Captain Houseboat does not need encouragement from you or anyone else with respect to sucking it. That comes naturally to him.
Virginia Redistricting PASSED!!
- Thread starter Chumpsky
- Start date
There are many millions of immigrants who have been living here, working here, paying taxes here, and raising kids here, for decades. The Republicans not only don't want to give them a path to citizenship, they want to deport them. The more forcefully, the better.
Ridiculous, but will probably be approved by the Democratic justices of the Virginia supreme court. All undoubtedly came up through Democratic connections and they know that all those connections will be lost if they invalidate the referendum.
I suspect that your claim that the Democrats are on the side of good government is not true but I will look into it. I would bet that all of the democratic proposals restrict mid-census redistricting which is to the partisan advantage of the Democrats because people are leaving blue States and moving to red states. I will say that although the Virginia redistricting is horrendous when you look at the map, it is not as bad as I thought because the Republicans had a big advantage in Texas before they redistricted and thought and even bigger advantage which I wouldn't support unless the population changes were very large.
This guy doesn't understand that a district that's 90% Democrat is actually bad for Democrats. That'd require you to keep two things in your head at once.
Off topic but va related. Today took a gravel bike ride on the Jackson river trail, which is truly beautiful and i understand that the river is one of the best trout streams in the state.
along the ride there were all these no trespassing signs that also had the words “crown grant” on them. Wondered what that was. So apparently while the river has been deemed navigable, some old state court litigation holds that the rights to the riverbed (and, some argue, the fishing rights) are held by adjacent property owners under land grants predating the American revolution. So you can transit past their places but cannot fish or drop anchor. And people fight about it in state court. A lot.
kinda cool. And weird. In a Virginia kind of way. And probably enforced other than just by trespass action in Allegheny county
along the ride there were all these no trespassing signs that also had the words “crown grant” on them. Wondered what that was. So apparently while the river has been deemed navigable, some old state court litigation holds that the rights to the riverbed (and, some argue, the fishing rights) are held by adjacent property owners under land grants predating the American revolution. So you can transit past their places but cannot fish or drop anchor. And people fight about it in state court. A lot.
kinda cool. And weird. In a Virginia kind of way. And probably enforced other than just by trespass action in Allegheny county
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So, I streamed the SCOVA argument audio this morning.
First, I've been impressed with the professionalism of the justices. Don't know anything about any of them, and don't know their voices so I don't have a feel for who or how many questions were individually asking, but most of the questions seemed to come from a relatively few justices (and none from any of the chicks). I'm going to speculate that favors the commonwealth. Fairly active bench, but one that allowed the advocates to answer their very focused questions.
Second, it was sort of interesting that the AG started by emphasizing the ratification vote, and the court was pretty much having none of that, even getting the AG to concede that it is not a legal argument and thus irrelevant.
Third, as to the substantive arguments around failure to follow process, some pressure around the special legislative session issue and intervening election requirement. No reference to the argument pending at scotus around federal meaning of 'election day' (until the very end in rebuttal, and then, a bit of a questionable take), though interestingly it might well have folded into the arguments well.
Apparently there are two other cases floating around aside from this one - one of which I'd not heard about relating to requirements around "compactness" of districts (of the districts here looks like a lobster).
First, I've been impressed with the professionalism of the justices. Don't know anything about any of them, and don't know their voices so I don't have a feel for who or how many questions were individually asking, but most of the questions seemed to come from a relatively few justices (and none from any of the chicks). I'm going to speculate that favors the commonwealth. Fairly active bench, but one that allowed the advocates to answer their very focused questions.
Second, it was sort of interesting that the AG started by emphasizing the ratification vote, and the court was pretty much having none of that, even getting the AG to concede that it is not a legal argument and thus irrelevant.
Third, as to the substantive arguments around failure to follow process, some pressure around the special legislative session issue and intervening election requirement. No reference to the argument pending at scotus around federal meaning of 'election day' (until the very end in rebuttal, and then, a bit of a questionable take), though interestingly it might well have folded into the arguments well.
Apparently there are two other cases floating around aside from this one - one of which I'd not heard about relating to requirements around "compactness" of districts (of the districts here looks like a lobster).
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to be clear, this is the suit referenced at the end of my post, at a trial court level. From what I understand, this one included claims around compactness (the lobster issue) and whether the legislature, once called into special session for a specific purpose, has plenary authority to undertake business unrelated to that specific purpose.
Edit: As I think about this, it may be that the reason for this separate case is the presentation of the lobster issue. IIRC, compactness may be a federal consideration in district drawing, even after the political gerrymandering case. So, this case may be designed to try to create a pathway to scotus review in contrast to the other cases which I believe may only raise state law issues. FWIW, I'm pretty sure compactness cases are extremely difficult to win -- may even be the case it's only relevant in the context of racial gerrymandering.
