Government

Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Maryland, North Carolina Redistrict Challenges

THE AFRO — For the second time in as many years, the Supreme Court heard arguments on partisan redistricting cases from Maryland and North Carolina Tuesday, but it remains unclear whether a constitutional standard for regulating the practice will be issued.

Published

5 years ago

April 2, 2019

Capital News Service

By Carolina Velloso

WASHINGTON – For the second time in as many years, the Supreme Court heard arguments on partisan redistricting cases from Maryland and North Carolina Tuesday, but it remains unclear whether a constitutional standard for regulating the practice will be issued.

North Carolina’s entire congressional map is being contested, which is currently made up of 10 Republicans and three Democrats despite the state being almost evenly split politically.

At issue in Maryland is the state’s 6th Congressional District. Democratic lawmakers are accused of moving Republican voters out of the district that covers most of the state’s rural Northwest and putting in large numbers of Democratic voters from the Washington suburbs in order to turn the district blue.

The justices seemed to be split evenly down philosophical lines, with the more liberal wing of the court encouraging the deliberation of a manageable standard to apply to future questions of gerrymandering, while the conservative wing seeming wary of intervening in a process left largely to the states.

The question, said Chief Justice John Roberts, is whether “any partisanship that has a consequence is impermissible.”

The conservative justices pointed out dozens of times that the Constitution does not require proportional representation — the idea that the percentage of seats awarded to any party should correspond with the percentage of votes it won in the states.

Michael A. Kimberly, attorney for the voters challenging Maryland’s 6th District, said that proportional consideration should be considered when debating a possible constitutional standard. He argued that “it is a legitimate state interest to pursue proportional representation in redistricting.”

Justice Samuel Alito wondered whether “the First Amendment might require or even tolerate the regulation of speech, and in this instance, the speech is the votes, for the purpose of providing a proportional representation of viewpoints.”

The justices repeatedly asked counsel for the appellees for a test that would appropriately determine which cases of gerrymandering were so extremely partisan that they crossed a constitutional line.

The conservative justices, however, did not seem to find a suitable measure that could determine when an innately political process became too political.

“Is another way…of putting the test: I know it when I see it?” Justice Neil Gorsuch asked derisively.

The court’s liberal justices pushed back, saying the problem of extreme partisan gerrymandering had gotten out of control and seemed willing to conceive of some sort of regulatory measure.

Justice Elena Kagan characterized “the court leaving this all to professional politicians who have an interest in redistricting according to their own partisan interests” as “dramatically wrong.”

Another concern expressed by the conservative justices was the possibility that the judicial branch would essentially become the arbiter of elections should the court get involved in setting a standard for redistricting.

The gerrymandering of Maryland’s 6th District, which was at issue in Lamone v. Benisek, was unique in that the map in question had been put to a referendum and was approved by 64 percent of voters.

Gorsuch still seemed hesitant to judicially intervene.

“So, in effect, you are asking the court, no matter how good the referendum might be, no matter how much the people themselves might approve these lines, this court has to tell them it — it’s unconstitutional?” Gorsuch asked counsel for the appellees.

Justice Stephen Breyer proposed a standard that would only catch the “extreme outliers,” so that not every single election would be judicially contested.

“What I’m trying to do is to figure out if there’s a way to catch real outliers,” he said, so that it would not “lead to every election contested and throw it all to the judges instead of the people.“

Breyer said he considers a scenario where a party wins a majority of the statewide vote but the minority party wins two-thirds of the state’s congressional seats to be “pretty extreme.”

Breyer thus proposed a mathematical standard whereby congressional election results would be re-examined if one party won a majority of the statewide vote but one-third or less of the congressional seats.

Steven M. Sullivan, the solicitor general of Maryland and representative of the appellant, seemed doubtful that a formula that would only catch extreme outliers for review is unrealistic.

“If you’re concerned about limiting the Court’s intervention to the extreme circumstance,” he said, “you would not be limiting it to extreme. You would be saying ‘get ready, Arkansas, Kansas, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee.’”

