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rickhorrow · 5 years ago

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10 To Watch : Mayor’s Edition 62419

RICK HORROW’S TOP 10 SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF JUNE 24

with Jacob Aere

Ahead of the NHL Draft, the NHL Board of Governors unanimously approved billionaire entrepreneur Alex Meruelo to purchase a majority share of the Arizona Coyotes. The sale is expected to be "finalized in July," according to the Arizona Republic. Sources said that Meruelo’s focus will "remain on securing a permanent future in Arizona for the franchise." NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Meruelo is "committed" to finding a new arena in Arizona, adding that Gila River Arena in Glendale is "not viable long term.” The Associated Press noted that although the Coyotes "couldn't leave Arizona anytime soon due to NHL rules prohibiting new owners from immediately applying for relocation, Bettman pointedly didn't rule out the long-term possibility." As The Hockey News noted, one thing "working in the Coyotes’ favor” in this scenario is their Gila River Arena lease. That agreement runs season-to-season, and all the Coyotes have to do to renew it is “state their intentions" by December 31. If Meruelo is able to negotiate an arena deal elsewhere, extricating the Coyotes from their Glendale commitment will be relatively simple.

The Rays have "received permission" from MLB's exec council to "explore a plan in which they would play early-season home games in the Tampa Bay area and the remainder of the year in Montreal," according to sources. While the plan is in its "nascent stages, ESPN noted the Rays have embraced the two-city solution as the most feasible to saving baseball in the Tampa Bay area after years of failed attempts to build a new stadium in the region," according to sources. The Rays would play in new ballparks in "both the Tampa Bay area and Montreal," according to sources. The ability to play games early in the season in Florida "would preclude the need" for a domed ballpark, "cutting the cost of a new building.” The plan faces "several significant hurdles before being implemented," and it likely would not be in place until at least 2023. Reports of a potential schedule sharing plan have "surfaced several times in recent years from Montreal media." The Rays rank 29th in attendance only ahead of the Marlins, averaging 14,545 per game. While this bold plan is not likely to come to fruition, it is only the latest creative gambit by a pro sports team to strong arm its home city into ponying up funds for a new stadium.

Adidas is accused of discrimination by employee group. Adidas built its brand in the U.S. by embracing influential African-American athletes. However, fewer than 4.5% of the workers at the company's North American headquarters are African-American, per the New York Times, and members of that cohort say they feel ignored and sometimes discriminated against. This lack of diversity has led to multiple tone-deaf decisions that African-American employees say could put the entire brand at risk. One prime example of this is Adidas’ releasing all-white sneakers to commemorate Black History Month (which the company discontinued after an outcry). The European Union General Court also recently ruled against Adidas' claim that its famous three stripes, applied in any direction, deserve trademark protection. The case was a rare legal loss for Adidas, which has earned a reputation in the fashion world for aggressively litigating against anyone who uses a trio of stripes in their collections.

The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District board of directors held a public hearing on the proposed "special evening service to Warriors games" at Chase Center. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the proposed Chase Center ferry from Larkspur would "replicate an existing special event service to Giants games at Oracle Park, which costs $14 for each one-way ticket." Staff at the bridge district "recommend the board set the same fare for Warriors games to recover all operating costs." The Water Emergency Transportation Authority is "pursuing a separate ferry line to carry East Bay fans from its terminals in Oakland and Alameda.” While the Bay Area has long provided special ferry routes to sporting events, just as many other cities routinely provide expanded transit service for sports fans, New York and Seattle are among the only other major metropolitan areas in the U.S. to routinely get fans to games across the water.

Cubs considering sportsbook at Wrigley. According to Hashtag Sports, the Chicago Cubs have considered opening a sportsbook at Wrigley Field and at locations just outside of the Friendly Confines. Betting windows, automated kiosks, and even a full-blown sportsbook venue inside the stadium are among the options that have been considered by the Cubs and other Chicago professional franchises, as Illinois prepares to put it new sports gambling law into effect. MLB currently prohibits sportsbooks, including betting kiosks or windows, inside a club's stadium. The NBA has similar rules in place prohibiting retail sportsbooks from offering in-person betting inside arenas. The leagues are reviewing the Illinois legislation. If a bill is passed in Illinois, it would mean that other state-based teams, including the Bears, Blackhawks, Bulls, and White Sox, could also apply for a masters sports wagering license, which is said to cost $10 million. Also heating up Chicago this month – the annual Association of Luxury Suite Directors conference, where Rick will serve as master of ceremonies June 30-July 2.

USWNT enters mediation over salary disparity. In the three years after they won the 2015 World Cup, the U.S. women's national team generated more game revenue ($50.8 million) than the U.S. men's national team ($49.9 million), according to audited financial reports acquired by the Wall Street Journal. The women's team's ability to match, and even exceed, the men's team in game revenue is a key factor in their ongoing gender-discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation. Last month, U.S. Soccer responded to the suit by emphasizing that any alleged pay differential is "based on differences in the aggregate revenue generated by the different teams and/or any other factor other than sex." But while men's games used to bring in far more money, the women's team has closed the gap. While our national teams also generate revenue from sponsorship deals and broadcast rights, as the WSJ points out, "U.S. Soccer sells broadcast rights and sponsorships as a bundle, not separately for each national team.” That makes it difficult to parse the value between the men's and women's teams. Here’s a fair solution: give the men and the women the same base salary and then allow them to earn bonuses based on ticket and merchandise sales and anything else that can be tracked.

