Category Archives: law

Gerrymandering

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The subheadline laid it out.

Rep. Steve Cohen’s long career is evidence that the motive is partisan.

Which is a big so what. Partisan gerrymandering perhaps ought to be as illegal as racial gerrymandering, but it isn’t.

The editors partially addressed the so what at the end of their piece:

The Tennessee gerrymander is simply a GOP effort to divide a compact, populated area into multiple stringy districts for partisan gain, which is precisely what Democrats did in Virginia. It’s bad for competitive elections, but it isn’t racist.

The rest of this story is that there’s no “ought to be” IMNSHO regarding the legality of partisan gerrymandering. It’s a violation of the 14th Amendment’s requirement of equal protection of the laws. Competitive elections can occur only when that gerrymandering loophole is closed also.

Another Progressive-Democratic Party Disregard for Law

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The Virginia Progressive-Democratic Party-dominated State legislature tried to amend the State’s constitution to redistrict itself from a 6-5 majority in its Representative delegation to the Federal House of Representatives to a 9-1 majority. The proposed amendment was originally passed four days prior to its State-wide elections for its State government, and the new legislature, on taking office the next January, repassed the proposed amendment, supposedly as constitutionally required. The referendum then passed, narrowly, in the State’s voter referendum on the amendment.

Virginia’s Supreme Court, though, struck the amendment as unconstitutionally enacted, violating as it did the State constitution’s Article XII, Section 1; ruled the subsequent referendum irreparably tainted by that violation; and invalidated that referendum. The outcome is that the State’s prior districting, with its 6-5 Progressive-Democrat-majority of districts, remains in effect for the coming 2026 elections and the primaries beforehand.

The Court’s ruling gave a detailed, multi-page explanation of the constitutional failure, but their explanation boils down to this bit from the ruling:

In this case, voting in the general election for the House of Delegates began on September 19, 2025, and ended on Election Day, November 4, 2025. The General Assembly voted for the first time to propose the constitutional amendment to the electorate on October 31, 2025. By that date, over 1.3 million votes had been cast in the general election, which was approximately 40% of the total vote for that election cycle.

The Court also took note of the State’s argument regarding those 1.3 million voters which was centered on the premise that it was too bad to be them, so sad. The Court waved the BS flag at that argument, and it did so in gruesome (for the State’s arguers) detail.

The Progressive-Democrats making that tough luck argument while overtly disregarding the plain text of their own State’s constitution is a clear and present demonstration of Party’s utter disregard for any law or constitutional requirement that is inconvenient to their push for power.

The Virginia State Supreme Court ruling can be read here.

An Additional Reason

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The Wall Street Journal‘s editors took notice of President Donald Trump’s (R) waiver of the Jones Act, which mandates sea shipments of goods between American ports be done by American-built, -owned, and -crewed ships. The waiver has been a resounding success during the disruptions of the Iran war and Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. From this, the editors suggested that

if the Trump Administration thinks its waiver is helping oil supply during the Hormuz crisis, why not make that success permanent by repealing the Jones Act?

That’s an excellent suggestion, and it’s bolstered by a much more cogent rationale, as well, peripherally touched on by the editors. The purpose of the Jones Act when it was enacted was to stimulate American shipbuilding. It’s only necessary to observe Trump’s lately effort to push a hard acceleration in building dual use cargo ships to both expand our commercial shipping fleet in competition with the People’s Republic of China’s burgeoning commercial fleets and to facilitate the Navy’s ability to move supplies, equipment, and reinforcements around the world into combat areas. In all those years since this law was passed, there has been zero growth in our shipbuilding capability.

It’s past time to rescind the Jones Act.

Primary Elections and Redistricting

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With the Supreme Court’s ruling on Louisiana v Callais et al. many more States are looking hard at redoing their district maps, ostensibly to eliminate Voting Rights Act-centered racial gerrymandering, and to enhance (Republican) partisan gerrymandering.

For good or ill (ill, I say), the current potential move very strongly emphasizes partisan gerrymandering. In the way, though, is the fact that many of the States looking here have already begun mail-in balloting for their primaries, or have completed their primary elections.

That’s an impediment, but I don’t see it as an impassable barrier. Primary elections are not final elections; those don’t occur until well after the political parties have made their nominations. Following those party decisions, the nominees will have months during which to campaign before the actual elections occur.

The dispositive factor, it seems to me, is that primary elections are strictly party-run elections; they are not bound by the laws for district/State/nation-wide elections. These party-run elections are conducted under party rules, albeit within overarching, generalized State criteria. Indeed, most jurisdictions limit primary election voting to members of the particular party fielding its own prospective candidate list. The general voting public isn’t involved in most of these jurisdictions.

That suggests to me that it’s a straightforward matter to cancel primaries in progress (as Louisiana is doing with its upcoming primary season), declare null completed primaries, and (re)hold them after a State’s redistricting effort is complete or has legislatively failed.

The Only Even Remotely Legitimate Move Re TPS

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The Supreme Court heard last Wednesday in an expedited manner (“certiorari before judgment” for the judicial nerds among us) oral argument in a case centered on whether a President’s Executive Branch agency can withdraw, on its own recognizance, Temporary Protected Status from immigration populations who remain here under that status. Several District and Appellate courts have said no, not without (judge-determined) sufficient interagency review of the matter.

The governing statute is quite clear: granting, withdrawing, extending, or not extending temporary protected status for folks from particular nations is not a justiciable matter; courts have no standing to adjudicate these decisions.

The only legitimate recourse those demanding TPS be extended/maintained for Haitians (for instance) is to argue that that governing statute limit is unconstitutional and should be struck. Even this, though, is itself doomed to failure. Here’s Art III, Sect 2, Clause 1 on judicial jurisdictions:

The [Supreme Court] judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity…to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party….

DHS, which is the agency with TPS responsibility within the United States, most assuredly is “the United States” in this context.

Here’s Art III, Sect 2, Clause 2 on judicial jurisdictions:

…the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

Under the Immigration Act of 1990 as amended, which created the Temporary Protected Status facility, there “is no judicial review of any determination” of the DHS secretary “with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state.”  That’s a pretty clear act of setting such Regulations—limiting the courts’ jurisdiction—here withdrawing TPS actions from judicial scrutiny.

And Art III, Sect 1:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

Federal District and Appellate courts, being inferior to the Supreme Court are bound by those same jurisdictional limits.

For good or ill, US courts have nothing to say regarding any aspect of Temporary Protected Status settings.

The Act, as amended, can be read here. The Act withdrew references to court jurisdiction and placed that jurisdiction within the State or INS district, or in the main, within the DHS.