The National Review - Democrats will probably win in 2018 because everyone hates Trump.

[dank69]

I think it helped that they admitted in court exactly what they did and why they did it.

They had to admit it in court because it is not illegal to gerrymander by political bias but it is illegal to gerrymander by racial bias.

 

[fskimospy]

This seems very strange to me because according to most of the internet most of the Republican House members are RINOs.

Haha indeed. I mean John Boehner was always at risk of being deposed because he was too moderate. When you realize he entered Congress in the early 90's he was considered one of the ultraconservatives that really shows how crazy the Republican Party has become.

 

[nathanddrews]

Even if we were to concede that both sides are equally guilty (and I think we've seen some evidence that this isn't the case), why should we accept a system that can be manipulated like this? Elect state reps in statewide elections with ranked voting. No more districts, no more gerrymandering.

Because it is the job of individual states to define their own rules regarding their own electorate. Occasional flaws are no reason to obliterate a standing practice. There is nothing stopping state or local officials from enabling independent oversight of redistricting.

Curious, do you know how this is calculated? I've always wondered how this is measured in the long term. For example in 1855 the liberal position was "we shouldn't be allowed to own people", so there must be some way to allow for shifting views among both conservatives and liberals over time.

Definitely an interesting field of study given the spectrum of views and the shifting of qualifying goalposts. Hyperbolically, conservatism is generally easier to classify as "status quo" while liberalism is "challenge the status quo", but eventually those liberals grow up* and become part of the status quo they helped change. I enjoy seeing the progression (or regression, depending upon the topic).

EDIT: *I don't mean "grow up" intellectually, just grow older and set in their ways, like all humans do.

 

[fskimospy]

dp

 

[Blackjack200]

I do!

Interesting. Thanks!

 

[dainthomas]

They had to admit it in court because it is not illegal to gerrymander by political bias but it is illegal to gerrymander by racial bias.

Which is the problem. There are simple, unbiased mathematical formulas to create polygons with equal populations. Biased humans need to be removed from the decision and replaced with this.

 

[Blackjack200]

Occasional flaws are no reason to obliterate a standing practice. There is nothing stopping state or local officials from enabling independent oversight of redistricting.

I would say that a deeply non-representative government is something much worse than an "occasional flaw". Independent oversight sounds nice, but the incentives to manipulate it are still there. Why not get rid of the incentive?

 

[Jhhnn]

They had to admit it in court because it is not illegal to gerrymander by political bias but it is illegal to gerrymander by racial bias.

That's an interesting way to put it. Political gerrymandering has been ruled unconstitutional
but the burden of proof is prohibitively high

https://www.propublica.org/article/is-partisan-gerrymandering-unconstitutional

The SCOTUS may be presented with an opportunity to rule again-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...uck-down-should-scare-republicans-nationwide/

 

[Jhhnn]

B-B-But democrats DONT gerrymander. Oh wait... except both sides are guilty of it - one just sucks at it.

2010 was the first census where computer analysis & modeling became sufficiently advanced to serve gerrymandering purposes.

Repubs exploited it quite ruthlessly.

 

[xthetenth]

Which is the problem. There are simple, unbiased mathematical formulas to create polygons with equal populations. Biased humans need to be removed from the decision and replaced with this.

A really optimal means of distributing people by land would want to be more complicated, just to prevent things like we've already got where areas with radically different interests get put into the same district so 60% urban voters outweigh 40% rural voters (or vice versa) from coming about for the opposite reason.

