Certainly possible, although those seem a bit less "party line". Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part.
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Gerrymandering. Update: Democrats won the popular vote for the Senate, House, and Presidency, but only control one of those. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Hilts
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Coach Beard
Footballguy
Even if vetoed, it gives the green light to public school boards controlled by anti-vax conservatives to remove vaccine mandates.
Keeping it on topic, gerrymandering is also a big issue at the state legislature level. Now that it’s easy to harvest data about voting records and campaign contributions and plot them on maps, state political parties have the tools to redraw maps where moving boundaries a block or two here and there over and over can lock in majorities.
Coach Beard
Footballguy
In the Kansas Senate, the Senate President has unilateral authority to remove senators from committees. The three Republicans in the Senate who initially voted against the veto override had committee assignments stripped, even the two who eventually flipped to get the veto done. The Senate President said publicly on the record, “To maintain unity in the caucus, these changes were necessary.”Rich Conway said:
The Commish
Footballguy
Didn't see this coming, but Ron's Supreme Court rejected his request 
Pickle Rody
IBL Representative
PA Supreme Court picks new Congressional map.
https://www.timesleader.com/news/1541231/pa-supreme-court-picks-new-congressional-map
Some highlights:
"It is unlikely to create a big shift in the makeup of the congressional delegation, as the state loses a seat, going from 18 to 17, to account for relatively stagnant population growth in census findings over the past decade, particularly in rural white areas predominantly represented by Republicans.
The map provides eight Republican-leaning districts, six Democratic-leaning districts and three closely divided districts, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, a website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics and other topics.
Pennsylvania’s delegation is currently split evenly, nine Republicans and nine Democrats, in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 4 million to 3.4 million."
https://www.timesleader.com/news/1541231/pa-supreme-court-picks-new-congressional-map
Some highlights:
"It is unlikely to create a big shift in the makeup of the congressional delegation, as the state loses a seat, going from 18 to 17, to account for relatively stagnant population growth in census findings over the past decade, particularly in rural white areas predominantly represented by Republicans.
The map provides eight Republican-leaning districts, six Democratic-leaning districts and three closely divided districts, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, a website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics and other topics.
Pennsylvania’s delegation is currently split evenly, nine Republicans and nine Democrats, in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 4 million to 3.4 million."
The Commish
Footballguy
NC Supreme Court rejected the GOP maps there too 
roadkill1292
Footballguy
So many states having their districting decided by their courts might be indicative of a larger problem.
urbanhack
Fight The Power!
Marc Elias and Democracy Dockett are doing some incredible work.NC Supreme Court rejected the GOP maps there too
urbanhack
Fight The Power!
Shula-holic
Footballguy
We rarely agree on political issues, but on this we do. I really hate how state legislatures create all these safe districts. I've always believed it helped create a more polarized electorate because politics becomes about pandering to the hardest core of the base that votes in primaries. In these districts if you win the primary, you win the seat.
roadkill1292
Footballguy
Yes indeed but it's bad for the country that he has to in the first place. See Shula's dead on observation about another way that gerrymandered single member districts are bad for us.
Studies of democracies which use some version of multi-member/proportional representation reveal that one of the key results from them are how they tend to moderate the majority of the winners of those elections.
Which may seem counterintuitive from one perspective since multi-member districts also lead to greater numbers of "third" party winning candidates. But voters aren't generally crazy - most want common sense representatives who will be able to work with their political opponents when cooperation is essential.
Drunken Cowboy
Footballguy
This is the real reason that gerrymandering is so damaging. I don't like that it gives a partisan advantage that doesn't reflect the population, but that washes out to a degree. Gerrymandering leads inevitably to a divisive government. It is the number 1 problem in our country.
Pickle Rody
IBL Representative
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/596258-pennsylvania-republican-wont-seek-reelection-to-house
Pennsylvania Republican won't seek reelection after redistricting.
Pennsylvania Republican won't seek reelection after redistricting.
There is more at the link, these are just the opening paragraphs.
Mile High
Footballguy
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joffer
Footballguy
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
Great thread from Nate Cohn on where all the redistricting is netting out.
tl;dr: thru dumb luck, the cumulative impact of all the court rulings, non-partisan maps and outright gerrymandering have resulted in a Congressional map that is almost perfectly fair (from a national perspective).
