the sole reason that the secretary has given for adding that question is better enforcement of the voting rights act, and that was, in the words of the chief, contrived. so he s letting the case go back, but this was a very big move on his part and i do have to add that often, the chief sends successive signals so he can t be completely labeled but for today, probably the larger ruling is shutting the door completely, once and for all, on any challenges to partisan jerry manders. joan, thank you so much. so great to have you and thank you also for fighting for you know these are important cases with the protests for and against happy and unhappy on the steps of the supreme court is the way it works. thank you so much, joan. john, did you have one final thought? the fact that the decision on partisan gerrymandering was a partisan decision by 4, that makes it especially complicated. as partisanship and polarization
went on for several minutes. two things i want to close in on that with the chief. the chief has long had a personal project of trying to remove the judiciary from partisan jerry manders. he has not wanted to review that and today s decision completes that effort of his and i have to say, also made possible by the switch of justice kavanaugh for justice kennedy but then moving forward to the one where we did see some compromise on the part of the chief justice moving over with the four liberal justices in a very major decision having to do with the census, he conceded that for now, the rationale that commerce secretary wilbur ross has provided for adding that citizenship question simply does not scan. he said, we re going to defer to the commerce secretary to a point but we re not going to be naive here. we re not going to be naive when
we have seen it in community after community. the supreme court today is hearing arguments on redrawing congressional districts. jerry manders, the process of reshaping a district to favor one party over the other. the court heard a case last fall where it claim ed that the process favored republicans. the case being argued today was brought by republicans who say democrats intentionally altered a maryland district to favor democra democrats. pete williams is outside of the high court. why did the court taik on the maryland case? it accepted the challenge from the republican challengers from maryland to be a companion case with wisconsin. but here s the problem. the redistricting is always done
democrats are not going to be doing anything to pep. let s just be honest, angela, on this one. but the other factor of this is they need to keep the government funded. they need to pass some kind of stop gap, continuing resolution, whatever you want to call it, funding bill by the end of the week. you know how the hill works. can they do both things at once? i think it s nearly impossible. kate, you said earlier in the broadcast that this bill is still being workshopped. if they re still negotiating legislative text, members are not going to have an opportunity to review this bill before it can even go to the floor, not to mention preventing yet another government shutdown. thanks, gerrymandering, that is what happens when you redistrict by very conservative, draw very conservative republican districts. everybody gerrymanders what d you say? i said everybody jerry manders. it s a problem on both sides. i appreciate you chiming in right there, amanda, but i think the issu
a there s a correction that needs to be made because the delegation right now is so republican they believe this fair district law will bring it closer to and they think they can file a lawsuit, right, and then let a court order forcing a redrawing? democrats will go to state court. republicans will try to get a precleared in federal court. it s all going to be with the is the actual breakdown, 241-93. what s the republican, what s the sort of real number going into election day that they ll have? well, there are more two real numbers. democrats might on a good scenario end up with four to five additional seats out of redistricting. but the next 20 seats they would need to take back the house and get to 218 get a lot harder through the process. it s kind of like if you look at america as a whole, americans are increasingly self-sorting themselves into the like-minded neighborhoods and precincts, so it becomes easier for jerry manders to redraw the map in one party s favor.