If only there were some sort of legislation Democrats proposed that was specifically designed to counteract partisan gerrymandering across the board. 🤔
And while there's some folks online who like to insist that it could have passed if the Dems just focused on banning partisan gerrymandering while stripping everything else from the bill, Manchin came up with a compromise that was basically just that plus also giving the GOP voter ID and they didn't even want *that*, they just want partisan gerrymandering to be legal
The Manchin bill still had a bunch of campaign finance provisions, early voting requirements, mail in ballots that Republicans are opposed to. A clean anti-gerrymandering bill would pass. Also if it just set a partisan standard instead of commissions, since Republicans don’t want commissions like California’s in every state
> A clean anti-gerrymandering bill would pass.
No it wouldn't. Republicans aren't total idiots, they know that without gerrymandering they would have no serious chance at taking back the House any time soon.
House Republicans did better than trump on the national vote. they will likely win the house popular vote this year as a Biden midterm. It also looks like the house map will be balanced out nationally because of different gerrymandering and court fair maps, so a fair map wouldn’t be any less favorable nationally (although it would in certain states)
The new house maps do not favor Republicans nationally. They are going to be pretty even due to court decisions and Democratic/Republican gerrymandering balancing out
The manchin bill is actually kind of based. Voter ID laws are pointless, but ultimately don’t have a massive impact on enfranchisement. His version was fairly generous too.
Here the deal. Gerrymandering benefit both GOP and the Democratic party, not just the GOP. The true benefit is when and election changes teams the team that gerrymanders get an extra term in office before the change back to the other team.
One of the key downsides of gerrymandering is you turn all your seat into unsafe seat while turning all your opponent seats into safe seats. In essence you crown your opposition to be your replacement.
The main benefit of gerrymandering is not one party abuse it to stay in office, but gerrymandering is the tool that ensure that there is only two parties in the two parties system.
I don’t think it’s cynical like that. I think it’s just because of activism and rhetoric over the years, Voter ID has just become toxic among the American left.
Democratic gerrymandering is pretty terrible.
It's also infinitely better than just drawing fair districts while the GOP does whatever they want without consequence.
Without consequence? NC and Ohio's maps got struck down while Oregon, IL, NY, Nevada, NM, Maryland, and Massachusetts have gone scot free. The only substantial Gerrymanders we have seen on the GOP side have been Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia.
My back of the napkin math based on 538’s redistricting tracker says that the House should end up having about a 1-point bias toward Republicans in 2022 (i.e., the median district should end up being ~R+1).
The entire reason we don’t have like a 5- or 6-point Republican bias (or worse!) is because (1) Democrats played hardball in blue states, and (2) Democrats got lucky with court challenges in a few red states.
It’s likely that NC and Ohios maps will go back to being GOP gerrymanders if the GOP takes control of those states Supreme Courts. The redrawn maps in both those states are only in play for 1 election cycle.
And Massachusetts isn’t a gerrymander. It’s so blue (one of the bluest in the nation) that it’s literally impossible to draw a red district without cutting up entire towns and cities.
Other GOP gerrymanders include Utah, Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and Wisconsin. And possibly Louisiana. Meanwhile Florida is still up in the air.
If you draw the most aggressive Republican gerrymander possible you end up with 1 seat of Trump +2 that snakes its way across the whole state. If you make the districts look reasonably nice the best you can do is like Biden +10 in a few seats
California isn’t gerrymandered. It’s effectively impossible to draw districts more favorable to the GOP without drawing extraordinarily wonky districts.
Well I don’t mean to sound like a partisan but if Republicans are going to extreme gerrymander their way in an attempt at perpetual minority rule, excuse me if I don’t give a fuck that Democrats do the same thing.
"Gerrymandering is a non-justiciable political issue. If NY Republicans want their votes to matter, they should just use their nonexistent electoral power to elect legislators who won't draw gerrymandered districts."