Gatorade has a new media strategy to make video everywhere with an AR Snapchat lens. According to Digiday, Gatorade debuted a new augmented reality lens on Snapchat on June 20 as a follow up to the animated world of PepsiCo’s “Sisters is Sweat,” where the lens followed the journey of a young girl and her soccer ball. The upcoming AR lens, one of Snapchat’s portal lenses, allows the audience to get into the game and score the winning goal in AR. This is the latest Gatorade experiment with Snapchat, where the brand has found success with games like Serena Williams’ Match Point and filters. The brand had pivoted away from thinking about video in terms of linear, online, and premium channels to instead be wherever its athlete audience will be. That’s why the PepsiCo beverage brand is planning to spend 45% of its media budget on digital this year, an increase of 11% from 2018’s 34% on digital, with the majority of that spending focused on mobile.

NASCAR’s Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America raises $1.7 million for Victory Junction. 250 participants completed the charity’s longest route ever, nearly 3,700 miles – from Kent, Washington to Key Largo, Florida – to raise funds to provide a life-changing camp experience for children with chronic medical illnesses. According to Kent Reporter, the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Across America celebrated its 25th anniversary with its funds raised directly to benefit Victory Junction. The ride’s donation supports maintenance programs, building projects, and summer camps. In addition to the more than $1.7 million raised by the ride, a $2 million donation was presented to the Kyle Petty Charity Ride Trust by the Andreas family in honor of a beloved Charity. Victory Junction has served as the Ride’s primary beneficiary since its establishment by Petty and his family in 2004 in honor of his late son, Adam. Since 1995, 8,650 riders have logged more than 12.4 million motorcycle miles and raised $18.5 million for Victory Junction and other children’s charities. Getting together to cruise across America, this year’s Ride featured several celebrity riders, including NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty and NASCAR legends Harry Gant, Hershel McGriff, and Donnie Allison who helped to create a near $4 million change for children.

Murray and other honorees get WISE/R. Octagon’s Lisa Murray was recognized by Women In Sports and Events (WISE) as a 2019 Woman of Distinction, for her continued support of women in the industry and making a mark as a pioneer of the sports industry. WISE/R Symposium, held in New York City on June 18, was the first of its kind to focus solely on the personal and professional development of women in the business of sports, WISE/R Symposium offered the opportunity to hear from top experts, learn career strategies, connect with peers, and more. Confirmed speakers besides Murray included finance journalist Jean Chatzky and industry leaders Anita DeFrantz, Janet Fletcher, Michele Roberts, and Suzanne Smith. This annual one-day event was produced by WISE. The WISE/R vent joins SportsBusiness Journal’s annual Game Changers conference and other prestigious events now honoring the significant contributions women have made to the sports industry.

Former NFL official Mike Pereira helps military veterans through officiating. In 2015, the former NFL official forged a second career as a highly respected rules’ expert on Fox Sports’ NFL and college broadcasts. The ex-official then met some military vets in Los Angeles and realized that these men had acquired the same skill set through the military that it takes to be a good official. That’s when Pereira realized he could give scholarships to vets to become officials, and get them off of the streets. Since the inception of Battlefields to Ballfields in 2016, more than 220 vets have been given scholarships to get them started on a career in officiating in football, baseball, and basketball. According to the Democrat & Chronicle, the money covers the cost of their training, uniforms, equipment, and local and national association dues for a period of three years. One thing Pereira loves about getting vets into officiating is that of all the people who could ignore the abuse from fans and coaches, the former official realized that no one is better suited than veterans.

#isolate #10 #10towatch

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hicginewsagency · 2 years ago

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NSSF Saga: Parliament Directs Gender Minister To Give Status Report:

By Brenda Namugenyi. The Speaker of parliament Anita Among, has directed the Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Betty Amongi to present to the House a statement on the current status of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF). NSSF, whose portfolio stands at Shs17.9 trillion has recently been marred with allegations of corruption and mismanagement of the workers’…

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#NSSF #Parliament of Uganda

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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Redistricting activists brace for wall of inaction as battle moves to states

By Amy Gardner, Ted Mellnik and Adrian Blanco | Published November 12 at 8:21 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 12, 2019 |

In North Carolina, lawmakers have been forced back to the drawing board yet again after a state court ruled last month that the current congressional map was drawn illegally along partisan lines.

It’s the latest judicial rebuke of gerrymandering in North Carolina, where state and federal judges have repeatedly tossed congressional and legislative maps since they were drawn by GOP lawmakers after the 2010 Census.

But activists say that trying to abolish lines drawn for partisan gain will probably be a lot harder elsewhere in the country, where conservative-leaning state courts are less receptive to such challenges.

The Supreme Court’s decision in June that partisan gerrymanders are beyond the reach of federal courts has opened the door to a patchwork of outcomes in different states that will hinge on the partisan tilt of their judiciaries and the fine print of their constitutions.

