The History of Gerrymandering 

There have been several mentions of gerrymandering on this blog, but for some in-depth historical background, you can to to a New York Times retro report on the subject and learn its relationship to an attempt to ensure that minorities, especially black Americans, could be elected. 11 min, 36 sec, no transcript, but the video is accompanied by a long newspaper article. You can also turn on the subtitles.

The End of The U.S. Supreme Court 2017 Term

Terry Gross, the host of NPR’s Fresh Air, interviews Adam Liptak, the Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times about the various ways the First Amendment has played a part in the cases decided this term and the effect of the resignation of Justice Anthony Kennedy. 42 min., transcript available. Another long review (47 min., no transcript) of the 2017 term can be found on NPR’s On Point — « Kennedy Retiring, Gerrymandering, Travel Ban And More ». Dahlia Lithwick's podcast, Amicus, on Slate has another long look at end of the Court's term. 47 min., no transcript.

Gerrymandering in the Supreme Court

NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports on All Things Considered about a case (Gill v. Whitford) argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this week that is considered to be one of the most important of the year — about how to draw congressional district lines. When the lines are drawn to favor one political party, we speak of gerrymandering. The Court must decide if the way the State of Wisconsin drew the lines recently was so partisan that it was unconstitutional. 5 min, 8 sec, transcript available.
You can hear the oral arguments here. 58 min, transcript available under the recording.

Civics 101

New Hampshire Public Radio began a podcast last January called Civics 101 - a refresher course on some of the basics of American democracy. You can find the list of topics (52 so far) here. Episodes include U.S. voting systems, federal grand juries, presidential pardons, church and state, how a bill becomes a law, gerrymandering About 12 min, no transcripts.
The site also has something called « extra credit » with supplementary information about the topics in the podcasts and even quizzes about the topics covered.

The End of the U.S. Supreme Court OT 2016

The end of June means the end of the U.S. Supreme Court term which traditionally is when the decisions on hard cases, left to the last, are announced. This year, because the Court had only 8 justices for most of the term, not as many controversial cases were heard.

If you want to hear the results for the cases we have talked about in this blog --

You can find the decision in the Slants case  here  (previously presented here and here), The Court held the group could use the name the Slants.

You can find the answer to the question asked in Trinity Lutheran - can the state of Missouri refuse to help a Lutheran preschool rubberize its playground - here. No it can't.

You can hear the result of the shot across the border case here. The Court said it was wrong to grant the border patrol agent qualified immunity from suit and sent the case back to a lower court.

Another decision of interest is about a citizenship rule which distinguished between unmarried mothers and unmarried fathers who had to reside for much longer before being eligible to transmit their citizenship.

Coming up next term, with a full complement of justices, are cases about President Trump's travel ban,  whether a baker can refuse to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, and gerrymandering.