What Would A World Without Partisan Gerrymandering Look Like? | Could Trump Steal The November Election?
March 30, 2020
BEHIND THE SCENES
|Nina Totenberg with NPR reports on a recent report compiled by Fix the Court that studied the appearances of Supreme Court justices at public universities and colleges. Totenberg writes, “Fix the Court found some slip-ups on disclosure of reimbursed travel expenses — none of them major — by JUSTICES SONIA SOTOMAYOR and CLARENCE THOMAS. When Fix the Court pointed out the omissions, both justices said, through the court press office, that they would amend their disclosure forms. For the most part, the travel and lodging expenses are routine. The justices travel commercial. Occasionally, a university owns a private plane that it sends to transport a justice to a place that is not easily accessible from Washington, D.C. But these flights are rare. Justice Alito even declined one such offer.”
ICYMI
|Last week, a lawyer for some of the Dreamers involved in the SCOTUS case regarding the Trump administration’s efforts to phase out DACA sent a letter to the Supreme Court highlighting how society has come to rely on Dreamers — particularly as America deals with the onslaught of the spreading coronavirus. The letter states that about 27,000 Dreamers are health care workers, and some are even on the front lines of the battle to contain COVID-19. The letter reads, “The public health care crisis throws into sharp relief DACA recipients’ important contributions to the country and the significant adverse consequences of eliminating their ability to live and work without fear of deportation.”
FWIW, HERE'S WHAT I THINK
|Robert Barnes with The Washington Post reports on former Supreme Court JUSTICE DAVID SOUTER joining a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit which ruled that “the Justice Department lacks the legal authority to withhold federal crime-fighting grants from local law enforcement agencies to compel such cooperation.” It’s possible the Supreme Court may weigh in on the case, and for now, one (former) justice has shared his opinion on the matter.
TOP-ED
|What would the world look like without partisan gerrymanders? Jesse Wegman with The New York Times explains how Virginia Democrats are starting to show us what that world would look like. They voted earlier this month in favor of an amendment to the State Constitution stripping themselves of the power to redraw legislative district maps, giving the power to a bipartisan commission made of up lawmakers and regular citizens. Wegman argues, “The Democrats’ vote was a display of integrity and selflessness by members of a party with unified control of government. It placed long-term interest in the health of representative democracy over the shorter-term partisan benefits that both parties have been happy to exploit when they control redistricting.”
ALL IN THE DETAILS
|Jeffrey Davis with The Atlantic suggests how PRESIDENT TRUMP could potentially use the COVID-19 pandemic to delay and even steal the election in November. He writes, “The Constitution and federal law require the election of a president this November and state that the president’s term ends the following January. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that once states grant their residents the right to vote, doing so becomes a fundamental right. Forty-nine states recognize the right to vote in their state constitutions and 26 guarantee that elections must be free and open. Any attempt by the president or state legislatures to deprive people of the right to vote, in order to ensure Trump’s reelection, would blatantly violate these rights. But a lot could still go wrong, especially at the state level. The danger begins with the fact that, regardless of what people believe, the Constitution does not give Americans the right to vote for their president. Rather, the Constitution says that a college of electors votes for the president, and Article II of the Constitution gives states nearly unlimited power to decide how these electors are chosen.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
Delaware’s Weird—And Constitutionally Suspect—Approach To Judicial Independence
The Atlantic“A judge, the old saying goes, is a lawyer who knew a politician. Whether judges are nominated by the executive or elected by voters or legislators, politics plays an overwhelming role in the process. But can a state’s constitution mandate ‘partisan balance’ on the bench—and exclude from judgeships anyone who isn’t either a Democrat or a Republican?”