Dec 1, 2012
Now that legislatures have finished planting their brand-new redistricting maps into the ground, the people in battleground states like North Carolina are starting to yield an early crop of lawsuits.
Yesterday, the first judicial ruling came down in favor of the NC General Assembly (NCGA) over the rules they used in drawing the maps.
The key issue involves how much racial data was used in creating the new political boundaries. If race is used, then the NCGA is a pack of racists and if race is NOT used, then the NCGA is a pack of racists.
Somewhere between deliberately creating “minority-majority” districts and packing so many minorities into one district that the surrounding districts don’t have enough . . .
Let me back up. The presumption is based on the racist-nonracist view that all black and Hispanic people think alike and vote alike.
So, when you pack enough minority group members into one district, the odds are that you’ve just created another Democrat seat in the legislature. When you pack too many minorities into one district, then you just made it easier for Republicans to win.
Got it?
Me neither.
Let me throw ya an “expert” opinion on this confusing situation, Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky.
The Supreme Court’s own lack of precision has established what I call the Goldilocks Redistricting Rule – states are in trouble if they don’t consider race enough because they will face a Section 2 Voting Rights Act lawsuit, but they will also be in trouble if they consider race too much, because that will be deemed to violate the equal protection clause. The extent to which they rely on race has to be “just right.” And different judges looking at the very same evidence all seem to have different opinions about what is “just right.” (Hans von Spakvovsky)
Yesterday, the courts refused to pass judgement on North Carolina’s legislature decision to create maps while “ignoring race-based data.”
The suit, filed by the usual suspects (NAACP, Common Cause, and a few stand-in victims), was filed before the NCGA ratified the maps, in hopes of forcing a new set of rules that would favor the Left.
To see how futile the lawfare really is in these cases, one need only look at the maps drawn by Democrats in 2001, and the map drawn by Republicans in 2011.
In both cases, the people drawing the maps hoped to rig the elections in their favor for the the subsequent decade.
To see which party drew which map, please click on the above image.
Thanks to shifting demographic pattern and voter behavior, no voter maps in NC history have succeeded in creating a permanent one-party state, and that’s what’s really eating at the Democrats.
Their strategy of setting rules that favor their side has been thwarted, for now, but the courts have only begun to steal this Legislative prerogative for another ten years.
The bottom line is that we’ve gotten to the point where the Super Lawyers who rise to the level of judgeship have chipped away at this legislative constitutional power.
As a result, the informed public might easily conclude that Goldilocks will be deemed racist as long as she allows Republican legislatures to keep the redistricting maps they draw.
Stay tuned!
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Click the image below to see today’s video podcast.
Is it really “just right”? Or is this little blonde just another racist?
