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Gerrymandering


Legaltitan

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Since the Democrats took back the House, I feel like I can get away now with whining about this.   Here is how bad it is in North Carolina:   1,747,420 Democratic Votes  = 3 congre

I'd say gerrymandering should be illegal but ... it is, generally. The SCOTUS just has a problem with math and, perhaps rightly, worries about a hard and fast rule.   Instead, I'll argue tha

@9 Nines has discussed this before. The Republican strategy is to gin up just enough support during these types of elections that it is not a full on assault on their power. If people get pissed off e

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Look what happened in Pennsylvania, when they just used some common fucking sense to draw the district lines. That wasn't rigged for the Democrats, it was just de-rigged from ridiculous Republican gerrymandered districts, and now they have a sensible map that largely reflects the voters. Pennsylvania really should be the model for every state, and that goes for the ridiculously democratic gerymandered Maryland, and every other state.

 

I agree with Jamal that there is no simple formula or anything, and we don't really want SCOTUS up there drawing the maps, but they aught to be able to look at a map and tell if it is bullshit or not, and then tell the state to go back and try again.

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One might even argue that gerrymandering hurt Republicans, because the trick was to draw all the districts at about a +8 or so. Well in a semi-wave election, like this one, that kind of ended up fucking them. If it had been a slightly bigger wave election for Dems, like even just a couple % points,  they might have flipped another 25 seats

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14 minutes ago, Legaltitan said:

One might even argue that gerrymandering hurt Republicans, because the trick was to draw all the districts at about a +8 or so. Well in a semi-wave election, like this one, that kind of ended up fucking them. If it had been a slightly bigger wave election for Dems, like even just a couple % points,  they might have flipped another 25 seats

@9 Nines has discussed this before. The Republican strategy is to gin up just enough support during these types of elections that it is not a full on assault on their power. If people get pissed off enough and that 8% turns into 9.5 (hypothetical) then the Republicans could theoretically get wiped off the map. 

 

Personally, and I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit, politics and law go hand in hand, or at least their true meaning. Both revolve around the highest truth. It’s why watching How to Make a Murderer is so interesting where it is obvious truth is not what is being sought from the prosecution. When you see numbers like the above for NC you know for a fact that the greatest good is not what the Republicans are seeking in that state. Politics should always be about good governance and the greatest amount of good for the most amount of people. Until we come back to that point we are dealing with a broken system on both fronts. 

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21 minutes ago, Downtown said:

With the census in 2020, winning the house was the single most important task in these mid-terms. It means Dems can re-draw the lines and fix the gerrymandering Republicans have created. 

 

Amendment 4 in Florida was the second most important for 2020. 

Almost, but not quite. It is state legislatures that draw the congressional districts. Luckily, the Democrats won 300+ seats in state legislatures this week. That was what really made the 2010 midterms so devastating. That was a true Republican wave, and they seized control of many state legislatures and governorships. Democrats built a good firewall this time. And even in states where they don't have majority in the legislature, they have more governors that can veto ridiculous maps.

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16 minutes ago, Legaltitan said:

Almost, but not quite. It is state legislatures that draw the congressional districts. Luckily, the Democrats won 300+ seats in state legislatures this week. That was what really made the 2010 midterms so devastating. That was a true Republican wave, and they seized control of many state legislatures and governorships. Democrats built a good firewall this time. And even in states where they don't have majority in the legislature, they have more governors that can veto ridiculous maps.

Correct, and it’s a bleak road to correct Republican Gerrymandering from 2010 State Legislatures,  but US Congress began the process to take the steps to insure non-partisan regulation on how the lines are drawn moving forward. 

 

Precedent was set this year that US Congress has the ability govern the re-districting process and with control of the house, can pave the way to push legislation further. 

 

https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/redistricting-reform-tracker-congressional-bills

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There should be a referendum on each state's ballot to appoint a funded and effective nonpartisan voter district authority.  They should have accountability to ensure their state's representatives mirror the electorate and provide the kind of transparency showed in the OP.

 

Potentially this voting authority should also be extended to managing the state's election's and remove this from partisan politics.  The idea that elections in some states were overseen by the candidates themselves (Georgia, Kansas) is a direct conflict of interest and diminishes the very integrity of the process.

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4 hours ago, Jamalisms said:

Tangent, but I find the SCOTUS' lack of expertise and potential illiteracy in matters of minutia concerning math, science, technology and the like to be a troubling matter of increasing importance in the modern age.

