Red tsunami beats the blue wave in State legislatures

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Jul 9, 2009
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you already lied.
To show i'm doing my due diligence and trying to find out answers to your questions. Perhaps it has to do with a fairly recent Supreme Court Case?



'U.S. Supreme Court rules Texas lawmakers did not intentionally discriminate in drawing political maps
The court also upheld 10 of 11 districts that had been flagged as problematic."


Extinguishing the possibility that Texas could be placed back under federal electoral supervision over the enactment of its current political maps, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday pushed aside claims that lawmakers intentionally discriminated against voters of color when they signed off on boundaries for the state's congressional and state House districts in 2013.
In a 5-4 vote, the high court upheld 10 of 11 congressional and state House districts that the maps’ challengers said intentionally undercut the voting power of Hispanic and black voters, oftentimes to keep white incumbents in office. The Supreme Court found that the evidence was "plainly insufficient" to prove that the 2013 Legislature acted in "bad faith” when it enacted the districts."

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"But on Monday, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court sided with the state’s lawyers who had argued that they could not have discriminated against voters of color in 2013 because they simply “embraced” maps that the lower court had deemed were okay.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito echoed conservatives’ remarks during oral arguments that state lawmakers had earned the presumption of good faith when they leaned on the map the lower court approved, which “gave the Legislature a sound basis” for believing that the maps were legally sound. Alito pointed to the lower court’s “careful analysis” of legal claims at play and “detailed examination” of individual districts, some of which were modified.

“Its work was anything but slapdash,” Alito wrote. “All these facts gave the Legislature good reason to believe that the court-approved interim plans were legally sound.”
HD 90, which the high court upheld as a racial gerrymander, was virtually the only district that lawmakers significantly readjusted in 2013.
Alito also said the lower court “committed a fundamental legal error” when it held the 2013 Legislature liable for not curing any “unlawful intent” behind the 2011 maps."
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
102,358
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if you're doing diligence, then you'd have looked at the 2011 map. and you clearly haven't.
 

PowerEngineer

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2001
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Not that old, but i'm a member of the Republican Party and get to claim the "we". I disagree.

So current Republicans feel entitled to rest on the laurels awarded to party members over a century ago? Sad but perhaps understandable, and it is my turn to disagree.

The "we" should be (accepting blame for and) taking action to address the current disaster that they have let the Republican Party become. Reverse the terrifying nosedive from honorable party leaders like McCain and Romney to the vain, egotistical, pathologically lying Trump. Join the Lincoln Project.
 
Jul 9, 2009
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if you're doing diligence, then you'd have looked at the 2011 map. and you clearly haven't.
Well the United States Supreme Court ruling i posted earlier is the definitive ruling on reapportionment and redistricting in the State of Texas and probably throughout the United States and will be used as a road map in future redistricting after the 2020 census. Due to God's impeccable sense of timing it will now be a 6-3 ruling.

If you'd like to link something about 2011 map i'll give it a look over, but i'm not good at playing little guessing games.
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
38,200
18,670
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Well the United States Supreme Court ruling i posted earlier is the definitive ruling on reapportionment and redistricting in the State of Texas and probably throughout the United States and will be used as a road map in future redistricting after the 2020 census. Due to God's impeccable sense of timing it will now be a 6-3 ruling.

If you'd like to link something about 2011 map i'll give it a look over, but i'm not good at playing little guessing games.

Yet you guess God's mind, how quaint. That's your pride showing.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,286
6,351
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Why do you make such a fetish of the Constitution? You do realise it was drawn up by flawed human beings, right? It's not the direct word of God. I feel like I'm risking losing the audience here, because the over-veneration of that document, and those who wrote it, seems to apply across the US political divide, but I really don't get it, myself - it seems a direct equivalent of the veneration of the Royal Family here, yet I thought you lot fought a revolution to get rid of that kind of deference?

I've seen conservatives on here (maybe it was you?) speak dismissively that 'Democrats can't get elected in the system as it is so they want to change the system to suit them'. Yet surely that logic is precisely the reason why the US came into existence in the first place!

A better system would be to have non-political committees do it, as other democracies do. Still possible to become partisan, but better than having it be fundamentally a political process by design.
It could be done by computer based on stringent rules of fairness nation wide, but please do not worry about losing the audience here. It is a feature of the outsider, those in this case not raised in constitutional nationalism that patriotically blinds from birth, to be able to pose a more objective assessment of a foreign culture. Most importantly it is very valuable. In addition to your royalty genuflection in merry old England, you are also obsessively focused on the upper class. Probably the two are connected.

You do a lot of great posts. Thanks.

As with all things, when a mirror comes up, most people with scream in horror and see you as the monster. It is a law of psychology, this need to shoot the messanger. People hate themselves and all the things they attach themselves to, all those glorious isms, are there to provide a substitute for real self respect, and stripping them of those sacred cows just makes manifest the underlying hate.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,286
6,351
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What this means that in 2020, a Census year, State legislatures are going to be making new districts to accommodate the changes in population. This is a very good thing for Republicans and conservatives and a bad thing for Democrats.

You know that the Moses brought the law and as is the case with all Prophets of God, the message becomes corrupted, mechanical. So Jesus came to break the notion that salvation could be had by obedience. And here you are worshiping the law as a means to salvation. Salvation is to be had by forgiveness. Forgive the Democrats and you can free yourself from the sins you were made to fear and to feel you committed. We have all been forgiven by God. All we need to do is feel it. The enemy is ego pride. The more the self is abandoned the closer we come to the kingdom of heaven. If you don't believe in God consider this law to be written into human nature because there is no real difference between being created in the image of God or creating God in our image, what we can become.

