The California Supreme Court will not prevent Democrats from moving forward Thursday with a plan to redraw congressional districts.
Republicans in the Golden State had asked the state’s high court to step in and temporarily block the redistricting efforts, arguing that Democrats — who are racing to put the plan on the ballot later this year — had skirted a rule requiring state lawmakers to wait at least 30 days before passing newly introduced legislation.
But in a ruling late Wednesday, the court declined to act, writing that the Republican state lawmakers who filed the suit had “failed to meet their burden of establishing a basis for relief at this time.”
All these first past the post countries have the same problem, that the only people who could change the broken system are the people who benefit most from its brokenness. This suggests it’s a mistake to put the management of electoral systems under the control of elected politicians. The alternative I guess would be some kind of independent, non-partisan body, but then there is always the question of who runs that body and how you prevent its capture by people with a specific political agenda. It’s always going to be an ongoing process of review and change, but giving management of the whole thing to the same parties that stand to be elected seems particularly risky.