There are 218 districts that voted more for Trump than the nation as a whole; and 217 that voted more for Biden than the nation as a whole. And the national bias is now close to 0.0% where it was +5.7% for the GOP 10 years ago.
tl;dr: thru dumb luck, the cumulative impact of all the court rulings, non-partisan maps and outright gerrymandering have resulted in a Congressional map that is almost perfectly fair (from a national perspective).
There are 218 districts that voted more for Trump than the nation as a whole; and 217 that voted more for Biden than the nation as a whole. And the national bias is now close to 0.0% where it was +5.7% for the GOP 10 years ago.
roadkill1292
Footballguy
It is a curious coincidence indeed. I just hope it doesn't encourage anyone to think that there's no urgency in improving the system. Because that's a bad conclusion to draw.
Sand
Footballguy
the moops
Footballguy
Terrible. Gerrymandering sucks and is dumb and stupid regardless if it is dems or reps doing it. There has gotta be a better way to do this.
GordonGekko
Footballguy
If you look at Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger on one side, then Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema on the other, you'll see their votes aren't reliable because of their need to hold onto their districts. ( Kinzinger's district was gerrymandered out of existence)
"Safe districts" is really about cost certainty. Sinema gets Party support to get into office and for reelections. She voted at a 97.5 percent total clip for Biden. But not on the two issues that created massive damage for him ( BBB and filibuster) Manchin was the only Democrat to vote Yes for Kavanaugh, because he need to appease West Virginia, which is a hard Red stronghold.
If Sinema had voted for those two issues instead of holding out, she might be called a "Hero of Party Unity" for a short while in the media, but then she would have been voted out office in Arizona. And let's not pretend the establishment Democrats would magically make it all up to her. Her choice was the practical end of political career in her own district, or to line up with a Party and administration she knew was on it's way out. What's the actual currency in keeping Obama/Biden/Harris/Ricce happy? They have close to no chance to win 2024. Also the Mid Terms will be a total blood bath for Team Blue.
Johnny The Walrus is a children's book that is generating numbers because Conservatives and Republicans will buy it to support their ideology.
Put it this way, you are clearly an economics/finance guy, and while I don't delve into that much here on the forums because I have to deal with it all day for my companies, you are clearly knowledgeable, practical and skilled at it. You know your craft, that's for certain. So in keeping with that-
Economic/Financial Bifurcation is inevitable between the two main Parties. While I don't agree with a lot of what Ben Shapiro does and says, he's starting to invest in Conservative/Republican based options for things like entertainment or films. Not enough to take over those industries, but to set a foothold and an example that Conservatives should spend money with Conservatives.
So game it out. Once the money starts to split, the next logical path is Logistical/Geographic based splits. Meaning Conservatives and Republicans live in zones, cities and states aligned to their vision of functional governance. And Democrats will eventually do the same.
Consider the modern military borrows heavily from the logistics of the old Roman Empire. You keep breaking down units into smaller independently operated groups and cells. Why? Because the larger you get, effective command and control and combined arms coordination becomes unwieldy and and impractical. You've probably seen this in business. Small businesses, especially newer ones, are extremely flexible. There's an emphasis on high customer satisfaction and often you are dealing with the owner/CEO. When you get too large, then you inherit all the burdens of bureaucracy. My collective employee base now is over 1000. Do you think I want to deal with a formal motor pool? I'm a lawyer and I DESPISE other lawyers, but I need a dedicated legal department. I hate the concept of what HR has become in America and in American corporations and businesses, but I don't have much choice but to have a dedicated unit for personnel. The bigger the "population" for my small fiefdom got, the more exhausting it becomes to manage it. It's like it's own little internal city.
So for 340+ million Americans, it's just too much. Too much distance, too many people, too many competing interests, too many agendas, too many hands digging at the same cookie jar.
Redistricting/Gerrymandering is done for purely partisan reasons. And if we break it down into my world and into even your world, it's really the pull of the value of cost certainty. But ancillary to that, it's a sign of things to come.
When you have entire towns or cities or states that already agree on most of it's core values, then you can shift to practical problem solving. How is this different from a marriage? If you marry a woman who has a different view of kids, finances, religion, politics, etc, etc, the big issues, then how is that going to work? A guy who is a skin flint is not going to mesh with a woman who is a wild out of control spender.
