Wisconsin has one of the most egregiously gerrymandered state legislative maps in the country. In 2022 Republicans captured 64% of Wisconsin's Assembly seats even though they won only 47% of the vote.
In April Democrats won an election that gave them a majority on the state Supreme Court, and they have now filed petitions to challenge the gerrymandered lines drawn by the legislature and approved by the former court. One of the court's Republican justices is pretty upset about it:
The outcome of a challenge to Wisconsin’s legislative maps is “predetermined” by the court’s liberal majority, conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote in a dissent issued Tuesday.
....On Tuesday, the court ordered the Wisconsin Elections Commission to file responses to the petitions by Aug. 22. In a dissenting opinion, Bradley wrote that “everyone knows” the court’s four liberal justices will grant the petitions.
This displays some serious chutzpah. Bradley is certainly right that this is a purely partisan case, but she didn't seem to mind that back when the court had a Republican majority and it was equally predetermined that they'd rubber stamp the transparently one-sided map drawn by Republicans.
If you adopt brutally partisan tactics when your party has control, you can hardly feign outrage when the other party does the same. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Difference is Dems recognize and accept the tit-for-tat nature of this episode. Many Republicans really believe that they did nothing wrong and that Dems are just being evil for no good reason.
Actual difference is that Republican judges did not talk about their position on the case before it came in front of them.
Judges are not supposed to prejudge cases. That is why judges in confirmation hearings always refuse to talk about cases that may chime before them.
She was campaigning for election. How are you supposed to convince voters to vote for you without telling them what you are going to do if you are elected?
It is not obvious to me that it makes sense for judges to be elected, but if they are, then you should expect them to say what they are going to do (assuming they are honest).
Um, and that makes a difference here, how? Everyone knows how the R’s are going to vote, these are elected positions, if it’s not explicitly said, it’s certainly implicitly known.
Alito just recently expressed a clear opinion on whether Congress can impose a legally binding code of ethics on SCOTUS. It seems likely that issue will be litigated the next time the Democrats get full control of the legislative process and pass said code.
IOW, she completely rejected the opinion of the highest judge in the land when he said, " “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges."
Most state SC judges are elected.
Well, yeah. But that's not the point. She betrays the notional judicial unbiased integrity.
You forget Kevin; they are good incarnate; everyone else is evil. They were doing God's work; we are doing the devil's.
Kevin, you have apparently never watched professional wrestling. The bad guy--the "heel"--uses every dirty trick in the book. But when his opponent gains any advantage, the heel cries foul.
Same thing.
+1
IOKIYAR
Nearly everything about republicans screams bad faith.
Her "Democrat Party" says everything anyone needs to know.
Yes, this. Thank you, wingers, for giving us such an easy tell.
Except it isn't tit for tat, and she isn't getting what she dished out.
If it were, we would have a veto-proof majority regardless of the popular vote. Instead, we want the legislative allotments to reasonably resemble the popular vote.
It really is true -- if you're used to privilege, fairness feels like tyranny.
Well said.
This is the important point; Bradley is defending an undemocratic result as right and proper. The idea that a representative government should be representative doesn't even occur to her.
...if you're used to privilege, fairness feels like tyranny.
***********
The above phrase is so good I just had to see it again...
But Kevin's phrase is incorrect...What's good for the Goose is Good for the Gander...Not so in the pursuit of Justice.
What's good for the Goose is Good for the Gander is bad for the United
States and the body politic...there needs to be true Justice reform, especially on the bench...lots of Judges, (federal judges, the only available mechanism) need to be impeached. And since this would not probably be successful...then impeached and shamed again.
The Romans never lived up to their Ideal...but at least they had it:
Fīat iūstitia ruat cælum is a Latin legal phrase, meaning "Let justice be done though the heavens fall." The maxim signifies the belief that justice must be realized regardless of consequences.
Best Wishes, Traveller
Interestingly enough, reports indicate that the phrase was originally used by a Roman magistrate to justify a judgment that even the magistrate recognized was incredibly harsh but which the law required.
"If you adopt brutally partisan tactics when your party has control, you can hardly feign outrage when the other party does the same. "
This suggests that what the Democrats are doing is "brutally partisan", but it is not. They are petitioning the court to allow new maps, not to implement maps that give them a virtual supermajority with a minority of votes.
In short, the Dems are not doing "the same" but doing the right thing to give voters their voice back after they were muted by brutally partisan tactics.
They will, if they haven’t already in some places.
In California, we used to have gerrymandered districts, but it was a weird gerrymander that basically kept some R’s in place, enough to have that one vote to gum everything up. We changed the process of redistricting, and a couple of other things, and that went away.
The reason it was that way wasn’t for political power, rather it was to protect the incumbents. A different king of corruption, but corruption nonetheless.
What happened with the gerrymanders in places like Wisconsin was terrible timing and the confluence of technology with the willingness to toss whatever ethics were left in a few rotten souls. We’ll, actually a lot of souls because I’m sure this isn’t the best keep secret there.
In our justice system we’ve seen courts and judges, even the Supreme Court, compromised by wealth, politics, religion and cockamamie ideas such as “originalism.” As seen in Trump’s and other billionaires behavior, the wealthy with access to unlimited and at times unethical legal support seem to believe that laws don’t apply for them. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, republicans seem to believe that only they get to make the rules.
I’m not sure democracy can survive the assault.
That only they should make the rules and that laws only vaguely apply to them is something conservatives have always believed since the dawn of time, what's different is when they start to work on it as an ideology.
Woke alert: "What's good for the goose is good for the gander" is unacceptable in America! Whatever next: Approve trans geese?????
Lol!
"If you adopt brutally partisan tactics when your party has control, you can hardly feign outrage when the other party does the same."
Oh, but they can and they will. Republicans are worse than children.
The astonishing lack of self awareness conservatives display in all things is one of the great natural wonders of the Earth.
It's why Earth is such a tourist trap for flying saucers, which so often crash right into the desert while gaping at wingnuts.
"It's only wrong when THEY do it!"
So, what's inconsistent about that? Seems perfectly logical. If you're an ethics-free, all in it for himself kind of guy. Which, these days describes most Republicans.
I want to say thay its wrong to assert that promoting democracy is now a partisan Democratic tactic.....I'd like to scold Kevin for adopting the Fox/GOP framing of the topic.....but perhaps democracy is now just a partisan thing.
Republican judges approved obviously and grossly gerrymandered maps. They broke their oaths of office and disobeyed the law to do so.
Now Democrat judges are likely to throw out the same obviously and grossly gerrymandered maps. Doing so applies and follows the law.
These are not comparable things. They are not tit for tat.
Do not support the Republican framing: it is not partisan to apply and obey the law, even if there is another partisan group that won't do it.
Most salient comment on this thread. (not the only one to make this point, hat tips where appropriate)