Democrats may finally get to use their superior numbers to win elections thanks to pending Supreme Court case

It’s the best news for Democrats in weeks: Partisan gerrymandering is on a collision course with the Supreme Court.

There’s a reason why Democrats routinely get more votes — whether at the state level or in six of the last seven presidential elections — but Republicans control all the power at the federal level, as well as 69 of 99 state legislative chambers. In the ruthless Republican redistricting that followed the 2010 census, GOP politicians drew themselves all but guaranteed majorities in state legislatures and Congress, insulating themselves from voters.

The plan was called the Redistricting Majority Project (or REDMAP for short) and that’s exactly what this devastating reinvention of the oldest political trick in the book — the gerrymander — produced.

But in a Monday ruling with far-reaching national implications, a panel of three U.S. district judges, in a 2-1 decision, had enough of this corrosively anti-democratic practice. He called Wisconsin’s state legislative maps an “unconstitutional political gerrymander” and systematically dismantled the zombie myth that even our elite media won’t let die. Extreme and highly targeted partisan gerrymandering — not geography — he ruled, explains why Republicans have “locked in” control even when they receive fewer votes.

“The evidence at trial establishes that” the goal of the GOP’s maps “was to secure the Republican Party’s control of the state legislature for the decennial period,” wrote Kenneth Ripple and Barbara Crabb, U.S. district judges.

This is not the first time that aggressive GOP maps drawn in 2011 have run afoul of the courts. Judges in Florida, Virginia and North Carolina cases have already found massive evidence of unlawful partisan intent and even conspiratorial shadow redistricting processes and have forced several districts to be redrawn.

Emails and draft maps revealed through the discovery process in all these cases have put the extreme GOP efforts to rig our democracy on full display. And yet, ever since the election, pundits and professors have repeatedly declared that the Republicans win legislative races because their votes are better distributed across states than Democrats, who tend to crowd and concentrate themselves in urban areas.

This analysis has dismissed reams of new political science studies that have explained how different and long-lasting the GOP gerrymander of 2010-11 will be. And it has ignored very public and honest explanations by Republicans of the electoral strategy that made this gerrymander possible – let alone the less public and much less honest private emails, algorithms and court transcripts that laid out the breathtaking depth and determination behind the GOP plans.

Lord Foul wrote:could tis affect the result of the last election??

if so how...could it be "re run" or are you "stuck with it" for the next 4 years?

Bae the Cray wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:could tis affect the result of the last election??

if so how...could it be "re run" or are you "stuck with it" for the next 4 years?

No take-backs -- unless the recount unexpectedly uncovers something pretty massive, we're stuck with Trump. Of course, not necessarily for four years -- Trump may be in violation of the constitution as soon as he's inaugurated: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/23/13715150/donald-trump-emoluments-clause-constitution

Bae the Cray wrote:And if not, a good portion of his properties become prime targets for ISIS, seeing as many of them are in the Middle East.

I'm hoping though that the Supreme Court justices can set partisanship aside for one case. They have done that before, and it's hard to imagine a more crucial time than now.