That ruling also negated decisions in lower federal courts that threw out maps in key swing states, including Michigan and Wisconsin — meaning those districts will remain in place for next year’s elections.

Activists fighting what they view as unfair drawing of district lines said they now must intensify their strategy of backing like-minded candidates for state legislatures, governors and even judicial seats to lay the groundwork for future court challenges that they think might not succeed today.

“We’re now going to have to go state by state to protect people’s voting rights,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., who served as attorney general in the Obama administration and has led Democratic-funded anti-gerrymandering efforts since 2017. “That’s not ideal.”

In North Carolina, a Democratic-majority panel of Superior Court judges moved quickly to order new maps after the National Redistricting Foundation, a Holder-affiliated group, challenged them in court in September.

In a preliminary ruling that has already prompted Republican leaders to begin drawing new districts, the judges wrote that the current map is an “extreme partisan gerrymander” that runs afoul of the state constitution.

Among the evidence offered in the suit is that Republicans admitted that they drew a partisan gerrymander, as well as the fact that they currently hold 10 of the state’s 13 districts — even though, in the 2018 elections, roughly the same number of voters chose Democrats as chose Republicans.

Holder said he hopes to upend congressional and legislative maps in Texas, Georgia and Ohio, among others, that his group views as drawn along partisan lines.

But all will be more difficult targets because both judiciaries and legislatures in those states are GOP-controlled, he and others said.

“It’s going to be few and far between where the state courts are going to be willing to seriously review maps,” said Paul Smith, litigation chief at the nonpartisan political watchdog Campaign Legal Center. “State courts are elected and they have a partisan tilt, and it tends to be the same as the legislature in most places. And now they have a road map from the Supreme Court on how to duck the issue.”

In a 5-to-4 decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering is beyond the reach of the federal courts because the Constitution does not expressly empower the courts on the topic, and because of what he described as the difficulty of establishing a legal standard to limit the practice. Roberts did not defend maps drawn along partisan lines or say they were constitutional.

“Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust,” he wrote. “But the fact that such gerrymandering is incompatible with democratic principles does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary.”

The decision confounded redistricting activists, who adamantly disagreed with that assessment.

“That’s what the United States Supreme Court is supposed to do — look at those things that have a negative impact on democracy, and then police them,” Holder said. “The court has a history of doing that.”

So far, a few state courts have taken on the issue. In 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, composed of five Democrats and two Republicans, took action similar to what the North Carolina court did this year, striking down a congressional map drawn by a GOP-controlled legislature in another lawsuit filed by Holder’s group.

It is one of only two recent examples of states tossing partisan-drawn congressional maps; the other is Florida, where the state Supreme Court tossed districts in 2015 after the passage of a state constitutional amendment banning partisan maps.

But activists said they see little chance of challenging other maps that they think were unfairly drawn along partisan lines before the next elections — including those in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, where lower federal court rulings against partisan gerrymandering were nullified by the Supreme Court decision in June.

“I think we’re probably done with litigation that attempts to change the 2020 map,” said Justin Levitt, a professor of constitutional law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

In both North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Republicans criticized judicial intervention in line-drawing as an unconstitutional power grab. “There’s no such thing as a partisan gerrymander,” said Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai, a defendant in the case there. “There’s no provision in the U.S. or state Constitution that makes use of that phrase.”

North Carolina state Sen. Ralph Hise, who chairs the Senate Committee on Redistricting and Elections, said in a statement that giving line-drawing power to judges doesn’t remove partisanship from the process. Instead, it simply transfers it.

“State judicial elections will be as important in determining which party controls Congress as the actual elections for Congress,” Hise predicted. “It’s a dangerous place to be, and you’re likely to see massive amounts of money spent on state judicial races in the next decade.”

Some of that has already happened; Holder has supported Democratic judicial candidates, including newly elected North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls.

He has also supported recent efforts to install nonpartisan districting officers or commissions in Colorado, Michigan, Missouri and Utah in time for 2021, when new census data will trigger the reapportionment of congressional seats across the country.

Holder and other advocates for redistricting reform argue that they are not pushing for Democratic power to draw unfair maps. Instead, he and others are advocating for nonpartisan line-drawing that preserves communities of interest and municipal boundaries, keeps districts as compact as possible and makes it possible for both parties to elect a proportional number of representatives to reflect the overall population.

In North Carolina, advocacy groups concluded that they had a shot at tossing out the congressional map altogether because of the Democratic tilt of its judiciary and what they viewed as the overwhelming evidence of a partisan gerrymander.

In a practice known as “cracking,” the cities of Greensboro, Fayetteville and Asheville are cut in half, in each case producing two Republican-leaning districts with diluted Democratic populations. The borders split Asheville so dramatically that students on different sides of the same University of North Carolina dormitory live in different congressional districts.

And in another practice called “packing” that ensured surrounding districts favor Republicans, the 1st Congressional District encompasses the largely rural and heavily African American northeastern corner of the state — but includes a hooklike appendage reaching westward to grab the heavily black population of Durham.

