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Benagain posted:When you shake the magic 8 ball, the answer is always "ask again later." 
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Jun 26, 2016 13:44
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Discendo Vox posted:Baton Rouge is in Louisiana, which means its legal system is completely insane, even by state law standards. Just the intro has my head spinning. I wonder what the rate of failure on the Louisiana bar exam is for those who did not study in the state -- or even if having a hodgepodge of legal doctrines affects the bar at all.
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Jun 30, 2016 05:25
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Some dude was all "you cannot judge - that is reserved for someone who is literally divinity *wink* " Then some mortal fucks decided its okay for humans to judge in the case of homosexuals.
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Jun 30, 2016 12:14
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Is this the right place to ask where the 9th seat appointment stands right now? My understanding as of May was that the then-current nominee could simply sit on the Senate agenda until the current congress adjourns on January 3rd 2017, at which point the appointment automagically goes through should Obama choose to pull the trigger. Is that right?
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Jul 1, 2016 15:05
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hobbesmaster posted:It would put pressure on the senate to actually do something, but theres a high likelihood that there'll be a Democratic president and senate at the time so it'd be kinda pointless. He might do it anyway for "legacy" purposes - Scalia died during Obama's term, its his appointment, he should get a vote on his appointment. ...or wait for  :
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Jul 1, 2016 15:43
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Over / under on RGB recusing if it comes down to a SC case in November?
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Jul 13, 2016 18:58
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evilweasel posted:no it can't, it can only tie 4-4 and affirm the 5th circuit Tie goes to the runner? Or to the ruling of the court the next step down?
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Jul 20, 2016 20:23
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Then... what now? Use old districts?
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Jul 29, 2016 19:13
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I'm gay
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Aug 10, 2016 12:33
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Hot poo poo, ^ that's awesome. Anyway, seeing as "Remove the 2nd Amendment" isn't on the table for any major party, this is a dumb discussion.
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Aug 10, 2016 12:35
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Those who see the court as a simple "hurr durr I vote party line" do not understand the complexity and depth of constitutional law.
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Aug 10, 2016 17:47
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Who is "them?" Conservative appointments? Liberal appointments? Politicians without backgrounds in constitutional law?
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Aug 10, 2016 17:55
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twodot posted:Asserting a point is not debatable is not particularly persuasive. When the discussion regards best practices, it really should be. Edit: especially easily-verifiable, elementary best practices.
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Aug 11, 2016 18:22
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Do you know what a "Bar Association" is? This isn't an argument about substantiation of claims. This is an argument about entry-level required understanding to consider yourself even a novice on the subject of legal ethics.
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Aug 11, 2016 19:19
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There was another post here, but I'm deleting it right after refreshing this page as I am now calming down and realizing that what you are trying to post about is simply not a part of your daily experience and worldview. My posts don't matter. Hail Satan.
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Aug 11, 2016 19:25
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Jimbozig posted:But his wife's money is his money for all intents and purposes, unless she is keeping it in some sort of special fund that can never be used to buy things for the family but only for her specifically. On an everyday basis, there is nobody to whom the court answers. Theoretically, the public could shame a judge into falling in line with clear, unmistakable code on conflict of interest, but that would involve an informed public that doesn't already know whether it is "siding with" or "opposed to" the judge's history of rulings, constitutional philosophies and ascribed theories, and thus likely opinion of the case to be heard. Joe Sixpack living in Rustbeltville isn't going to care that Thomas's wife received a bajillion dollars and other favors from Deregulate Industry Everywhere (DIE) in a case on interstate commerce vs state environmental / safety law, and Liberal Larry doesn't give a gently caress that John Paul Stevens is a gay-loving fetus-eating firebrand with a copy of his dissent on Citizens United v. FEC in print form as the wallpaper of his in-home orgy room.
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Aug 12, 2016 14:49
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All the recent comics poking fun with 3rd Amendment People has me realizing that I know very little about the edge cases of my 3A rights. Can I refuse the local cops who want to watch a neighbor using my house as a staging point? Can I refuse non-personnel requests like the cops or (for some imaginary reason) federal military wanting to put a camera up in my yard to watch the Syrian refugee across the street? What, if any, are the points of contention over 3A?
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Aug 12, 2016 15:26
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There is a very real slippery slope wherein the police is essentially able to confiscate physical bills belonging to you with literally no means of recourse, even in the absence of an indictment or after acquittal.
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Aug 12, 2016 18:53
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I let my thinking accidentally drift toward seizure, but this is interesting regardless.
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Aug 12, 2016 23:50
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EwokEntourage posted:Gerrymandering on the basis of political belief isn't barred. It probably should be, and it might one day be barred, but it currently isn't AFAIK. This is because gerrymandering doesn't actually stop you from exercising for your first amendment rights. you can still vote, you can still express political opinions, you can still join political parties, etc. That plus obvious intent for voting to be covered by other amendments, and that targeting on political beliefs is usually targeting based on race in actuality. Probably isn't a 14th amendment privacy theory that would remotely stand up; otherwise we'd conceivably be able to have EU-style Right to be Forgotten in the States.
