Supreme Court: A Little Bit Of Good— An Avalanche Of Bad

Lets get the bad part out of the way first. The Supreme Court— in a totally predictable partisan 5-4 decision— told the states to gerrymander all they like without worrying about the Supreme Court doing anything about it. That may be good news for corrupt Democratic legislatures in Maryland and Illinois but… Republicans fully control 23 states— legislatures and governors— and most of them have every intention off going all out to make sure Democrats win as few seats as possible. Democrats control 14 states and 13 states have split control. If the Republicans maintain their control in 2020, they are sure to redraw grotesque maps in 2021— especially in Florida (2 new seats) and Texas (3 new seats). Yesterday, the AP, reported that the Wisconsin case to get fair districts (scheduled to go to court for next month) is probably over.

Democratic voters filed a federal lawsuit in Madison in 2015 alleging boundaries Republicans drew in 2011 unfairly diluted Democrats' voting power. They argued Republicans spread Democrats across conservative districts and packed them into left-leaning districts.

…Democratic legislators introduced a bill last week that would create a commission within the Legislative Reference Bureau to draw the boundaries. Districts could not be drawn to favor a political party or incumbent and the commission couldn't use voters' political affiliations, previous election results or demographic information to make the maps.

"Because we can no longer trust either court to do what is best for the people with respect to ending political gerrymandering by either party, it is important now more than ever to continue the fight to pass non-partisan redistricting in Wisconsin," the bill's chief Senate sponsor, Dave Hansen, said in a statement Thursday.

The measure has almost no chance of passage since Republicans control both houses of the Legislature.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers included provisions in the state budget calling for creating a nonpartisan redistricting process but Republicans who control the Legislature's finance committee stripped the proposal out of the spending plan this spring.

Democrats could turn to state courts, but any challenges would almost certainly end up at the state Supreme Court, likely another dead end since conservatives control the court.

…Democrats' best option for changing the boundaries may be to somehow recapture the majority in both the Senate and Assembly in the 2020 elections, a herculean task given the GOP boundaries will still be in play then and Republicans will go into the elections with an overwhelming 27-member majority in the Assembly.

If Republicans maintain complete control of the Legislature Evers would be able to block any new boundaries the GOP draws in 2021. If the two sides don't agree on the new boundaries they could ask a judge to draw the maps for them. Republicans will try to get that fight before the state Supreme Court. Democrats will likely try to get the case heard in federal court.

Evers issued a statement Thursday calling the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling "devastating for our democracy" and promising to veto any gerrymandered maps that land on his desk.

"The people should get to choose their representatives, not the other way around," the governor said.

The minority dissent in the Supreme Court this week was powerful and convincing, but not powerful enough to convince John Roberts, who wrote the GOP opinion. Roberts seems to fancy himself the “swing vote” and he freaked out Trump and the conservative movement on the same day by siding with the 4 Democrats to create a 5-4 decision against the Republican census question shenanigans. “On two consecutive days this week,” wrote Josh Gerstein, “Roberts sided with the court’s liberal wing to deliver 5-4 rulings that deeply disappointed right-leaning lawyers and pundits who had been counting on near-certain victory from a court now stocked with a pair of Trump-appointed justices handpicked by conservative legal activists.”

On Thursday, Roberts stunned many court watchers by invalidating a Trump administration decision to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census.

Adding to the sting is the fact that the chief justice wasn’t just along for the ride on the closely watched ruling: He penned the majority opinion, which essentially accused Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross of lying about his reasons for seeking to add the question on citizenship.

“Altogether, the evidence tells a story that does not match the explanation the Secretary gave for his decision,” Roberts wrote, backed by the court’s four liberals. He goes on to rip the government’s claims in the case as apparently “contrived” and “a distraction.”

A day earlier, Roberts was the sole GOP appointee to side with the liberal wing in a case many legal conservatives were hoping would deal a major blow to the much-loathed administrative state by overturning decades of precedent allowing federal agencies wide leeway to interpret their own regulations.

Among some conservatives close to Trump, the sense of anger and betrayal was palpable, with some on the right suffering painful flashbacks to Roberts’ 2012 decision to join with the court’s Democratic appointees and uphold Obamacare’s individual mandate even as all of his Republican-appointed colleagues dissented. The anger seemed especially acute with possible abortion-related cases on the horizon for the next term.

“I’m for impeaching the Chief Justice for lying to all of us about his support of the Constitution. He is responsible for Robertscare and now he is angling for vast numbers of illegal residents to help Dems hold Congress. Enough Deception from GOP judges on the Constitution,” American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp tweeted shortly after the Thursday ruling.

“I want to Impeach Roberts and Trump would get another pick. Sounds good to me,”’ Schlapp added. “Chief Justice John Roberts ‘fixed’ Obamacare and now he found an I significant [sic] excuse to allow those here illegally to help Dems keep the house majority. He lied to all of us and under oath in the Senate. It’s perfectly legal to ask citizenship ? on census.”

Former White House aide Sebastian Gorka also weighed in to express his disgust. “Chief Justice Roberts of the #SCOTUS betrays the US Constitution again,” Gorka said on Twitter.

Conservative pundit and former GOP Senate candidate Dan Bongino echoed recurring conservative complaints that Roberts is looking to curry favor on the Washington dinner party circuit.

“John Roberts is terrified of the liberal op-ed columnists. They know they hold him captive. They can easily sway his opinions by issuing their ‘warnings’ to him through their columns,” Bongino wrote. “He’s not a judge anymore, he’s a politician.”

…“I still haven’t fully psychologically accepted the truth about Roberts,” said Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice in an interview.

“He may in his heart think he’s a conservative, but he’s not going to be what conservatives want and liberals fear... With each passing year— maybe this doesn’t happen every year, but we’ve seen enough of it, we kind of have to accept he’s roughly another Kennedy,” Levey said, referring to Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Reagan appointee who dismayed conservatives by upholding abortion rights and leading the court to declare a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

Levey said the political polarization in the country may be prodding Roberts to go further than he otherwise would in trying to ensure that the court is viewed as moderate and not being buffeted by the political winds. Last November, when President Donald Trump made derisive comments about “Obama judges,” Roberts shot back with a statement declaring “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges... What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

“At the end of the day, Roberts wants the court to be well-respected,” Levey said, calling the chief justice “a compromiser and people pleaser.”

“I think the hysteria on the left about an ‘arch conservative’ court is having an effect,” the legal activist said. “At the end of the day, [Roberts] wants the court to be well respected and a highly divided nation is a threat to the legitimacy of the court because with every decision the half the public is convinced the court is acting for political reasons.”

Let me close with a plea for support for Democratic efforts to win control of the state legislature in Virginia. They are very close and not is definitely in reach. The thermometer above, on the right, is the 2020 Blue America state legislative candidates. There aren't a lot of candidates, but the carefully-vetted right candidates. Please do what you can.