Republican lawmakers have acknowledged that they drew the current map for maximum political advantage. It was drawn in 2016, after a federal court had ruled that the previous map was an illegal racial gerrymander — a decision the Supreme Court upheld, unlike its ruling in the partisan case.

Rep. David Lewis, one of the redistricting committee chairs, declared at the time that the new maps would preserve Republican control of 10 of the state’s 13 congressional districts — using election results rather than racial data, as had been done with the previous map.

“I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats,” Lewis said at the time, “because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.”

Democrats said that if they were not able to challenge the maps along partisan lines, the state’s voters would be locked into districts that did not reflect North Carolina’s current political makeup.

“More voters voted for Democrats than voted for Republicans last year,” said Morgan Jackson, a political adviser to Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. “Yet Republicans won 10 of 13 seats. We found that you could not break the majority the way the maps had been drawn. There was a wall that you just could not get across. And that wall is partisan gerrymandering.”

Advocates also think the Supreme Court’s ruling on partisan gerrymandering allows states to get away with de facto racial gerrymanders — a practice the court barred in 2017.

In North Carolina, Republicans said that after that decision, they only relied on partisan data, not racial data, in redrawing the state’s congressional map.

But as part of that process, they sliced through black communities in Greensboro, Charlotte, Fayetteville and elsewhere to dilute the power of Democratic voters. One boundary line split the campus of the country’s largest historically black university.

That means when Asya Bryant, a senior at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, walks the three blocks from the student center to Williams dining hall, she leaves one Republican-held congressional district and enters another.

Because African American voters favor Democrats so heavily, using partisan data to draw congressional lines can produce virtually the same results as using racial data, a Washington Post analysis of North Carolina’s congressional map found.

How Greensboro was gerrymandered

The three cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point have almost enough people for their own congressional seat. Together they are half nonwhite, and have voted Democratic by a 2-to-1 margin.

North Carolina’s congressional map divided the cities between three districts that all lean Republican by including outlying areas of mostly white and heavily Republican voters. A congressional district that included two of the three cities would be competitive for Democrats.

Simply uniting the entire N.C. A&T State University area, now lopped off from Greensboro, into the same district as the rest of the city would create a Democratic district, The Post analysis shows.

Experts say the phenomenon extends to other Southern states with large black populations.

“If you are allowed to do partisan gerrymandering, why would you draw the map based on race when you can achieve substantially the same outcome using partisanship?” asked Stanton Jones, a lawyer with the D.C.-based firm Arnold Porter who is helping challenge the congressional map in state court.

Bryant and other activists say the congressional boundaries drawn along partisan lines effectively curtailed the influence of African American voters, too — and she thinks it’s intentional.

“Right now, young people, especially African Americans, want to vote more than ever,” Bryant said. “They see that. They see people speaking their minds, protesting, and it’s something they’re not used to and not comfortable with. So they are doing everything in their power to stop it.”

In addition to North Carolina, Southern states with large black populations such as Georgia and Mississippi have maps based on partisan data that effectively divide communities based on race, advocates say.

Kristin Clarke, the head of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said her organization lost a suit over racial gerrymandering in Georgia because “proving racial gerrymandering is hard to do.” The Supreme Court’s ruling, she added, will make it easier for states to get away with such practices.

The matter is not settled in North Carolina. On Tuesday, lawmakers are expected to produce new maps in response to a preliminary injunction issued by a three-judge panel on Oct. 28 blocking the use of the current congressional map in the 2020 election. It’s too soon to know whether the plaintiffs — or the judges — will accept the lines they draw.

How Democrats and nonwhite voters were “packed” into districts

In two parts of North Carolina, Democratic voters were packed into heavily Democratic districts that ensured nearby districts would remain narrowly Republican.

DURHAM AND RALEIGH:

Together, the urban cores of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, along with the state’s rural northeast, hold enough voters to form the base for three congressional districts that would be competitive for nonwhites and Democrats. The present map limits their influence by packing them into two heavily Democratic districts. Republican suburbs are gathered in their own safe districts.

CHARLOTTE:

The 9th Congressional District is a sausage-shaped area that starts in Charlotte, where its pulls in the largely white and Republican voters on the city’s south side. They cement the district’s Republican lean, counterbalancing the nonwhite and Democratic areas in the eastern end of the 9th District near Fayetteville, more than 100 miles away.

The rest of Charlotte, with a population of largely nonwhite and Democratic voters, is confined to the 12th District.

Sources: Election results, precinct maps and voter registration statistics from the N.C. State Board of Elections; congressional district map from the N.C. General Assembly. Map shading for voting is based on votes for Republican and Democratic candidates in 2016 general election races for president, U.S. senator, governor, lieutenant governor and state attorney general.

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BACKGROUND READING ON FIGHTINH GERRYMANDING AND COURT DECISIONS:

Supreme Court says federal courts don’t have a role in deciding partisan gerrymandering claims

By Robert BARNES | Published June 27 at 7:16 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 12, 2019 |

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that federal judges have no power to stop politicians from drawing electoral districts to preserve or expand their party’s power, a landmark ruling that dissenters said will empower an explosion of extreme partisan gerrymandering.

The 5-to-4 decision was written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and joined by the court’s other conservatives. It capped decades of debate about whether federal courts have a role in policing partisan efforts to draw electoral districts in the same way the judiciary protects against racial discrimination.