If divorce is inevitable, don't fight the divorce. If the divorce between Conservatives and Republicans goes away from Democrats and Liberals, built around financial/economic and geographic/logistical divide, then so be it.
You seem like a decent enough guy. We might have some love of baseball in common. But who says we need to be neighbors? We teach our children this - If you can't get along with some other kid and it's clear that the two kids are just too different and there's too much of a bridge to gap, go to different sides of the playground and find your own niche and space. I'm weary of the discussion of "Why Can't People Just Meet In The Middle?" Because your core values are just exactly that. I don't want you to compromise yours to live in a place where it's not welcome. And I don't want to compromise mine to live in a place that fits you better but doesn't align with my vision of the world.
We can both be Americans, and we can both love this country and want many of the same things, but simply diverge financially and geographically for the greater overall good. You're a likely experienced hand in marketplace negotiations of some kind - then what about Sunk Cost Fallacy? What is the value of continuing to invest in some mythical unity when there are clearly too many core value differences? There is no value.
I'm older by a wide margin compared to most of you. As you get older, you find one thing you regret is not cutting bait sooner on so much more when you were younger. People, grudges, lovers, jobs, friendships that went wrong, living situations, you name it.
If you said to me, Old Man Gekko, the people like you and who share your core values need you in their side of the country, they need that John Wick level pure Alpha goodness that glows right out of you. It's like a Pantene commercial but radiating furious vengeance instead of sheen. But I'm of a different cut from a different cloth. I don't want to hear you singing The Rains of Castamere in the shower where I can hear that sweet siren. We can share the same foreign enemies but we don't have to be neighbors.
And I'd shake your hand and say, Good luck son, good luck in all the wars to come. I wish you all the happiness in the world, just far far away from me. Then I'd hand you a Ithaca 37 short barrel shotgun and say it's just in case you get married and don't like the prospects of your new In-Laws.
What's wrong with that? There's nothing wrong with that. I can shake your hand, share a few laughs, buy you a beer or two, talk football for an hour and then we can accept not being neighbors. Not even distant neighbors.
Every man here knows the "Three Date Rule" There's a point when you are just buying someone free steak and it's time to punch out. And I assure you, I lived longer than ANY OF YOU before the Tinder age. We didn't have Red Pill back then. I watched countless of my brethren keep digging while enraged trying to make an empty well turn into something fruitful. A failure to get ROI is like a cow that won't give milk. And a perpetually empty cow is a "Free Grazer" I have no love for Free Grazers. Some people think you can negotiate with an empty cow. No my friend, you are just sitting on a tiny stool at 4am in a barn alone with a bone dry bucket. There is no milk for your Corn Flakes coming. I don't see why that same Three Date Rule shouldn't apply to political opposites.
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The Commish
Footballguy
Of course there is. Neither side of that coin wants it to change though. It's not going to.
BladeRunner
Footballguy
In before @tommyGunZ and crew come in and say Democrats don't do this stuff and it's only Republicans and we can't compare the two because Democrats are as clean as Mr.Clean.
roadkill1292
Footballguy
We are often a maddening electorate. Gerrymandering is routinely despised but any common sense reforms like the FRA are immediately branded as "too radical."
So the result is a Congress frozen by fear as well as self interest.
Of course, I don't claim to speak for Republicans here because they still won't share their views about representation.
So the result is a Congress frozen by fear as well as self interest.
Of course, I don't claim to speak for Republicans here because they still won't share their views about representation.
Democratic Judge mocks Democrats as they continue trying to illegally gerrymander the NY midterms:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/04/new-york-judge-democrats-redistricting-00030015
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/04/new-york-judge-democrats-redistricting-00030015
roadkill1292
Footballguy
Sounds like you're ready for the Fair Representation Act and proportional representation!
The Commish
Footballguy
Was coming to post a similar article on the judge in NY. It's refreshing to see a judge push back on the nonsense. Wish our Republican judges who aren't would follow that example.
Nugget
Footballguy
Apparently I vote with the folks along the Colorado border now.
Stupid Kansas
They took my town out of the rest of the county because we were too liberal.