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Aug 16, 2016 22:02
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Gyges posted:They would have had a much better chance at winning if they asked for info based on party affiliation or ideology. There may also be a burden to prove that race isn't a factor in determining someone's Party Affiliation Index, but frankly there's probably enough of a link between poorer urban areas and race that it wouldn't be necessary for the purposes of sufficiently blocking access to voting. fake edit: Hell, one of the big three (four now?) marketing data companies could probably guess your vote with a hilarious margin of certainty based on smartphone and web use. It just seems weird someone looked specifically for data on race and not a more direct "What's this person's vote?" heatmap built by a large marketing database firm. Had that been done, we may not have seen the respective recent federal circuit decision rule against blatant voter suppression in the redistricting. Its like someone was (a) an idiot or (b) intentionally inviting trouble. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Aug 16, 2016 |
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Aug 16, 2016 22:03
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I need a simple, very strong reason why cutting the map into equal districts for the presidential general election is a bad idea, and I need another very good reason why forcing states to use convex-optimized district maps is a bad idea before I release any credence or recognition of merit to gerrymandered status quo with incredibly odd shapes that are clearly designed with the express intent of loving with the legitimacy of democratic process.
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Aug 17, 2016 15:17
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Mors Rattus posted:Define equal - size and shape? Population? If population, as long as it is contiguous and equal pop, how do you stop gerrymandering by political views? If size and shape, how is it fair? Seeing as this is the SCOTUS thread, I am going to go with the parameter mandated in Wesberry v. Sanders.
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Aug 17, 2016 15:47
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"I read a TL;DR on the subject on Reddit and didn't really have a clue how it actually works, so I would like to, after the fact, state that I was only concerned with the facts I read and not anything that has anything to do with reality." Dude, the practice of law is about the practice of law. The value of lawyers and subject matter experts is that they actually know the real function of a thing. It is absolutely fair to criticize a pedagogical approach that wants to focus only on "how the law is written." Stare decisis is critical.
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Aug 17, 2016 16:48
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Someone posted some recommended reading in this thread some time back (or maybe it was a USPOL OP?) and I've only gone through three of them so far and am presently halfway through The Oath, but I'd like to think I've touched on enough constitutional law literature so far to realize, "Holy poo poo this is an entire goddamn legal industry unto itself." I now try very hard to question myself when I read a ruling or ordinance/law, looking for ways in which I may be assuming too much on how it is enforced or executed. Speaking as someone with a lot of compliance experience in information security, I can say that the question of actual enforcement is critically important in IT, so it probably is a huge subject in constitutional law as well -- one of innumerable huge subjects. fake edit: I post this because I don't think you are questioning yourself in the same way.
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Aug 17, 2016 16:57
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evilweasel posted:The split between urban and rural voters (strongly democratic vs more weak republican) means cities act as a natural gerrymander and many mathematical models will aggravate that gerrymander such that the selection of criteria for the formula actually is just the same issue once removed. Would it still be as bad, however, as "this fish-hook-attached-to-a-firetruck-with-the-ladder-extended is my district" gerrymandering? Cities kinda lumping together liberal voters and large swaths of countryside lumping together conservative voters still sounds very representative as there isn't an intentionally, precisely-tuned border that puts safe-but-close wins in some districts and large losses in others.
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Aug 17, 2016 18:15
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Rephrased: we see lots of fish-hook-shapes gerrymanders as red states and blue states try to put wealthy white suburban doughnuts around cities into districts, and we see large pizza slices or meandering rivers where someone's trying to negate the blue weight of a city itself. Having the areas simply lumped separately without intentional, far-reaching blending borders seems more representative as it wouldn't be artificially imposing blended suburbanite/urbanite near-contest-but-safe districts that are the foundation of rigging by gerrymandering. e: I am using lots of hyphens because I don't know what you actually call these things and am an amateur / outsider on this poo poo double edit: am I being clear with my experimental vision? A state with a big city in the center and lots of conservative environs (let's take my state, Georgia) would have some very strong blue urban districts in the city area and lots of strong red districts elsewhere. The representatives in this situation would more precisely match the actual balance of blue and red voters as opposed to the VERY out-of-balance 10 red versus 4 blue status quo in federal House reps and two red senators. The state, by population, is much closer to 50-50 these days. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 18:20
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Some substance: Metro Atanta and congressional districts: http://northgapolitics.com/pdf/2012congressiona-metro.pdf Districts 5 and 13, as an fyi, are pretty loving brazenly blatantly designed to put the undesirables into one big lump while 11 neutralizes the blue weight of the central corridor of Cobb (Marietta) that's become steadily more black in the last half century with whites moving eastward toward East Cobb, producing a red win. This an other awkward nonconvex peninsulas appear to artificially bridge economic/color zones (I don't know what else to call it) if you have an eye for property values and the boroughs of Atlanta. Thing about Atlanta is that you don't need very large spatial juts to have a massive change in home value / race composition. I know other states have much longer, thinner racially-gerrymandered districts; 11 isn't the only obvious problem on this map. Favoring county lines, for example, instead of going for a maximally-convex oval or circle may look innocent. When you consider the history of counties like Gwinnett (lower half of 7) and the largely-successful spectrum of efforts to maintain a white-only community from Driving While Black effects (if you are black, you avoid Gwinnett, I'm not overstating this) to HOA harassment to, cripes, everything you can imagine, however, it looses its appearance of innocence fast. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/GA Note that all four DNC reps are black. Where I would qualify the red zones as somewhat mixed in the above map, the blue ones are strictly segregated and heavily black and poor. Its actually making me feel queasy to see this and realize it isn't a thought experiment, but real life. Someone made these districts for real, and that person/entity is getting away with it.