I second this.  And just the very overall broad concept that we now trust our party platform over the best consensus opinions of experts who have dedicated theirs lives to the study of a subject (damn elitists) is disheartening. We might have been too willing to take everything at face value that was fed to us by SCIENCE in years past, but politicians - realizing their agendas, meaning those of their donors, could be undercut by said scientists - have somehow managed to effectively portray our elitely educated ... source of national pride in say the NASA heyday.... as a bad thing.   Just another way we've reached deeper into the Judge prophecy.

 

image.png.241fdc54e418af9d95637124dd5985d3.png

 

 

4 hours ago, Legaltitan said:

Look what happened in Pennsylvania, when they just used some common fucking sense to draw the district lines. That wasn't rigged for the Democrats, it was just de-rigged from ridiculous Republican gerrymandered districts, and now they have a sensible map that largely reflects the voters. Pennsylvania really should be the model for every state, and that goes for the ridiculously democratic gerymandered Maryland, and every other state.

 

I agree with Jamal that there is no simple formula or anything, and we don't really want SCOTUS up there drawing the maps, but they aught to be able to look at a map and tell if it is bullshit or not, and then tell the state to go back and try again.

Upon, leaving office Obama stated he wanted to make the removal of gerrymandering a core focus of his post-presidency.  He's done a little but not to the extent I would have expected.  Colbert did a nice job highlighting the absurdity of mapped districts in his show.  Most voters simply aren't aware, probably 50% don't know what the word means.  So a real challenge to get any kind of real momentum in things like referendums and the like.  Too wonky for most.  Yet impact is overwhelming.

 

Would ideally see new districts drawn every Census, done by independent stat-type geeks.  (looking at you Nate Silver)  Really done by a computer model where you plug in info and Bam new districts.... available instantly on your Google Map app.  Wouldn't be much more than telling kids to cut up a pizza in the most equal slices but they have to go around the pepperoni and mushrooms so each slice get the same amount of toppings.  Or maybe ham and pineapple for Hawaii districts.

 

 

3 hours ago, Legaltitan said:

Almost, but not quite. It is state legislatures that draw the congressional districts. Luckily, the Democrats won 300+ seats in state legislatures this week. That was what really made the 2010 midterms so devastating. That was a true Republican wave, and they seized control of many state legislatures and governorships. Democrats built a good firewall this time. And even in states where they don't have majority in the legislature, they have more governors that can veto ridiculous maps.

Human nature all around says we are prone to take any advantage we can and loathe to give it up, even to the point of feeling that a field once heavily tilted in our favor is actually "fair" and re balancing it to make it an even playing field somehow not.  Nature of all gov't that those in power tend to consolidate it and by definition have the means (power) to keep it and increase it.  Not that many really truly benevolent kings out there.  

 

Almost more like a frat house where an incoming class gets hazed and then eventually as they move up the class ranks has to choose to not pass that hazing onto the following classes.  Accept the power and then not use it so all can improve for now and later. 

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4 hours ago, Legaltitan said:

Almost, but not quite. It is state legislatures that draw the congressional districts. Luckily, the Democrats won 300+ seats in state legislatures this week. That was what really made the 2010 midterms so devastating. That was a true Republican wave, and they seized control of many state legislatures and governorships. Democrats built a good firewall this time. And even in states where they don't have majority in the legislature, they have more governors that can veto ridiculous maps.

On the state level, the governor races were huge to break-up Republican super-majorities, but truthfully there still wasn't enough turnover for Dems to fight re-districting at a state legislature level in the problematic purple and red states. Our only real hope to end Gerrymandering is US Congress to step-up and put legislation in place that would insure reform happens fairly and with a separate entity mediating. 

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5 hours ago, IsntLifeFunny said:

@9 Nines has discussed this before. The Republican strategy is to gin up just enough support during these types of elections that it is not a full on assault on their power. If people get pissed off enough and that 8% turns into 9.5 (hypothetical) then the Republicans could theoretically get wiped off the map. 

 

Personally, and I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit, politics and law go hand in hand, or at least their true meaning. Both revolve around the highest truth. It’s why watching How to Make a Murderer is so interesting where it is obvious truth is not what is being sought from the prosecution. When you see numbers like the above for NC you know for a fact that the greatest good is not what the Republicans are seeking in that state. Politics should always be about good governance and the greatest amount of good for the most amount of people. Until we come back to that point we are dealing with a broken system on both fronts. 

This is off topic but you mentioned it. There isn't any question that Steve Avery committed that murder. 

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