“We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts,” Roberts wrote. “Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties, with no plausible grant of authority in the Constitution, and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions.”

Both parties employ gerrymandering to advance their interests, but Thursday’s decision set off alarms among Democrats in particular. They are in charge of far fewer states than Republicans and said the ruling will allow Republicans to set the electoral maps for another decade after the 2020 Census unless Democrats find a way to win locally.

At the court, the decision delivered a dramatic example of how a new justice can create monumental change. For years, the justices have stopped short of overturning a state’s plan because of partisan gerrymandering. But then-Justice Anthony M. Kennedy thought there might be a future case so egregious it would require protection of voters’ rights.

Kennedy’s replacement — and former law clerk — Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh needed just a few months to side with fellow conservatives in shutting down those efforts for good.

The decision comes as the public appears to have grown more outraged by the practice. In the last election, voters in five states either limited the power of state legislators to draw electoral lines or took it away from them altogether by creating independent commissions to do the work.

Federal courts have taken a more robust role, too, striking down gerrymanders in battleground states such as Ohio and Michigan.

Partisan gerrymandering is employed by whatever party is in power; the court was considering a Republican-drawn map from North Carolina and one done by Democrats in Maryland. But for that reason, the decision would seem to strengthen Republican hands when new maps are drawn after the 2020 Census. The GOP is in control of both the governorship and legislature in 22 states, compared with 14 for Democrats.

“In a democracy, voters should choose their politicians, not the other way around, on Election Day,” said Common Cause National Redistricting Director Kathay Feng. “But the Supreme Court today gave the green light to the most extreme partisan gerrymanders, where legislators openly boasted about their partisan motives, stripping not only the people of North Carolina and Maryland, but all Americans, of the right to fair representation.”

'UNANSWERABLE QUESTION '

In his opinion, Roberts did not defend the practice, or say it was constitutional. “Excessive partisanship in districting leads to results that reasonably seem unjust,” he wrote. “But the fact that such gerrymandering is incompatible with democratic principles does not mean that the solution lies with the federal judiciary.”

He was joined by Kavanaugh as well as Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch.

Justice Elena Kagan dissented for the court’s liberals. “For the first time in this Nation’s history, the majority declares that it can do nothing about an acknowledged constitutional violation because it has searched high and low and cannot find a workable legal standard to apply,” she wrote.

Kagan underscored her disagreement by reading from the bench — at times emotionally — a lengthy excerpt of her dissent.

“The gerrymanders here — and others like them — violated the constitutional rights of many hundreds of thousands of American citizens,” she said.

“The practices challenged in these cases imperil our system of government. Part of the court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. None is more important than free and fair elections.” She closed by saying her dissent was “with respect but deep sadness.”

She was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

Roberts acknowledged that the court regularly scrutinizes electoral districts for racial gerrymandering and to ensure districts are the same size, to abide by “one-person, one-vote.”

Ferreting out political motivations would be much harder, he said, and intrusive.

“That intervention would be unlimited in scope and duration — it would recur over and over again around the country with each new round of districting, for state as well as federal representatives,” he wrote.

“Consideration of the impact of today’s ruling on democratic principles cannot ignore the effect of the unelected and politically unaccountable branch of the federal government assuming such an extraordinary and unprecedented role,” Roberts wrote.

He said that despite “various requests over the past 45 years,” the court has never struck a state plan as unconstitutional, and that all of those years of consideration have never produced a test that would allow judges to satisfy “the original unanswerable question (How much political motivation and effect is too much?).”

Roberts said that although federal courts should not be involved, voters were not powerless to stop partisan gerrymandering. Florida voters, for instance, amended the state’s constitution to require “fair districts,” he noted, and there were other avenues available.

But he added: “We express no view on any of these pending proposals. We simply note that the avenue for reform established by the Framers, and used by Congress in the past, remains open.”

In fact, Roberts was in the minority in 2015 when the court split 5 to 4 in upholding Arizona’s independent redistricting commission’s power to draw congressional districts.

Kagan countered Thursday that there was good reason for the court to act now. Advances in data analysis and technology make modern partisan gerrymandering far more extreme and effective, she said. “While bygone mapmakers may have drafted three or four alternative districting plans, today’s mapmakers can generate thousands of possibilities at the touch of a key — and then choose the one giving their party maximum advantage,” she wrote.

“The effect is to make gerrymanders far more effective and durable than before, insulating politicians against all but the most titanic shifts in the political tides. These are not your grandfather’s — let alone the Framers’ — gerrymanders.”

'UNNECESSARY RESHUFFLING '

The cases from Maryland and North Carolina provided the perfect tests for the court.

In November, a unanimous three-judge panel found that Maryland Democrats had unconstitutionally targeted Republican voters in the state’s 6th Congressional District. The legislature had redrawn the district, which previously stretched across the top of the state, to dip down and take in Democratic strongholds in the Washington suburbs.

After the 2011 redistricting, a Democrat won the seat previously held by a Republican. There was an open election in the district in November, when Democrat David Trone defeated Republican Amie Hoeber by a wide margin.