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Aug 17, 2016 18:45
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2012 general was 53% red and 45% blue. 10-4 representation in the House is horseshit. Creating most-convex districts by population would eliminate the edge cases created by the GOP in Georgia to weaken the effect of Atlanta and possibly Savannah as well. Maybe we'd see something closer to 8-6. Who knows?
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Aug 17, 2016 18:49
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ulmont posted:The DNC is the Democratic National Committee governing body of the Democratic Party, and in Georgia has white members. You mean the Democratic members of the US House. I need to learn where I am using improper names --- yes. I know GOP is thrown around as kinda a catch-all for RNC, its members, and its voters. Is there a catchall for DNC, its members, and voters? Just "Democrats" is too much effort to type quickly, and saying "democrats" out loud isn't as fun as the codfish yawn that is pronouncing the sound of conservative party acronym "gop."
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Aug 17, 2016 20:16
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I'm pretty sure NC and Virginia ...yeah the shapes I'm referring to are everywhere -- unless you mean there's a district that actually looks like a fire truck and ladder.
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Aug 18, 2016 01:30
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Hold on, was this originally about tax exemption or the right to worship Kleenex and have a nice little meaningless nod of legitimacy from a tired [City Name Here] Federal Building employee with absolutely no bearing on your tax status? I think the goalposts have been moved.
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Aug 18, 2016 04:17
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Proportional representation also brings up the question of actually recognizing parties in the states -- am I right in my thinking that the union doesn't actually formally recognize parties as an entity? Phrased differently: to actually vote for proportional representation, you'd actually have to have a party on a ticket as opposed to a person, right? We don't actually vote for parties in the states?
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Aug 21, 2016 04:30
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I like Computer Parts constantly going back to this example of "The people democratically wanted this gerrymander!"
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Aug 21, 2016 07:03
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computer parts posted:I mean, it's a little weird to both say "we want to do things in a way that represents people" and "I don't give a gently caress about what the people being represented want". The goal is to eliminate power as a means by which to influence the vote, regardless of whether that power is in the hands of a party, private interest, or the people. If someone wants to support overwhelmingly-red state composition artificially, gently caress 'em. If someone wants to elect a specific race of representative, go for it, but you better not do so by loving with districts or you're no better than anyone else who uses it to accomplish your goals. Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Aug 21, 2016 |
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Aug 21, 2016 07:31
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As much as I feel that Orson Scott Card is a weirdo, I found a very good point in the Worthing Saga: whatever is the core of your society, keep is pure. If you want to utterly destabilize a nation, show it unequivocally that the one sacrosanct thing valued by everyone involved is corrupted. In that universe, it was a life-extending drug's fair distribution that was considered the rock of their society. In ours, it's the impartiality of the voting process: Saddam Hussein doesn't kill those who abstain at the voting booth in the US, there isn't a record of who voted when for who, there isn't a guy literally inside the voting booth paying you to vote a certain way. Yes, there are influences, but none so brazen as to be a complete killer of Joe Sixpack's ability to vote freely. In my eyes, representation isn't actually as important as an impartial, unaffected-by-fuckery-like-redistricting vote. Better representation will follow suit on the whole. I offer my earlier 10-4 GOP/Dem representation in the close-to-split state of Georgia. It would be chaotic to swap over to using a convex-optimized system for districting, and it would not produce good results in every case regarding legislatures that resemble the popular vote better, but when the status quo is "We tipped the scales as hard as they can possibly go to favor one side," an impartial solution will fix the majority of the issue.
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Aug 21, 2016 07:46
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computer parts posted:Yeah, maybe one election, and the winner of that election can be represented by a single person. Ugh, you are deliberately overlooking the proportional representation part. Come on. (I don't actually care any more, Heil Hitler.)
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Aug 25, 2016 14:31
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No chance red-state senators will try to hold out for the next eight years?
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Sep 7, 2016 15:08
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Mr. Nice! posted:I think it's appropriate that the american people have a say in how the scotus thread is shaped going forward, so we're going to hold off on any new threads until after the next president is sworn in. Unless, of course, its Clinton and then we'll make a new thread in the lame duck session. This is the just and true way forward.
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Sep 30, 2016 05:26
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Chocolate Chunk posted:It was bell curve poo poo. The sentencing hearings in Texas need proof of future likelihood of danger/violence for a death sentence to be given out. The psychologist that the DEFENSE lawyer brought in said that black men are statistically likely to commit crimes in the future. Eonwe, I'm sorry, but it turns out that I will be nuking your state after all.
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Oct 6, 2016 16:27
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