Map
I’m in the little blue corner furthest east.
Stupid Kansas
They took my town out of the rest of the county because we were too liberal.
Map
I’m in the little blue corner furthest east.
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roadkill1292
Footballguy
Saw another fair districting theory a little while ago called "Define and Combine." Party A draws the state into half sized districts, then Party B chooses how to combine the half districts into the right number of whole ones.
Usual rules apply about equal populations and contiguousness plus you can't draw a half district that completely encircles another half district.
I don't know if there's been a lot of gaming out on this system yet. Probably better than letting one party controlling the process but we'd be better off with multi-member districts.
Usual rules apply about equal populations and contiguousness plus you can't draw a half district that completely encircles another half district.
I don't know if there's been a lot of gaming out on this system yet. Probably better than letting one party controlling the process but we'd be better off with multi-member districts.
Philo Beddoe
Footballguy
Desert_Power
Footballguy
Not sure where to put this: https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1527291894275149827
Seems like this miscount resulted in MN getting a seat NY should have had?
Seems like this miscount resulted in MN getting a seat NY should have had?
The Commish
Footballguy
In this process do the two halves have to be adjacent? Is that what you mean by contiguous?
roadkill1292
Footballguy
Yes, each of the final full districts has to be comprised of two contiguous half districts, if I'm understanding the question.The Commish said:
So in 5-seat Iowa, for example, Party A would draw up 10 equal sized half districts. Party B would then make the final districts by combining the half districts into five contiguous ones. When I'm bored later, I might estimate the total number of different districts that can be created (you can't do it exactly without knowing how many half districts each half district borders**).
**Not responsible for an onslaught of math nerds
The Commish
Footballguy
roadkill1292
Footballguy
Incidentally, Dave Wasserman tweeted today that we're currently down to 33 "competitive" House districts. Competitive defined as a district that would have been won by either Trump or Biden by five points or less.
Shula-holic
Footballguy
That’s what is leading to the radicalization in our politics. In most places you can’t win if you aren’t extreme or you lose your primary. The general election is now a foregone conclusion. I would love to try something like the half district proposal. Problem is getting both sides to mutually disarm and for that you’d need the radicals to cede power, which isn’t going to happen.
Copied from a different thread...
There are lots of potential solutions or, at least, ways to mitigate some of the damage, but nearly all of them would need to be implemented by the very people (incumbents) who benefit most from the status quo. These would include:
* Ranked choice voting (tamps down on extremism by allowing voters to consider third-party candidates without "wasting a vote")
* Proportional representation (tamps down on extremism the same way)
* Increasing representation by shrinking districts and adding legislators (tamps down on soundbite politics by forcing representatives to be more "representative" of a small community rather than massive blobs of people)
* Ending gerrymandering (tamps down on extremism by reducing "safe seats")
* Reducing public/private shuttling of representatives/lobbyists/corporate jobs (tamps down on corporate control of representatives; would almost certainly need to be in concert with shrinking districts to force more community accountability)
* Instant, transparent, public reporting of all political contributions, including PACs and Super PACs
roadkill1292
Footballguy
I'm lucky enough to be represented by someone who has already co-signed the FRA. If you're not so lucky and hate gerrymandering, then you need to start asking your candidates to so as well.
This is gonna be a slow project because (A) of the self-interests and (B) Republicans won't even talk about fixing it; they're clearly hoping to keep it under the public's radar for our lifetimes. But from tiny acorns do mighty oak trees grow.
This is gonna be a slow project because (A) of the self-interests and (B) Republicans won't even talk about fixing it; they're clearly hoping to keep it under the public's radar for our lifetimes. But from tiny acorns do mighty oak trees grow.
Herb
Footballguy
Maybe I'm just wearing my lefty goggles, but I don't see the bolded occur in the Democratic party with nearly the frequency I do with the GOP. Completely agree with the rest of your post. Ranked choice seems most logical to me, but it doesn't seem as if either party's leadership will ever get on board with that.
Shula-holic
Footballguy
I honestly would agree with your statement in the past tense, but I think it's changing to where the D primaries are becoming more like the R ones. I'd use OR-5 and PA-12 as examples of this just this cycle. Maybe it's just that the D's have more room to catch up, but the trend lines are pretty apparent IMO.
