Gerrymander red herring

There is a gerrymandering case before the Supreme Court. I believe the case covers two states, one gerrymandered by the GOP, the other by Dems. Justice Neil Gorsuch has talked about the case. Mark Joseph Stern of Slate explains what’s wrong with those words.

Gorsuch said he’s heard the Court must act because nobody else can. But states have already provided remedies (such as what Michigan did last fall). So why should the Court act?

Stern builds on comments by Tierney Sneed of Talking Points Memo. First problem: in at least 24 states citizens cannot circumvent the legislature and get proposals on the ballot. That’s the method we used in Michigan. No remedy is coming. Second, the Court may strike down citizen redistricting commissions.

When Arizona voted on citizen redistricting, the Supremes upheld it 5-4. Kennedy, that fifth vote, is now gone. If the new commissions in Michigan and Colorado are challenged the Supremes might overturn them. Thankfully, the GOP in Michigan has made no move in that direction.

Gorsuch might also refer to the requirement in HR 1 (the Democrat’s election reform bill) that mandates citizen commissions. See! The Court doesn’t have to handle it! But HR 1 is going nowhere in the Senate. And even if it passed, there is a precedent that says Congress can’t force states to adopt federal law. I don’t know the details of this precedent, but it could be enough of an excuse to invalidate all or part of HR 1.

It is plausible Gorsuch and the Supremes could refuse to police gerrymandering and then refuse to halt it through the democratic process. So Gorsuch’s words are a red herring.



There are 83 ethics complaints filed against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh from his time before he got to the Supremes. The 10th Circuit Court ruled we can’t deal with that. The conduct rules for federal trial and appeals judges don’t apply to the Supreme Court, even if the complaints were filed for incidents while the rules did apply to Kavanaugh.

Elie Mystal of Above the Law says that leaves one thing: impeachment. These ethics complaints are serious. Future nominees need to be told that such ethical breaches will not be tolerated. So it is the job – a Constitutional requirement – of Congress to impeach. If you don’t want to impeach, why did you run for office?

As with impeaching the nasty guy, Mystal says don’t worry about whether the GOP controlled Senate will convict. Impeachment is how the House investigates wrongdoing. Enforcement of laws shouldn’t be based on whether the GOP will agree. Besides, lay out all the ethics violations and a few GOP might flip votes.