http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2007/02/gerrymandering-hurts-progressives/ Cure-alls and Remedies Sat, 04 Feb 2012 22:26:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2007/02/gerrymandering-hurts-progressives/comment-page-1/#comment-119 Toni Fri, 16 Feb 2007 13:04:53 +0000 http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2007/02/13/gerrymandering-hurts-progressives/#comment-119 Klain is doing a very strange First Amendment analysis here. He says, "The theory behind a First Amendment challenge to a partisan districting plan is straightforward: the government cannot discriminate against persons based on their political views because the desire to disadvantage a group for political reasons is not a legitimate governmental objective." "Legitimate governmental objective" isn't a part of First Amendment analysis, though; he's referring to the rational basis/strict scrutiny tests under Equal Protection analysis. He in fact cites an Equal Protection case in support of the proposition he's just made: Cleburne. Cleburne doesn't have anything to do with the First Amendment. And the analysis continues to confuse the two analyses...he keeps talking about discrimination throughout the First Amendment section of the article. And I can't figure out what all that stuff about the placement of fire stations has to do with the restriction of speech; that's all obviously left over desire to solve the problem under an Equal Protection rubric. The whole thing is so slanted toward Equal Protection Analysis, that I couldn't even figure out what the First Amendment implications of gerrymandering even were until I got to the end of the section. Apparently he's arguing that gerrymandering violates the First Amendment because it suppresses the speech of voters on the basis of their political affiliation in the same way that the city of St. Paul violated the first amendment rights of its citizens by passing an ordinance that restricted some types of hate speech but not others in R.A.V. But once the First Amendment spotlight gets fully shown on the issue, redistricting would have to be undertaken with political value neutrality, hence the nonpartisan redistricting commissions. Klain is doing a very strange First Amendment analysis here. He says, "The theory behind a First Amendment challenge to a partisan districting plan is straightforward: the government cannot discriminate against persons based on their political views because the desire to disadvantage a group for political reasons is not a legitimate governmental objective." "Legitimate governmental objective" isn't a part of First Amendment analysis, though; he's referring to the rational basis/strict scrutiny tests under Equal Protection analysis. He in fact cites an Equal Protection case in support of the proposition he's just made: Cleburne. Cleburne doesn't have anything to do with the First Amendment. And the analysis continues to confuse the two analyses…he keeps talking about discrimination throughout the First Amendment section of the article. And I can't figure out what all that stuff about the placement of fire stations has to do with the restriction of speech; that's all obviously left over desire to solve the problem under an Equal Protection rubric. The whole thing is so slanted toward Equal Protection Analysis, that I couldn't even figure out what the First Amendment implications of gerrymandering even were until I got to the end of the section. Apparently he's arguing that gerrymandering violates the First Amendment because it suppresses the speech of voters on the basis of their political affiliation in the same way that the city of St. Paul violated the first amendment rights of its citizens by passing an ordinance that restricted some types of hate speech but not others in R.A.V. But once the First Amendment spotlight gets fully shown on the issue, redistricting would have to be undertaken with political value neutrality, hence the nonpartisan redistricting commissions.

]]> http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2007/02/gerrymandering-hurts-progressives/comment-page-1/#comment-118 Toni Thu, 15 Feb 2007 17:49:27 +0000 http://www.anotherpanacea.com/2007/02/13/gerrymandering-hurts-progressives/#comment-118 Discuss: First Amendment implications. Discuss: First Amendment implications.

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