 

[dank69]

That's an interesting way to put it. Political gerrymandering has been ruled unconstitutional
but the burden of proof is prohibitively high

https://www.propublica.org/article/is-partisan-gerrymandering-unconstitutional

The SCOTUS may be presented with an opportunity to rule again-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...uck-down-should-scare-republicans-nationwide/

Apparently these guys didn't get the memo:
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2017/0...y-to-unite-against-ossoff-in-georgias-sixth/#

“I’ll be very blunt: These lines were not drawn to get Hank Johnson’s protégé to be my representative. And you didn’t hear that,” said Millar. “They were not drawn for that purpose, OK? They were not drawn for that purpose.”

https://thinkprogress.org/virginia-...districts-to-elect-gop-lawmakers-a5470ed9cfe6

In a court filing offered by the Republican members of Virginia’s congressional delegation, the lawmakers who benefit most from these gerrymandered maps admitted that the GOP intentionally rigged the state’s congressional districts in order to produce a lopsided delegation. The state legislature’s “overarching priorities” in drawing the maps, according to the court filing, was “incumbency protection and preservation of cores to maintain the 8–3 partisan division established in the 2010 election.”

https://thinkprogress.org/republica...jority-because-of-gerrymandering-b8dd46d6c355

Farther down-ballot, aggregated numbers show voters pulled the lever for Republicans only 49 percent of the time in congressional races, suggesting that 2012 could have been a repeat of 2008, when voters gave control of the White House and both chambers of Congress to Democrats.But, as we see today, that was not the case. Instead, Republicans enjoy a 33-seat margin in the U.S. House seated yesterday in the 113th Congress, having endured Democratic successes atop the ticket and over one million more votes cast for Democratic House candidates than Republicans.

These are not the cases I am thinking of though. I recently read an article about a Republican admitting in court that the lines were drawn explicitly to favor Republicans as proof that they were not drawn to suppress the black vote. The article went on to explain that partisan gerrymandering is not illegal. At least not in that state anyway. Can't for the life of me find the article now though...

 

[xthetenth]

These are not the cases I am thinking of though. I recently read an article about a Republican admitting in court that the lines were drawn explicitly to favor Republicans as proof that they were not drawn to suppress the black vote. The article went on to explain that partisan gerrymandering is not illegal. At least not in that state anyway. Can't for the life of me find the article now though...

It's probably to do with North Carolina.

 

[dank69]

It's probably to do with North Carolina.

I am pretty sure it was NC but I searched everything I could think of and cannot find it.

 

[nathanddrews]

I would say that a deeply non-representative government is something much worse than an "occasional flaw". Independent oversight sounds nice, but the incentives to manipulate it are still there. Why not get rid of the incentive?

Two reasons: 1. I'm not convinced that the alternative would be any better and 2. I don't find anything particularly terrible about the process as a whole. There's a point at which good enough is good enough and pursuing perfection can be a detriment to the end goal.

Any particular resources you could suggest/link that you found compelling in forming your opinion?

 

[zinfamous]

I am pretty sure it was NC but I searched everything I could think of and cannot find it.

Yeah, I am pretty sure that was NC. The funny thing, is that the racial demographics in NC corrollate very strongly with political leanings--I think something like 70% white voters = Republicans and 90%+ black = democratic voters. It's basically impossible to draw explicit partisan district boundaries in NC without absorbing legitimate charges of race-based districting. Even so, it isn't that simple with NC GOP: some of these octopus tendrils don't just snake along to avoid large blocks of democratic voters: they were drawn expressly to exclude historically minority enclaves within their long-time districts. You're seeing districts that "mysteriously" trace property owned by country clubs, and crap like that. In some way, you have to respect the shameless disdain these assholes have for their people.

 

[Herr Kutz]

I thought the fake news outlets were proclaiming republicans would never win another election about a decade ago, and yet here we are...

 

[trenchfoot]

I thought the fake news outlets were proclaiming republicans would never win another election about a decade ago, and yet here we are...

The lesson learned here is that the power of the Big Lie that the GOP is selling is much more attractive and powerful than the truth.

 

[Sunburn74]

They had to admit it in court because it is not illegal to gerrymander by political bias but it is illegal to gerrymander by racial bias.

Which is totally insane to me.

I think the bigger question to ask is why do we have districts at all? Why can't elected representatives just handle all the work as a team or even just draw up their own districts to serve after first being selected in a general election? It just seems the easy way to do things imo.