The court is expected to issue a decision on whether to keep the drawing of congressional district maps in the hands of the states by July.

This article originally appeared in The Afro.

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Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

Published

24 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

DA Pamela Price Stands by Mom Who Lost Son to Gun Violence in Oakland

Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018.

Published

5 days ago

April 22, 2024

Oakland Post

District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones

Publisher’s note: Last week, The Post published a photo showing Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price with Carol Jones, whose son, Patrick DeMarco Scott, was gunned down by an unknown assailant in 2018. The photo was too small for readers to see where the women were and what they were doing. Here we show Price and Jones as they complete a walk in memory of Scott. For more information and to contribute, please contact Carol Jones at 510-978-5517 at morefoundation.help@gmail.com. Courtesy photo.

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Bay Area

MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

Published

7 days ago

April 20, 2024

Oakland Post

Mayor London Breed

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Contact: Mayor’s Office of Communications, mayorspressoffice@sfgov.org

***PRESS RELEASE***

MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

HUD’s Continuum of Care grant will support the City’s range of critical services and programs, including permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and improved access to housing for survivors of domestic violence

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) program is designed to support local programs with the goal of ending homelessness for individuals, families, and Transitional Age Youth.

This funding supports the city’s ongoing efforts that have helped more than 15,000 people exit homelessness since 2018 through City programs including direct housing placements and relocation assistance. During that time San Francisco has also increased housing slots by 50%. San Francisco has the most permanent supportive housing of any county in the Bay Area, and the second most slots per capita than any city in the country.

“In San Francisco, we have worked aggressively to increase housing, shelter, and services for people experiencing homelessness, and we are building on these efforts every day,” said Mayor London Breed. “Every day our encampment outreach workers are going out to bring people indoors and our City workers are connecting people to housing and shelter. This support from the federal government is critical and will allow us to serve people in need and address encampments in our neighborhoods.”

The funding towards supporting the renewal projects in San Francisco include financial support for a mix of permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and transitional housing projects. In addition, the CoC award will support Coordinated Entry projects to centralize the City’s various efforts to address homelessness. This includes $2.1 million in funding for the Coordinated Entry system to improve access to housing for youth and survivors of domestic violence.

“This is a good day for San Francisco,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “HUD’s Continuum of Care funding provides vital resources to a diversity of programs and projects that have helped people to stabilize in our community. This funding is a testament to our work and the work of our nonprofit partners.”

The 2024 Continuum of Care Renewal Awards Include:

$42.2 million for 29 renewal PSH projects that serve chronically homeless, veterans, and youth
$318,000 for one new PSH project, which will provide 98 affordable homes for low-income seniors in the Richmond District
$445,00 for one Transitional Housing (TH) project serving youth
$6.4 million dedicated to four Rapid Rehousing (RRH) projects that serve families, youth, and survivors of domestic violence
$750,00 for two Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) projects
$2.1 million for three Coordinated Entry projects that serve families, youth, chronically homeless, and survivors of domestic violence

In addition, the 2023 CoC Planning Grant, now increased to $1,500,000 from $1,250,000, was also approved. Planning grants are submitted non-competitively and may be used to carry out the duties of operating a CoC, such as system evaluation and planning, monitoring, project and system performance improvement, providing trainings, partner collaborations, and conducting the PIT Count.

“We are very appreciative of HUD’s support in fulfilling our funding request for these critically important projects for San Francisco that help so many people trying to exit homelessness,” said Del Seymour, co-chair of the Local Homeless Coordinating Board. “This funding will make a real difference to people seeking services and support in their journey out of homelessness.”

In comparison to last year’s competition, this represents a $770,000 increase in funding, due to a new PSH project that was funded, an increase in some unit type Fair Market Rents (FMRs) and the larger CoC Planning Grant. In a year where more projects had to compete nationally against other communities, this represents a significant increase.

Nationally, HUD awarded nearly $3.16 billion for over 7,000 local homeless housing and service programs including new projects and renewals across the United States.