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nice pull, huck.
BTW, i made a fresh batch of huck syrup to celebrate the warmer weather, and have been enjoying huck manhattans for the last week or so.
that's awesome. I recently ordered some THC gummies (the farm bill legal kind) that are Huckleberry flavored lol
I tend to prefer old fashioneds to manhattan's, though I do enjoy both. Do you just cook it down into a syrup yourself?
Pretty much. A couple of cups of frozen hucks and about a third cup of sugar, a tiny bit of water. Mash and strain.
also makes a pretty good plating sauce with grilled salmon. Especially if mixed with a couple of whole hucks and rosemary
Buy from northwest wild foods. (Hucks cannot be cultivated).
Double A: Given the name that you (and others?) have assigned to that "compactness" case, and due to the additional fact that today is Kate Pierson's 78th birthday, I had to post this:
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ss...ate=ive&vld=cid:eaf65cff,vid:n4QSYx4wVQg,st:0
I saw them perform at the 40Watt club in Athens years ago - their hometown. It was awesome!
Sad, and wrong. Just as in va.
as to the race issue, I suspect that desantis waited as long as he could for the Louisiana case
What sucks is the race to the bottom right now sort of puts us in a sucky position. I support a nonpartisan gerrymandering law. Could give states X number of years to institute or whatever is necessary. But until we have that law, you either fight fire with fire nationally or get gerrymandered out of existence. And sure both sides think this and so it becomes an arms race.
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This morning’s oral arguments in the Virginia Supreme Court over the redistricting referendum have revolved around the question of where power lies. It is the most fundamental American question. All agree that the Virginia Constitution was violated with this referendum, that the established rules and procedures were abrogated. The Republican side has argued that power ultimately lies with the people. They are entitled to be fully informed about what they are voting on. Therefore this referendum was not legal. The Democrat side argues that power
lies with the government. Legislators should be allowed to “interpret” or even ignore the Constitution because circumstances (e.g. early voting and the way information is shared) have changed. This underscores for me in a powerful way why I vote Republican.
@FairfaxGOP
Let’s be honest here. The only reason voters had any say in those states was because legally, they had to.
It's an interestingly perspective because in Florida, partisan gerrymandering is illegal.
Former AG, Cucinelli, is saying that he thinks the referendum will be invalidated. Personally, I am skeptical of his analysis because he is a Republican and I remember him losing the Michael Mann emails case involving the Univ of Va. https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/...s-case-proceeds/ar-AA21WRrv?ocid=BingNewsSerp
It does seem that there is an extremely strong argument on the compactness issue because the Constitution states: "The Constitution states districts "shall be composed of contiguous and compact territory and shall be so constituted as to give, as nearly as is practicable, representation in proportion to the population of the district." https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-virginias-lobster-district-gerrymandered-godzilla If this redistricting is approved, which unfortunately, I expect it to be, any decision so holding is essentially writing the word "compact" out of the English language in Virginia.
I don't agree with what Desantis is doing although it is a reasonable response to Virginia. However, he ate Disney for lunch and will do the same to Jeffries--DeSantis is very slick and effective.
It is, under the state law. It’ll be interesting to see how they deal with that
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Yeah, I’ve stopped underestimating him when it comes to things Florida
Just like I caution those on the left not to overread scotus stay decisions, don’t over read this. It’s just the appeal of the certification stay. Not the merits decision.
Yeah, cucinelli is an intensely political beast so I wouldn’t put much stock in things he says.
my sense is that compactness issues are pretty tough to win, but as noted, I expect this is their attempt to find a federal issue to take up
I can't fathom SCOTUS cares about compactness at this point.
@DailyBuck7 et al, Republicans have (generously) 0 credibility on the topic of gerrymandering.
- Democrats have repeatedly backed federal anti-gerrymandering legislation like H.R. 1 / the For the People Act, which included redistricting reforms.
- In Rucho v. Common Cause, the conservative majority of SCOTUS said federal courts could not police partisan gerrymandering, while the liberal justices dissented.
- The states that have actually moved against partisan gerrymandering are overwhelmingly blue or purple, including California, Arizona, and Colorado, all of which use independent redistricting commissions.
- Red states that passed anti-gerrymandering rules have often tried to gut or ignore them anyway, with Ohio and Florida being the obvious examples.
- The latest escalation in partisan map-drawing has been tied to Trump pushing Texas to produce more GOP-friendly districts.
- Banning gerrymandering only for one party is like banning hard fouls for one team while letting the other team play without rules (which is what had been happening at the state level)
- If the GOP wants to complain, it should first support the same rules Democrats already keep trying to put in place nationally.