“The massive and unnecessary reshuffling of the Sixth District, involving one-half of its population and dictated by party affiliation and voting history, had no other cause than the intended actions of the controlling Democratic officials to burden Republican voters by converting the district” into a Democratic one, wrote Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

Rather than redraw the map, as the federal judges had ordered, Maryland’s Democratic Attorney General Brian E. Frosh appealed to the Supreme Court. That put him at odds with the state’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, who also won reelection in November and has pushed three times for a constitutional amendment that would have an independent commission redraw boundaries.

Hogan called the court’s ruling “terribly disappointing to all who believe in fair elections.”

“Gerrymandering is wrong, and both parties are guilty,” he said in a statement after the ruling. Hogan said he would reintroduce legislation next year to put the drawing of districts “in the hands of a balanced, fair and nonpartisan commission — instead of partisan politicians.”

The Supreme Court had also sent back the North Carolina case last term, telling a panel of three federal judges to decide whether challengers in that state had the legal standing to bring the case. The judges said they did and also found that the legislature’s efforts violated constitutional protections of equal protection and free speech.

The North Carolina legislature “drew a plan designed to subordinate the interests of non-Republican voters not because they believe doing so advances any democratic, constitutional, or public interest, but because, as the chief legislative mapdrawer openly acknowledged, the General Assembly’s Republican majority ‘think[s] electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,’ ” wrote Judge James A. Wynn Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

“But that is not a choice the Constitution allows legislative mapdrawers to make,” he wrote.

Wynn was referring to comments from a legislative leader after a previous map was struck down as an example of racial gerrymandering that made clear politics was at the heart of the new map.

“I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” said Rep. David Lewis, a Republican member of the North Carolina General Assembly, addressing fellow legislators when they passed the plan in 2016. “So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.”

Lewis proposed drawing the map so Republicans could prevail in 10 of the 13 districts, and that’s what happened when voters went to the polls that year, even though Republican candidates won just 53 percent of the statewide vote.

Ann E. Marimow contributed to this report.

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State court blocks current House districts in North Carolina for 2020 elections

By Kirk Ross | Published October 29 at 11:09 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted November 12, 2019 |

RALEIGH, N.C. — A state court on Monday blocked the use of current congressional districts in North Carolina for the 2020 election, which could lead to the drawing of new districts that would make several of the Republican-held districts far more competitive.

The state’s House delegation is made up of 10 Republicans and three Democrats, but many of the GOP-leaning districts rely on the same strategies the court rejected in a previous case about state legislative seats, including splitting Democratic strongholds in some parts of the state while packing as many Democratic voters as possible into other districts.

Drawing new House districts could spell more difficulty for either Rep. Mark Meadows or Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, Republicans who split voters in Asheville, a rapidly growing left-leaning city in the western region of the state. It could also shake up the districts surrounding the state’s high-growth urban regions.

Before the 2012 election cycle, the first to use new maps drawn after the last census, the state’s congressional delegation included seven Democrats and six Republicans. But Republicans won control of the legislature in 2010 and drew new maps for 2012 that favored their party.

In the 2018 elections, all three winning Democrats won their districts with 70 percent or more of the vote while only one only Republican, who was unopposed, received more than 60 percent of the vote.

The filing period for the 2020 candidates opens Dec. 2.

Redistricting advocates took to state courts this year in the wake of a Supreme Court decision in June that partisan gerrymandering was a matter for state courts to decide.

A three-judge panel in Wake County Superior Court last month ordered North Carolina’s state legislative districts to be redrawn after ruling that partisan gerrymandering violated the state constitution. That same panel approved the new legislative districts on Monday and, in a separate ruling, blocked the use of the current congressional districts.

The case is backed by the National Redistricting Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which is led by former attorney general Eric Holder.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the congressional case hailed the injunction, calling it both a sign that they are likely to prevail in an upcoming trial and an indication that the court is committed to ensuring new maps for the next election.

“North Carolina’s congressional districts are easily the most gerrymandered in the country. The decision proves that, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling from this past June, courts can remedy partisan gerrymandering,” said Elisabeth Theodore, a partner with Arnold & Porter. “The court recognized that democracy is too important to wait. Every single congressional election in North Carolina this decade has proceeded under unconstitutional maps. Now at least North Carolina’s voters will get one chance to vote in fair congressional elections.”

Theodore said plaintiffs would quickly file a motion for summary judgment in the case.

State Senate leader Phil Berger (R), who has criticized Holder for his state redistricting initiatives, said the decision underlines the importance of state court races. “With judges deciding behind closed doors how many Members of Congress from each party is acceptable, judicial elections have become the most consequential in America,” Berger said in a statement.

The congressional maps were redrawn in 2016 after a successful challenge in federal court over racial gerrymandering.

A spokesman for House Speaker Tim Moore (R) said Moore was reviewing the order.

Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, which is a plaintiff in the state legislative districts case, said the injunction is a welcome victory.

“We hope it is a sign that the state’s egregiously gerrymandered congressional districts will ultimately be struck down and redrawn to be completely free from partisan gerrymandering,” Phillips said. “As the landmark ruling in Common Cause v. Lewis made clear last month, partisan gerrymandering violates the constitutional rights of North Carolina voters and it must end.”

