Thread by @jedshug

New short paper:
Countering Gerrymandered Courts: Comment on Miriam Seifter’s "Countermajoritarian Legislatures"
(forthcoming Columbia L.Rev.Online)
@MiriamSeifter's article is increasingly crucial on election law & extreme gerrymandering.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

@MiriamSeifter rightly calls out mistaken assumptions that state legislatures are the democratic branch vs. governors and courts, in an era of extreme gerrymandering vs. state-wide elections.
But the past & future of state judicial elections are also districting & gerrymandering.

3/ As my book The People's Courts showed, state judicial elections emerged in the mid-19th c. with local districts, including state supreme court districts often designed to benefit rural areas or benefit one party.
Many state courts today have the same problem & could get worse.

4/ Going into the 2024 election, we should worry about state courts' role in election rules before election day... and in litigation afterwards.
Some partisans are already pushing to re-district state courts.
More reason for federal legislation & supervision.

Solutions:
1) Curtail the independent state legislature & political question doctrines.
2) Don't exempt state judges from one-person/one vote.
3) No partisan gerrymandering for judges
4) The most manageable: a bright-line rule against all state supreme court districting.