymandering-a-tradition-as-old-as-the-republic-faces-a-reckoning-1506698255?mod=e2tw
By Brent Kendall in Racine, Wis., and Jess Bravin in Wolfsville, Md.

Democrat Cory Mason won a seat in the Wisconsin Assembly by fewer than 1,000 votes in 2006. District 62 was sandwiched between one heavily Democratic district and another that strongly favored Republicans, like this:



................Republicans engineered similar moves across Wisconsin, erecting a firewall that helped protect the GOP’s majority of 60 seats in the 99-member Assembly. The new lines withstood a shift of more than 400,000 votes to Democrats in the 2012 state elections.





What happened to Mr. Mason is now part of a Supreme Court case that will decide the future of political gerrymandering, a phenomenon with a rich, bipartisan tradition. Since the founding of the republic, Democrats and Republicans have sought to redraw maps that increase their party’s electoral clout, largely by creating a greater number of winnable seats.

The Supreme Court is in a position, if it chooses, to create the first nationwide definition of how much partisanship in redistricting is too much. The high court has never found a partisan gerrymander unconstitutional, partly because the justices haven’t been able to agree on a method to determine what too much looks like.

Lately, most of the gains nationally from redistricting have gone to Republicans due to their election successes in 2010. The rise of computer-powered voter analysis, which allows electoral maps to be redrawn with more precision than ever, has supercharged both parties’ efforts.

In Wisconsin, nearly two-thirds of state assembly seats were won by Republicans last year when the party won 53% of votes statewide. There was almost no such gap in 2008, as these charts show:





Note: Percentages exclude third-party votes. Percentages don't add up to 100 due to rounding. 2008 Assembly seats include one Libertarian.

Source: Wisconsin Elections Commission

In November, federal judges in Madison, Wis., ruled the new maps unconstitutional and “intended to burden the representational rights of Democratic voters…by impeding their ability to translate their votes into legislative seats.”

Wisconsin appealed, and the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the case Tuesday.

A ruling against Wisconsin could lead to major changes in how political maps are drawn, forcing both parties to restrain their partisan motives. Much of the impact would be felt in the next round of redistricting after the 2020 census, a process that will shape the balance of power in federal, state and local districts across the country..................................................