You may have thought the Supreme Court did some big stuff last week.
Pshaw.
The ACA ruling? It maintained the status quo. Nothing changed, nothing to see. Move along.
The same-sex marriage ruling? Aw, who was really surprised by that?
Today, in the midst of several other rulings — the Court seemed to be tossing them out like Mardi Gras revelers throwing beads to the kids — the justices did something significant, something that could potentially solve most of the things that are wrong with politics in America:
A divided Supreme Court on Monday said voters concerned that partisan gerrymandering is creating unfair elections are entitled to take reapportionment away from state legislatures.
The court ruled 5 to 4 that the Constitution does not give legislatures exclusive control over congressional redistricting and said voters may vest the power in independent commissions by ballot initiative, where this option exists.
“The animating principle of our Constitution [is] that the people themselves are the originating source of all the powers of government,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority….
If you don’t know what this means, I’ll tell you: No more districts drawn to serve political parties rather than the nation. No more parties getting more and more extreme because all incumbents have to fear is a primary opponent who is more extreme than they are, since general elections don’t matter. Maybe, maybe even no more creating one majority-minority district by drawing all the ones around it super-white (there are other barriers to changing that, though — I think).
Competitive elections between sensible centrists! How wonderful!
But wait! How does one take this power away from partisan legislatures? Oh… with a ballot initiative.
Dang.
So… you’re saying we have to kill representative democracy to improve it? Because that’s what government by ballot initiative amounts to. No, thanks. Dang.
Hey! Maybe, with enough pressure, lawmakers could be persuaded to give up the power themselves. Impossible, you say? Yes, well, I would normally say the same. But I just saw the political leadership of South Carolina decide to take down the Confederate flag, so pretty much anything is looking possible to me right now.
At least let me dream…
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And maybe, maybe, maybe, I could be talked into the initiative route, with such a goal in mind.
But gimme time to ponder on it some more. It still seems to me too much like what test pilot Scott Crossfield called ejecting from a rocket plane — “Committing suicide to keep from getting killed.”
You’re right that this is incredibly important, but getting there is very hard. Most members of the General Assembly have reason to be very happy with their non-competitive districts. They have fabulous job security. Without an initiative, the odds against an independent redistricting commission are overwhelming.
Start the embarrassing early and keep it coming.
Ok, Don Quixote, watch out for that windmill. A goodly number of people in this state would go to a stream if they were looking for a gerrymander. As a matter of fact, if you try to change that practice our legislature is likely to put it on an endangered species list and launch a campaign to save it.
Brad – why can’t you accept that there are occasions when a ballot initiative is the best option – especially when it is in the interests of the legislators to maintain the status quo? We won’t get term limits because few, if any, legislators want to kill the golden goose. But it’s an issue that I think most voters would support if given the opportunity. Same goes for fixing the gerrymandering. We don’t need ballot initiatives for everything, just those that relate to the way we are governed and high level taxation issues.
Exactly!
Without question S.C.’s constitution has remained an antiquated relic that empowers a legislature and its enabling loobyists above the voting public. Recorded legislative voting transparency (thank you for your initiative, Gov. Haley) was only a limited 21st century improvement:
“South Carolina’s 2014 legislative session began on January 14 and ended on June 17, 2014. Proposed amendments required a two-thirds vote approval in both chambers of the South Carolina Legislature to be placed on the ballot.
As of 2014, South Carolina did not have an initiative and referendum process.” – http://ballotpedia.org/South_Carolina_2014_ballot_measures
The sad thing is that the SC Constitution isn’t even a relic–lots of fairly recent junky stuff has been added that belonged in a statute, if at all, but got enshrined in the Constitution!
“So… you’re saying we have to kill representative democracy to improve it? Because that’s what government by ballot initiative amounts to. No, thanks. Dang.”
I’m not sure that doing a single ballot initiative “kills” representative democracy. I guess if we abolished the legislature and did everything by ballot initiative, then that would kill representative democracy. But we’re just talking about doing this one thing. Think of it like this:
A sick person has been diagnosed by a doctor, and the doctor has told this person to take some medicine, which will cure the disease. The doctor knows exactly what the problem is and has prescribed exactly the right medicine. Without the medicine, the disease will not cure itself. With the medicine, the patient will be cured almost immediately. However, the sick person doesn’t want to take the medicine. He kind of enjoys being in the hospital since all his meals are being cooked for him, his linens are changed daily, and one of the nurses is kind of cute and flirty. So this guy is okay to stay in the hospital indefinitely, and the disease isn’t that painful for him anyway. He actually doesn’t mind being sick as long as he gets to hang out in the hospital with the flirty nurse.
The doctor needs to come in, give this guy his medicine, and discharge him from the hospital.
Can he at least get the phone number for the flirty nurse? (Asking for a friend)
You mean like General Dreedle’s nurse in “Catch-22”? No, she wasn’t “flirty” so much as she was an “oblivious, unattainable sex object.” To be “flirty,” one has to be aware that the men admiring you exist. It’s a form of interaction.
Trying to think of a flirty one. I’m on it…
And all of you men, stop that moaning!
And don’t bother Googling “flirty nurse.” Google is confused as to what that means. You get softcore porn instead…
Interesting fit on that WAC uniform.
The “patient” clearly has mental problems if s/he is willing to subsist on hospital food. When I was in, they couldn’t even get chicken bouillon or Jell-O right. The bouillon was gritty with unmixed mix, and the Jell-O was melted. Nom nom
Well, if you told me that some people in our State legislature had mental problems, I’m not sure I would argue with you too much.
Here’s something I got to thinking about last night…
OK, granted, lawmakers have little motivation to give up reapportionment, and all sorts of incentives not to.
Nor do they have much motivation to grant the power to pass laws by initiative. In fact, I would think lawmakers would have even LESS motivation to go for that. (Or maybe I’m projecting myself onto them.) Because if you grant THAT, the candy store is open, and the mob can pass the remapping thing, term limits, what have you.
Yet lots of states have persuaded lawmakers to grant that. Or they got it somehow. I would suppose that some of the 26 states that have it got it through legislative action (as opposed to constitutional conventions, which I would think also require legislative action to call).
So, if lawmakers in other places have been persuaded to just give away representative democracy that way, it seems it should be POSSIBLE to get them to give up reapportionment.
Not likely, but possible. See what I’m saying?
I read this, and the first thought that pops in my head is, “But this is South Carolina…”
Some states have mandatory referenda when certain hoops are jumped through–like the strong mayor referendum here in Soda City.