Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
Senate isn't the House. Senate can be had for the Dems for sure, no gerrymandering there at all. The House though, I mean you have to see how they drew up some of these districts. Brilliant (if disgusting) political moves to pretty much screw the Dems out of many possible seats for years to come. Problem with the Senate is the GOP has rigged that one too with the filibuster, so now it takes 60 seats to have a majority and not 50. Maybe the real lesson out of all of this is the Dems need to stop being such pussies and just start acting like dicks.
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One interesting effect of Scalia's death and the resulting vacancy is it suddenly gives the Democrats some advantages in electoral cases. One of the cases currently on its way to the supreme court involves a heavily gerrymandered North Carolina district (from the 2010 redistricting cycle), which a federal court found unconstitutional, because it was drawn along race lines. Here's the district in question... good grief!
The death of Scalia means that this case is likely headed for at best a 4-4 split, which will uphold the lower court's decision. But if the Democrats win the election, regain control of the senate, and manage to secure a long-term advantage in the supreme court, it gives them an inside track on further electoral cases. There are certainly other heavily-gerrymandered districts that could be challenged, not to mention giving the Democrats a better chance at defeating election ID laws. It's possible that a pro-democrat supreme court could find gerrymandering along political - and not just racial - lines unconstitutional, effectively ending the gerrymandering advantage Republicans currently enjoy.