Remember that law is only a human attempt to govern and hopefully justly, but it is the first tool the cunning use to their ego advantage. Who is the better person, the one who seeks to make the laws work justly or the one who seeks power and control via their manipulation? Do you seek control which implies fear or to lift people up, which implies empathy and love.
 
Jul 9, 2009
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You know that the Moses brought the law and as is the case with all Prophets of God, the message becomes corrupted, mechanical. So Jesus came to break the notion that salvation could be had by obedience. And here you are worshiping the law as a means to salvation. Salvation is to be had by forgiveness. Forgive the Democrats and you can free yourself from the sins you were made to fear and to feel you committed. We have all been forgiven by God. All we need to do is feel it. The enemy is ego pride. The more the self is abandoned the closer we come to the kingdom of heaven. If you don't believe in God consider this law to be written into human nature because there is no real difference between being created in the image of God or creating God in our image, what we can become.

Remember that law is only a human attempt to govern and hopefully justly, but it is the first tool the cunning use to their ego advantage. Who is the better person, the one who seeks to make the laws work justly or the one who seeks power and control via their manipulation? Do you seek control which implies fear or to lift people up, which implies empathy and love.
Very good point Moon. There are always people that attempt to game the system, to change rules and procedures to help them either financially or enrich them in power. The best way to defend against those attempts is to make sure the laws work as fairly as they can for every citizen and are not changed arbitrarily, but though the proper legal steps.

Never forget the law of unintended consequences.
 
Jul 9, 2009
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Now that you are back in full troll mode you have become annoying again.
Having been born and raised in Southern California and having made numerous trips to Las Vegas even during those dreadful *55 mph* days i have many fine memories of things that happened on good ole Zzyzx Road close to the 15. Thank you for those fine memories.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,286
6,351
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Very good point Moon. There are always people that attempt to game the system, to change rules and procedures to help them either financially or enrich them in power. The best way to defend against those attempts is to make sure the laws work as fairly as they can for every citizen and are not changed arbitrarily, but though the proper legal steps.

Never forget the law of unintended consequences.
I think that one of the unintended consequences of the current law as it in many states is to allow state legislatures to gerrymander the other party out of equal representation by vote. A state might vote Democratic by tradition allowing Democrats to rig districts so that even if the population swings to favor Republicans thus preventing them from having that swing show up in the legislature. With time money and intention, time here being the point, a system can gradually ossify in a way that is counter to the will of the people. I would call that an unintended consequence and one that should be fixed.

I believe that in California the Democrats provided such a fix. Progressive change is possible, in my opinion, only in the absence of fear, where cooperation between groups advances a culture rather than causing it to fear when resources prove to be scarce. We have that here in my home state more than in most places and Republicans pose little political threat. Also, when it comes to a wide range of moral values Liberals are only really strong in a desire for equality and justice. They don't give so many hoots about preservation of traditions. Their brains are better adapted to handle the fear of change.

Unintended consequences is just another way of describing the growth of knowledge as judged against moral values. Some changes may be needed and some might not work out too well. To grow is to change. The danger of change is to lose what is valuable from past wisdom, the wisdom locked into traditional values but too much clinging to those out of fear stifles change that comes from learning experience through time.

My idea of wisdom keeps a foot in both worlds. A terrible crime in my opinion is to stifle the will for justice and equality by an authoritarian will out of fear to keep change from happening. It is not just one side that needs to remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The only exit I can see is to know thyself. All evil is the result of unexamined assumptions, the certainty that one is right just because one feels it right. It always feels right to get rid of anything that produces fear. But everything we fear has already happened. The real thing we fear is awakening what we really feel.
 

MrPickins

Diamond Member
May 24, 2003
9,088
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To show i'm doing my due diligence and trying to find out answers to your questions. Perhaps it has to do with a fairly recent Supreme Court Case?



'U.S. Supreme Court rules Texas lawmakers did not intentionally discriminate in drawing political maps
The court also upheld 10 of 11 districts that had been flagged as problematic."

The USSC may have ruled that it didn't discriminate based on race, you can't tell me that these lines weren't drawn to dilute the political power of more than 1 million residents of Travis county. In other words, you're a liar.

pols_set15.jpg
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
23,081
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The USSC may have ruled that it didn't discriminate based on race, you can't tell me that these lines weren't drawn to dilute the political power of more than 1 million residents of Travis county. In other words, you're a liar.

pols_set15.jpg

Just because something is legal, as per the USSC or say any other foreign government's highest courts, does not make it moral or ethical. There have been a lot of things legal in recent history that were very immoral or unethical. This is something that Trumpers like Taj don't get, they have few actual morals, it's only about power and suppression.
 
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nickqt

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2015
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Just because something is legal, as per the USSC or say any other foreign government's highest courts, does not make it moral or ethical. There have been a lot of things legal in recent history that were very immoral or unethical. This is something that Trumpers like Taj don't get, they have few actual morals, it's only about power and suppression.
This fascist shitbag would have been hailing Plessy v. Ferguson back in 1896.
 
Jul 9, 2009
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The USSC may have ruled that it didn't discriminate based on race, you can't tell me that these lines weren't drawn to dilute the political power of more than 1 million residents of Travis county. In other words, you're a liar.

pols_set15.jpg
Mr. Pickhole , If you know anything about cartography you would notice that the blanks maps you provide because their unique shapes are in no way, shape matter or form the areas that people actually live. No roads are shown, no highways, no rivers or creeks no bluffs or hills or other physical features, they also don't show political boundaries such as cities, neighborhoods , townships or unincorporated areas. No jobs or businesses, no rural, suburban, rural/urban or how citizens live. Many of the counties are simple rectangles that have no relationship to the people that live inside them. Do you really think that the peoples districts should be the same? You, are ignorant of what you speak, but it was a spiffy cut and paste.
 
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