In an interview with the News & Observer of Raleigh last week, Rep. George Holding (R), who represents part of Wake County, said he expected the districts to change and had altered his fundraising strategies as a result. In his latest campaign finance report, Holding reported raising less than $100 from residents of his current district.

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

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yekoz · 6 years ago

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Kadaga Extends COSASE’s Tenure to February 2019

See on Scoop.it - UgandaNuz

The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga has granted the current Committee of Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) more time to finish the probe into the closure of defunct banks. The current committee leadership of Abdul Katuntu and Anita Among is serving for two and half years and its tenure was meant to expire on January 16 next year, but according to the Speaker, these will stretch up to February 20, 2019 to allow them conclude their current investigation. In August this year, FDC President, Patrick Amuriat dropped both Katuntu and Among in the Shadow Cabinet and replaced them

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recentnews18-blog · 6 years ago

Photo

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/seedpods-from-the-garden-of-stupid/

Seedpods from the Garden of Stupid

The Kavanaugh hysteria has provided the country with a crash course in academic victim politics. The tribal denunciations of “privileged white males,” the moral panic over fantastical accounts of sexual predation, the spectacle of Ivy League law students claiming to feel “unsafe,” the assertion that a single uncorroborated outbreak of male teen hormones should cancel a lifetime of achievement in the law – all originate in the anti-Enlightenment ethos of the academy, embodied in critical race studies, feminist legal theory, and the attacks on the Socratic teaching method as anti-female and anti-“survivor.”

The #BelieveSurvivors mantra is a cornerstone of the campus grievance industry but inimical to everything that a law school should teach. It’s a religious gesture, not a legal one: Such belief is independent of proof, arising out of a pre-existing commitment to a narrative of ubiquitous female abuse by patriarchal white males. The “survivor” label presupposes the conclusion that evidence should establish: that the accused is guilty of an offense. The fact-finder, if there even is one, regards contradictions or holes in a woman’s story as evidence of “trauma” and thus as further corroboration. According to #BelieveSurvivors logic, the Innocence Project, which exists to vacate wrongful convictions and has a presence at law schools across the country, should be disbanded.

Examples abound of student rape allegations arising out of voluntary drunken hookups, following which the self-described victim sought further sexual contact with her alleged rapist. Even if such cases weren’t so common, to presume the guilt of the accused based on an accusation alone would still be an affront to due process.

The current generation of elite law students will one day become judges themselves. If they remain committed to the circular logic of #BelieveSurvivors, the rule of law is in trouble.

Here’s a quick recap of the flimsiness of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations by an online friend, Max Madison:

She refused to hand over the results of her polygraph

She refused to hand over her 2012 therapist’s notes

She said she was afraid to fly, but has flown dozens of times.

Since she did in fact fly, she offered no other reason for the delay

She said she wanted anonymity but contacted [the Washington Post] multiple times

Said she got advice from “beach friends” but didn’t mention that the primary one was a former FBI lawyer, Monica McLean, who worked for Preet Bharara, a man Trump fired. She also failed to mention, when talking of her Beach friends at the hearing, that Monica was sitting right behind her.

She had a perfect memory of 1982 but couldn’t remember basic things from the previous 10 weeks

She’d been drinking.

She changed the year of the alleged attack

She named 4 people, but had no backers

She couldn’t remember how she got home even though her story had her escaping the house far from home, pre-cell phone.

She gave no location or any details that could be researched for verification.

She never told anyone and never claimed PTSD prior to Kavanaugh’s name circulating 30 years later.

She said that she put the 2nd door on her house because of PTSD, but evidence shows it was to get around zoning laws to create a rentable apartment.

She said she didn’t know that Grassley offered to come to her, even though it was broadcast nationally.

She feigned no knowledge of polygraphs even though her ex’s sworn statement said she’d coached Monica McLean how to beat it in the 1990s, and in any case her profession should have at least well acquainted her with it.

She co-authored a paper on repressed memory creation years before she claimed to have one

Nothing is known of her pharmacology, but given her past alcoholism, her visits to a therapist and her general presentation, odds are high that it’s extensive.

She scrubbed her social media. We know from a pussy hat photo that she was rabidly anti-Trump.

She had zero family or friends with her, not from the 80s nor from today. She was surrounded only by Democrat Party handlers.

Constant cries of bravery & “nothing to gain” vs a $700,000 GoFundMe and a career boosted a la Anita Hill

Literally all there is her word vs all of the above. Not a shred of evidence.

I would add to this excellent summary – one of those she claimed at the “event” in question, Leland Keyser, whom she characterized as a lifelong friend, informed the committee that McLean had pressured her in a vain attempt to get her to change her statement to support Ford’s account.

The later claims of sexual predation by the nominee were even more fantastical and were rightly dismissed out of hand.

At the insistence of senators Collins, Flake, Feinstein, and others, the FBI conducted a seventh background check of Kavanaugh. All the senators were invited to read the report. Here’s a video of Senator Feinstein after she read it.

