General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThis will piss you off- Gerrymandering illustrated
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/11/republicans-gerrymandering-house-representatives-election-chart
AnnaLee
(1,038 posts)I don't fully appreciate the history here but it seems that the Democratic party has not been spending the same time and money at the state and local level as the Republicans. If so, it makes no sense that a party that old could be naive. I imagine this cannot be fixed until Democrats take a majority of all the government in the affected states. (Or the people/demographics change affiliation.)
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/10691213
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)Thanks for the o.p., nc. +1. Great illustration of where we're at, currently. Repug thieves.
PA voted 2.74 million for Dem Congress vs. 2.67 mil for Repug Congress. We got 5 seats, they got 13.
Geoff R. Casavant
(2,381 posts)That's why state races are just as important.
If redistricting were limited by law to every ten years, and the lines were drawn by non-partisan panels of citizens, the House would be blue by a large margin.
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)What really bothers me is that they blatantly steal our government, and even when we catch the theft, we hear 'Too bad. They followed the rules.'
12AngryBorneoWildmen
(536 posts)have purchased nearly all state legislatures and judgeships. Especially Wisconsin.
barbtries
(28,789 posts)that things would be fucked up.
i'm in NC, and this makes me feel somewhat better, because i was thinking i must be totally out of touch in this state. i thought there would be buyers' remorse by 2012 and the dems would clean up, and i was wrong, wrong, wrong.
but not as wrong as i was thinking i had been. gerrymandering like this is not supposed to be legal.
gawd i hate republicans. i would move out of this state now if i could. i told my boss if she wanted to take the business back to Philly where she used to live i was all for it. she said no way, we need to turn this place blue. clearly an uphill climb. but then once the republicans have full power i expect they will pull so much crap that it might turn out better for the dems than i am imagining at this moment.
clearly i have no crystal ball.
geardaddy
(24,926 posts)kenfrequed
(7,865 posts)Her district looks like some exurbian snake. It is ridiculous.
phiddle
(789 posts)young_at_heart
(3,767 posts)Asheville is in the mountains but is now part of the Piedmont thanks to gerrymandering. Patrick McHenry is so horrible I can't bring myself to acknowledge him!
ProfessionalLeftist
(4,982 posts)Part of it is hooked into CD 1 - damn near in VA. It's fucked UP.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)In New Jersey, Pallone was the Democrat that won by the lowest margin.
5 out of 6 Republicans won by a smaller margin than Pallone.
A 5% swing would put most of the Republicans out of office.
marble falls
(57,080 posts)BlueMan Votes
(903 posts)I live in a suburban/exurban area west of Chicago, and with the new redistricting- when i make a 5-minute drive to the grocery store, i pass thru 3 different congressional districts. I missed being in Tammy Duckworth's district by two blocks. My congressman is a teabagger- Randy Hultgren. it sucks.
dotymed
(5,610 posts)that Holder was kept as AG...especially without marching orders to clean this shit up. I don't know if Holder is instructed by Obama to pursue and not pursue certain violations (like pot) but he should be doing his boss' prorities....
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)did you say Holder is staying on?
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)People don't realize the effect that gerrymandering creates. It absolutely is an affront to democracy.
dbackjon
(6,578 posts)sofa king
(10,857 posts)Republican control of the House through gerrymandering will have its sociological consequences. It is going to ensure that the little guy continues to get screwed, and that in turn, sadly, is sure to work for Democrats in a very unfortunate way.
As working class jobs are eliminated in Republican-controlled rural communities, those reliably Republican people will gravitate toward higher population areas that offer menial jobs and better services, and they will convert or be canceled out by more sensible voters.
Or, sadly, the more intransigent ones will remain behind, sink into life-threatening poverty, and die sooner than they should.
Meanwhile, better educated people who are adept at technology will spot the virtues of living and working from home in beautiful, underpopulated places with a choice of cheap foreclosed-on properties to acquire. So the movement or death of every Republican may wind up resulting in not only canceling out his own vote, but also creating a likely Democratic vote in that person's place.
Make no mistake that this is a human tragedy of enormous proportions, one foreseen by people on our side since at least the Reagan Era. I think we've already seen evidence of the Great Republican Die-off in this election, where statewide and nationwide races broke Democratic 3 to 1.
What I think that means is that for the next three or four elections, Republicans will be competitive in the House, but their avarice will have literally sucked the life from Republican voters, and the GOP's dried husk will soon be pressed between the pages of the history books. Their policies will begin to homogenize their own districts even before the next census is taken, and that in turn will begin to increase Democratic influence in the state legislatures where the next redistricting will take place. Eventually, all of their rigging will be unable to resist the pressure, and they'll pop like the economic bubbles they so very much love to create.
I know this--or rather, believe this--because I am watching it happen here in the Shenandoah Valley. Rural Republicans are converging on reliably Democratic cities ("cities" in Virginia can be vanishingly small) because they can't afford to drive dozens of miles to buy groceries at the Wal-Mart, or require medical attention, or lost their homes, or have fallen victim to some other conservative policy designed to fuck them.
In the meantime, the number of younger people with disposable income and Paypal credit cards seems to be doubling every month. There is already a massive demographic shift afoot here, and I am certain it is happening everywhere else where Republicans ran rampant, crashed out, and left the people on the ground bereft.
The biggest danger to Republicans is their own un-malleable past, and the consequences of their prior behavior can no longer be averted. But we tried.
FogerRox
(13,211 posts)Dawgs
(14,755 posts)Wake up Democrats!!!!!
reformist2
(9,841 posts)No, I don't have a set of standards to propose. But off the top of my head, here are a few that come to mind:
1.) Geographical integrity - no districts that look like salamanders.
2.) Demographics - obviously districts can and will vary in their racial makeup, but extremes must be avoided.
3.) Party affiliation - when other options are available, it should be illegal to create one district that is 80/20 and five surrounding it that are 40/60 the other way.
librechik
(30,674 posts)where they've been able to block all Democratic initiatives--BY KNOWINGLY CHEATING!!
and then acting like we are the ones to blame!
OMG!!!
Cleita
(75,480 posts)not geographical redrawing. Redistricting geographically should be banned. Districts should roughly be polygonal, shrinking or expanding according to population numbers, not party affiliation. Any day you get a district that looks like an hourglass, a snake winding through an area or any other such nonsense shouldn't be allowed. My district once looked like a ball with a penis. Fortunately, it was changed into something more squarish for 2013.
Pachamama
(16,887 posts)truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)How many seats would Democrats have picked up just in the 7 states of the first graph if the districts had been fair?
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)InsultComicDog
(1,209 posts)neverforget
(9,436 posts)based on only on population and not on partisan affiliation. The districts should look more like rectangles or squares and not like a snake. Politicians drawing their own district to keep their job is ridiculous.