Page 29 - The Economist Asia January 2018

The Economist January 27th 2018
Gerrymandering United States 29
Goofy’s gonna get it

WASHINGTON, DC
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Courtinvalidates the state’s congressional map
N 2010 Republicans won majorities in Warshaw, a political scientist at MIT,
Iboth houses ofPennsylvania’s legisla- argues that Republicans hold three or
ture, which gave them control ofthe fourmore seats than they would have
state’s decennial redistrictingprocess. without such an extreme partisan ger-
Like politicians everywhere, they drew rymander.
districts to benefit themselves; like chil- The plaintiffs, led by the League of
dren left alone with a boxofcookies, Women Voters, contended that the map
they went a bit too far. On January 22nd violated the state constitution’s guaran-
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court held that tees offree expression and association.
the state’s congressional map “clearly, The court agreed. The rulingimproves
plainly and palpably” violates the state Democrats’ already rosy chances of
constitution, and gave legislators until pickingup the 24 seats they need to take
February 9th to redraw it. The judges control ofthe House.
warned that iflawmakers could not Some contend it also provides a blue-
come up with a map that the (Democrat- print forfuture gerrymanderingchal-
Drug trafficking ic) governorapproved, the court would lenges. Unlike cases in Maryland and
The powder room draw its own. Wisconsin, underconsideration before
That the map benefits Republicans is
the United States Supreme Court, Penn-
beyond question. In 2012 Republicans sylvania’s plaintiffs relied on the state
won 13 ofthe state’s18 congressional constitution. That removes it from the
seats despite winningjust 49% ofthe purview ofthe conservative-leaning
statewide vote. They maintained this federal Supreme Court; though the state’s
LOS ANGELES share in the next two elections with 55% Republicans vowed to appeal there, it is
Fentanyl is both lethal and almost and 54% ofthe vote. difficult to see the grounds on which the
impossible to keep outofthe country
The freakishly shaped districts— the Court could review the case.
N A cavernous warehouse near Los An- 7th won the nickname “Goofy kicking Yet Democrats hopingto copy what
IgelesInternational Airport, United States Donald Duck”—freely cross city and happened in Pennsylvania elsewhere
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers county lines, dividingcommunities and may be disappointed. Unlike most states,
process six packages per second. As card- packingDemocrats into five seats that it elects partisan justices. Since 2015
board boxes and manilla envelopes from they win by large margins, while spread- Democrats have held a 5-2 majority on
around the world stream through x-ray ingthe rest ofthe Democratic vote as the state Supreme Court (this week’s
machines, officers with handguns tucked thinly as possible everywhere else (a decision was 4-3). Few otherstates offer
into their waistbands scan screens for practice known as cracking). Christopher such favourable grounds.
anomalies in the images. Last summeroffi-
cersatthe warehouse found three live King
Cobras coiled into aerated potato-crisp American officials hope will stem the flow ly produced in China.
cans. On a recent morning they found into the country. The drug’spotencymeansitcan be con-
nothing creepy or crawly, only bags full of The drug has long been used legally to cealed in packets and boxes small enough
dried orange skins and Chinese meat treat cancer pain, but in recent years has to be sent by international mail. Fentanyl
snacks disguised as candy. Mostly, how- flooded into America’s black market, reaches America in two main ways. Some
ever, they found drugs: counterfeit Viagra, where it is found mixed into other drugs, is posted to Mexico, where traffickers usu-
vials of steroids and small plastic bags full punched into pills that resemble prescrip- ally mix it with other substances, such as
ofunidentified white powders. tion painkillers or, less commonly, sold on heroin and cocaine, before sneaking it
Officers are particularly worried about its own. Fentanyl is very profitable for across the border and into the hands of
one drug: fentanyl. Kevin McAleenan, the drug-traffickers: a recentDrugEnforcement drug-dealers. In other cases, pure fentanyl
acting commissioner of CBP, says the drug Administration report estimated that a ki- is sent directly to America, where at some
is the agency’s priority. A synthetic opioid, logram of heroin sells for $80,000 on the point it must pass through a facility like the
fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin street, whereas a kilogram of fentanyl can one in Los Angeles.
and 100 timesmore potentthan morphine. command between $1.28m and $1.92m. So Between October 2016 and September
The drug is largely behind the increase in traffickers are highly motivated to push it 7th 2017, CBP seized 299lb (136kg) of fenta-
America’s drug-overdose death rate. Be- on theircustomers. Consumersoften use it nyl sent through international postal ser-
tween June 2015 and June 2017, overdose inadvertently, unaware that it has been vices and private carriers such as FedEx,
deaths rose by 34%. During the same per- stirred into their heroin or that their illicit UPS and DHL. During the same period the
iod, fatalities linked to synthetic opioids OxyContin pills are not what they seem. agency seized 494lb of the drug on Ameri-
other than methadone, a category domin- The Los Angeles warehouse represents ca’s land borderwith Mexico, but it was of-
ated by fentanyl, more than tripled from one of the front lines in the government’s ten mixed with othersubstances. The aver-
7,551 to 23,995. On January 10th President fight to keep illicit fentanyl out of the coun- age purity of fentanyl shipped into
Donald Trump signed the INTERDICT Act, try. “We and the warehouse at JFK (New America by post is over 90%, compared
alawthatwill provide CBPwith $9m in ex- York’s international airport), we’re ground with 7% forthatseized on the land borders.
tra funding to look for fentanyl. On Febru- zero,” says Rolando Knight, a veteran CBP A visit to the Los Angeles warehouse
ary1st China will begin restrictingtwo pre- officer who supervises the Los Angeles op- underscores just how manual the process
cursors used to synthesise fentanyl, which eration. In its illegal form, fentanyl is most- is. On a recent morning, an officer at the 1