This is great. pic.twitter.com/HguQLTA6sk

— zyntrax (@zyntrax) October 4, 2018

She looks to be fighting back tears, and she should. Despite her denials and Senator Susan Collins’s generous endorsement of her probity, it is clear that Feinstein or her staff outed Christine Ford, a reluctant witness; secured counsel for her; and otherwise orchestrated this show, something that by credible accounts is creating blowback – an increase of support for the president and his party as we near the midterms. This shabby conduct is not likely to pass without further investigation, as Senator Graham and others have advocated.

In any event, the most compelling arguments were from Senator Collins, who graduated from St. Lawrence University, not Yale Law School, but who took a great deal of time to actually review the decisions Kavanaugh wrote and participated in and spent time with the Congressional Research Office and the candidate to understand the legal bases of his decisions. She also has a far firmer grasp of the constitutional provisions on due process and separation of powers.

If you missed her endorsement speech, a masterpiece of logic and persuasion, you can hear it here or read the full transcript. (In the absence of civics classes in most high schools, you might want to share this with any high school-age people in your household.)

In the meantime, crowds of what would certainly in another, savvier, age be dubbed “useful idiots” of the left mobbed senators. Included among their targets were Senator Collins and Senator Paul. The latter, having already barely missed assassination by a Bernie Sanders fan along with being badly beaten by a neighbor, was now being chased through the airport by these crazed harpies. Senator Graham, accosted in the halls of the Senate by one of these loonies for not insisting Kavanaugh submit to a polygraph, responded that maybe the candidate should just be dunked to see if he floats, leaving the shouter nonplussed. Another congressional staffer – this one on Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee’s staff – illegally released personal information about senators McConnell, Graham, and (Mike) Lee, who were likely to vote for confirmation, encouraging crank home calls and mobs at their doorsteps. When caught by another staffer, he allegedly threatened to release, among other things, the medical records and Social Security numbers of the children of senators who supported Kavanaugh.

Sheila Jackson Lee (B.A. Yale, J.D. UVA) promptly fired the arrested staffer, Jackson Cosko, and claimed no knowledge of his activities. (She was a prominent visitor at the Ford hearing and was seen passing an envelope to one of Ford’s lawyers, an envelope she said contained notes from Ford-supporters.)

After Collins’s speech, which virtually assured Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the Maenads (female “raving ones” in Greek mythology) gathered on Capitol Hill to continue their temper tantrum. Among their designated speakers against the patriarchy and sexual abuse of women was the advocate of female genital mutilation and sharia law, which by any sane account, remains the most anti-woman law in the world. She tweeted:

Senator Susan Collins is the mother & grandmother of white women in America who gave us a Donald Trump presidency. The 53%.

She is a disgrace & her legacy will be that she was a traitor to women and marginalized communities. History will not treat her kindly. #CancelKanavaugh

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) October 5, 2018

It’s impossible for me not to laugh at these dingbats.

On the right, there is puzzlement as to why such a centrist jurist was Trump’s choice. I think Professor Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit got it exactly right:

Trump knew he’d been vetted enough that there would be no real skeletons, and he no doubt expected that the Democrats would be so desperate they’d invent some. They would have done that with anyone he put up – but, precisely because Kavanaugh was a milquetoasty DC Establishment type, seeing the Democrats go into full b‑‑‑‑‑‑ assault mode on him galvanized the other milquetoasty DC Establishment types. You could see the light bulbs go off in their heads: The Democrats don’t hate Trump because he’s Trump. They hate all Republicans and want to ruin them. Even me! And they always will.

The result is that the Kavanaugh affair has welded the Trump and NeverTrump forces (except for a few sad outliers who don’t matter) into a solid force. And it’s simultaneously galvanized GOP voters around the country, closing the “enthusiasm gap,” as the normals become more militant. Plus, it seems that minority voters aren’t as excited about empowering neurotic upper-class white feminists as you might – well, actually, I guess they’re just about exactly as excited about empowering neurotic upper-class white feminists as you might expect, but it seems Dems didn’t give that much thought. So Kavanaugh was, in fact, the perfect pick to trigger this reaction.

I’m reminded of the scene in Absence of Malice where Wilford Brimley asks Paul Newman, who has cleverly set a trap that the press and the rogue DOJ guy fall into, “Are you that smart?”

I mentioned this analysis to the Insta-Wife, a Trump fan who has followed him closely since the 1980s and her comment was, “Of course.”

Well, with five strict constructionists likely to be on the Court, Congress will finally have to spend less time fundraising and more time doing its job – writing and passing legislation. For decades now, they’ve simply been relying on their wishes being carried out subjectively by like-minded jurists who seek penumbras and such instead of reading text.

So it looks like another really winning week for the president, as Matthew Continetti (and I) see it – on trade, judicial nominations, the economy, and foreign policy.

Greg Gutfeld looks out on the sea of demonstrators against Brett Kavanaugh this week and characterized the display as “seedpods from the garden of stupid are blooming,” and it’s impossible not to agree. The people who planted those seeds include more than 1,700 law professors who said Kavanaugh should be denied confirmation because he “displayed a lack of judicial temperament” in responding to the baseless, uncorroborated charges by Christine Blasey Ford of sexual misconduct.

Reviewing this campus insanity, Heather Mac Donald contends – with ample basis: