Redistricting by Judge, part 2
Messin' with incumbents!
I had a few moments to put pen to paper on the districts as drawn by Judge Karen Schreier. There are some incumbents who aren't going to like this. What incumbents are going to be in the districts as written by "The Honorable?"
District 21 Senate - Vacant
District 26 Senate - Jule Bartling & John Koskan
District 27 Senate - Theresa Two Bulls
District 21 House - Tom Deadrick & Cooper Garnos
District 26a House - Barry Jensen & Paul Valandra
District 26b House - Tom Glover
District 27 House - Jim Bradford and Vacant
So, if this goes through, we'll see Koskan and Bartling head to head, and Barry Jensen against Paul Valandra. Anyone care to handicap those races?
Regarding the comments appearing under this post - To Anonymous (#2) - Hold your horsies there pardner.. When I referred to Judge Schreier as "The Honorable" it was not meant in a derogatory or sarcastic manner at at all. My apologies to anyone who took it that I was slamming the judge. I was just using it as another way to casually refer to her, and not to have to say "Judge" again in the same paragraph.
District 21 Senate - Vacant
District 26 Senate - Jule Bartling & John Koskan
District 27 Senate - Theresa Two Bulls
District 21 House - Tom Deadrick & Cooper Garnos
District 26a House - Barry Jensen & Paul Valandra
District 26b House - Tom Glover
District 27 House - Jim Bradford and Vacant
So, if this goes through, we'll see Koskan and Bartling head to head, and Barry Jensen against Paul Valandra. Anyone care to handicap those races?
Regarding the comments appearing under this post - To Anonymous (#2) - Hold your horsies there pardner.. When I referred to Judge Schreier as "The Honorable" it was not meant in a derogatory or sarcastic manner at at all. My apologies to anyone who took it that I was slamming the judge. I was just using it as another way to casually refer to her, and not to have to say "Judge" again in the same paragraph.
Comments
Knowing both Koskan and Bartling, Koskan will not be a senator after the next election. Jensen is also in trouble for the House. He should be thinking about the senate. He'd have a better shot at keeping the seat republican than Koskan.
With two House incumbents in 21, the GOP should be able to hold the senate seat, but could easily lose the vacant house seat.
It is too bad liberal Federal Judges don't know that it is not their job to legislate from the bench.
I could say that it's too bad that conservative South Dakotans don't know that Indians get to be in the Legislature too, which would be at about the same level as the ill-informed twaddle I just quoted, so we'll skip that. Let's go to the long history behind the judge's action, including legislative action by the US Congress (or is it wrong for them to pass bills you don't like?), actions by the 8th Circuit and Supreme Court (you should be happy that the judge is following precedent), plenty of warnings that the districts would be struck down, and chances for the state to redraw the districts.
As long as you have a policy that allows legislators to gerrymander districts (which SD, like most but not all states, does), you will have problems if you live in a state (like SD) where such processes have been used to limit voting/representation of a minority. I know that its crazy; you can gerrymander districts to favor Republicans but not to discriminate Indians. Given registration numbers in SD, that is with the majority of Indians registering as Democrats, sometimes when you do the first (favor Republicans) courts are going to assume that you're guilty of the second (discrimination). Learn to deal with it.
You don't have to like the voting rights act but at least recognize that the judge is implementing the law, not writing it. The Republican appointed conservative judges of the SD Supreme Court backed up the lady, by the way.
Call me crazy but I agree with Arnold on the need
to bring in some non-partisanship in the redistricting process (Anold *gasp* wants to use judges. He must be a RINO). Realistically, what does this change mean: that Democrats could win another Senate and another House seat? That'll change things.
Finally, SD War College: the "The Honorable?" slam. You've been in politics long enough to know that's a cheap shot. You ought to be better than that (you don't have to be better than that, but you ought to be)
If I intended it as a slam, I would have taken another poke or two. Who am I to criticize anyway. She went to law school, I chose not to.
Don't apologize for saying what needs to be said and what everyone already knows. The fact is that the ACLU and the Judge perverted the act with this decision. Like it or not, the Judge, by fiat, legislated South Dakota's legislative district boundaries. Our liberal friends may not agree with the process of re-districting, but that is the way our system was designed in this nation. The most notable example of liberal disillusionment with the re-districting process is the democrats from Texas hiding in Oklahoma. Liberals just want liberal judges to draw the boundaries for any potential victim group they can dream up. That's gerrymandering!
Her "judgment" has also produced other patently ridiculous voting rights decisions and the state of south dakota is paying the ACLU's terroristic legal fees.
The recent "decision" is just another example of liberal democrats using the courts to socially engineer what they can't convince the taxpayers to either initiate or legislate.