Didn't watch the video (you know how I feel about Twitter), and assuming this is about the retirement age scheme, I'm not fully convinced of that for separate reasons. But I'm pushing back on your reasoning here. "Partisan hack who ignores precedent / state constitution" is a conclusion, not an observation. Judges appointed by a political majority aren't automatically corrupt. Otherwise you'd have to apply that same label to every judicial appointment in history. The "too small a gain" framing exposes a contradiction. You can't simultaneously call something fascist and then make your objection conditional on the size of the benefit. If it's wrong in kind, the magnitude doesn't matter. And if magnitude does matter to you, then you're making a strategic objection, not a moral one. On the "race to the bottom": I understand the norm-erosion concern, but you're treating this as a one-way ratchet with no correction mechanism. It's the legislature's job to make these appointments, and it's the voters' job to hold the legislature accountable. That feedback loop exists. Even if a fully partisan court oversteps, there are downstream corrections available. There is also a real danger of both-sidesism here. James Harden's foul-drawing was done by the rules, not outside them. It took a rule change to address it. The current admin is doing something different: both the foul-drawing and operating outside the rules. If the VA legislature decided to go down this appointment path, that's foul-drawing, not rule-breaking. We need to be clear about that distinction, because collapsing it is how you end up treating legal aggressive moves as equivalent to actually breaking the rules.
I agree with much of your post, but just quoting this part to quibble. The reason I say they will be partisan hacks is that in VA there was a constitutional amendment to establish the nonpartisan district map drawing commission. And the constitution also dictates that constitutional amendment must be approved by 2 General Assemblies with an intervening election and a 90 day wait before a referendum. And now their Supreme Court has established a precedent by ruling that the voters did not have enough time to be adequately informed before the intervening general election. And while the Supreme Court can rehear a case, there are a bunch of rules about when and how that is allowed. So there are constitutional requirements, precedent, and procedural guardrails that all say the decision stands. A professional and fair-minded judge wouldn't touch it. And the General Assembly would pretty much need to hear a promise before electing the judge, which probably breaches ethics. So whoever takes those seats in these conditions is a partisan hack. And if he is willing to overthrow everything standing in the way of this gerrymander to get a little partisan benefit, what else is he willing to stoop to?
I'd push back on how you characterized the ruling. The court did not find that voters lacked adequate time to be informed. The violation the majority found was that the legislature's first vote came after early voting had already begun, which it ruled deprived those early voters of the ability to factor the amendment into their choice of delegates (not the actual redistricting itself). But that only holds if you accept the majority's definition of 'election,' and the dissent argues that definition is where the whole thing goes wrong. The Virginia constitution says a general election is held on a specific day. Under that plain reading, the October 31 vote came before the election, not during it, and there is no violation at all. Put simply: if Election Day is a day, there was no violation. The majority had to redefine the word 'election' to overturn the will of the people. As the dissent states: While there is an emergency appeal to the SCOTUS, federal courts rarely overturn a state supreme court's interpretation of its own constitution, and there is no obvious reason the SCOTUS will take this case (they won't weigh in on a purely state law question). The legislature is the most obvious body to respond, and given that the majority adopted a definition the plain text does not support, that no federal court has endorsed, and that overturned the will of the people, doing so is quite legitimate.
You also forgot to mention the same court allowed the referendum to occur in the first place after a judge ruled the election in itself illegal. If they thought it was illegal from the get go they could've voted the entire process as illegal. They didnt rule it illegal until after the voters approved of the new maps. Conservatives don't even pretend to be non partisan anymore
But that is all in the past now. If the GA can hit rewind on any judicial decision they don't like then they don't have an independent judiciary.
There was never a fully independent judiciary. The system was designed that way, so that a judiciary that oversteps can be reined in. This is all part of the overall checks and balances system. Within that system, the legislative branch is the most powerful, because when it is strongly aligned within itself, it has ultimate power. That alignment, of course, is rare, and that too is by design.
No need. Hypocrisy is the standard operating system of some court. Just look at the SCOTUS rulings related to 'late' changes to elections. They have taken both of these positions: even though it's unconstitutional, the maps can stand because it's too late and will impact the practicality of the election. Because it's unconstitutional, the maps must change even if it could impact the practicality of the eleciton. It's both too late and never too late. Same judges, same court.
The difference is that there is a bill that would end the extreme gerrymanders and the mid-decade re-districting (Thanks Tom DeLay!) we are seeing. Every Republican has voted against it. If Dems get enough seats and the presidency, it will pass. Until then, unilateral disarmament when the other side is trying to disenfranchise your most reliable voting bloc is no longer "being fair" or "setting the example." It's just a stupid way to commit political suicide. Fact is, one party will immediately do something about this if given the chance and the other will do everything in their power to prevent any reforms.
Gee, what a surprise. Gotta get those 36% that still support Trump as the majority in every district they can, even if that takes some extreme gerrymandering.
The whole premise of divided government is that the branches are coequal and independent. There are checks, but not subordination. The Virginia General Assembly elects their Supreme Court judges. That's the check. Throwing them all out and picking new judges that will do your bidding is not how it is supposed to work. In this case, we aren't only talking about gerrymandering for the promise of ending gerrymandering. We are talking about corrupting the Virginia judiciary to get it done.
LOL. The same judiciary that said the referruendem was legal a month before the election only to do a 180 the second the results came back unfavorably for the GOP. That's the judiciary that were suppose to be protecting. @Reeko was 100% right. Y'all aren't willing to do what's right to fight fascism
They didn't say the referendum was legal. They allowed the referendum to go forward and left the decision on its legality for later. I was surprised and dismayed by their decision, but they weren't flip-flopping. It's crazy how liberals are claiming anti-fascist motivations while advocating to disenfranchise voters and corrupt the courts.
because people like that aren’t actually interested in doing so if we were in a movie, this is the person in the background secretly sabotaging what you’re doing…this is the character messing with the car engine when no one’s looking, purposefully not following directions, etc you can’t be successful with that…you can’t battle what’s happening with a soft and weak mindset, and most people have realized this
They allowed the referruendem to go forward cuz they thought it would fail. The minute it passed they determined it to be illegal. They had the election date in advance and could've ruled it illegal to begin with and you'd have less anger. Who's disenfranchising the voters? The courts who nullified an election or the partisan court that's ruling based on political alliance? Y'all will sit back and allow fascism to destroy this country cuz it's not effecting you like what @Reeko said.
Credulous dopery is a helluva brand man. I live in VA. We voted for this. By a wide margin. 1.6 million of us turned out for this and it passed by over 100k. That's a pretty big majoirity. That's how votes work. It wasn't like Florida 2000. And here you are, talking about Disenfranchisement. Do you even know what that word means? If so, it's asinine as a legal or linguistic matter to say that the referendum is disenfranchisement - the referendum was the purest expression of the sovereign will of the people on this issue. Disenfranchisement is when 4 republican dipshits override the votes of 1.6 million. It's loser talk like this that emboldens the coward wing to not do things to save democracy. Doctor King had some words on this: I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
