Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley said on "America's Newsroom" Friday that the Democrats cannot claim to be "protecting democracy" while courts throw out their gerrymandered congressional maps. Turley said that in New York and other states, judges are essentially denying Democrats' attempts to "rig elections."
JONATHAN TURLEY: Well, what's fascinating is that districts like the one for House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, who has spoken against gerrymandering, is very much like the original gerrymandered district. It looks like a salamander. It is so contorted, and what the Republicans were complaining about is that the Democrats were trying to basically reduce their advantage in the state to just five districts to reduce the number of Republicans going to Congress.
A judge earlier said this was raw partisan gerrymandering. Now this appellate court has agreed. Now, keep in mind that recently a Maryland judge also struck down a Democratic map, saying it was unconstitutional and raw partisan gerrymandering. And then in Wisconsin, a court went with a Republican map over the Democratic map because of similar concerns. This is making it more and more difficult for the Democrats to run on this ‘Protect Democracy’ slogan when courts are saying that they're trying to rig elections.