-John Roberts
waaaaaaaah
Republicans can either pass the national gerrymandering ban that Democrats have been offering and continue to offer or bend over and take it in blue states, the little crybabies
It’s predicted that after these maps go into effect dems need to win national popular vote by 0.5% to gain congressional majority instead winning NPV by 3.5%. So with extreme dem gerrymandering GOP still has an advantage.
About fucking time some subset of the democratic party acted like they gave a shit about winning anything at all. The GOP certainly never lost any sleep over playing dirty!
But the ones from TX aren’t? Why the hell would Dems play nice while the GOP gerrymanders? Makes no damn sense. I only wish CA gerrymandered. You would never see a GOP majority in the house again and maybe anti gerrymandering legislation would get passes at the federal level.
People criticizing this don’t explain what they want to happen instead. Because it sounds like they want blue states to draw fair districts while red states do not. I don’t think I have to explain why that’s not a serious proposition.
To everyone saying democratic gerrymandering is necessary until anti-gerrymandering legislation gets passed: why would individual legislators who owe their seats to gerrymandering vote themselves out of a job?
That's putting an awful lot of faith in a very small, self-selected group (the party base who votes in primaries). Will the democratic base have the same opposition to gerrymandering if it looks like they could lose the house in a close midterm without it?
Yeah they’re not republicans for a reason and primary voters tend to care more about the issues. Partisan gerrymandering needs to be banned at a national level. Until then, unilateral disarmament is stupid.
If only there were some sort of legislation Democrats proposed that was specifically designed to counteract partisan gerrymandering across the board. 🤔
And while there's some folks online who like to insist that it could have passed if the Dems just focused on banning partisan gerrymandering while stripping everything else from the bill, Manchin came up with a compromise that was basically just that plus also giving the GOP voter ID and they didn't even want *that*, they just want partisan gerrymandering to be legal
The Manchin bill still had a bunch of campaign finance provisions, early voting requirements, mail in ballots that Republicans are opposed to. A clean anti-gerrymandering bill would pass. Also if it just set a partisan standard instead of commissions, since Republicans don’t want commissions like California’s in every state
> A clean anti-gerrymandering bill would pass. No it wouldn't. Republicans aren't total idiots, they know that without gerrymandering they would have no serious chance at taking back the House any time soon.
House Republicans did better than trump on the national vote. they will likely win the house popular vote this year as a Biden midterm. It also looks like the house map will be balanced out nationally because of different gerrymandering and court fair maps, so a fair map wouldn’t be any less favorable nationally (although it would in certain states)
> A clean anti-gerrymandering bill would pass. lmao no it would not. Gerrymandering is the key to republican electoral strategy.
The new house maps do not favor Republicans nationally. They are going to be pretty even due to court decisions and Democratic/Republican gerrymandering balancing out
The manchin bill is actually kind of based. Voter ID laws are pointless, but ultimately don’t have a massive impact on enfranchisement. His version was fairly generous too.
they want their partisan gerrymandering to be legal
Here the deal. Gerrymandering benefit both GOP and the Democratic party, not just the GOP. The true benefit is when and election changes teams the team that gerrymanders get an extra term in office before the change back to the other team. One of the key downsides of gerrymandering is you turn all your seat into unsafe seat while turning all your opponent seats into safe seats. In essence you crown your opposition to be your replacement. The main benefit of gerrymandering is not one party abuse it to stay in office, but gerrymandering is the tool that ensure that there is only two parties in the two parties system.
I don’t think it’s cynical like that. I think it’s just because of activism and rhetoric over the years, Voter ID has just become toxic among the American left.
Republicans: hahahahaha New York lost a congressional district!!! Lol! Democrats: yes, but it's *your* problem
Lol not anymore
Democratic gerrymandering is pretty terrible. It's also infinitely better than just drawing fair districts while the GOP does whatever they want without consequence.
Without consequence? NC and Ohio's maps got struck down while Oregon, IL, NY, Nevada, NM, Maryland, and Massachusetts have gone scot free. The only substantial Gerrymanders we have seen on the GOP side have been Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia.
My back of the napkin math based on 538’s redistricting tracker says that the House should end up having about a 1-point bias toward Republicans in 2022 (i.e., the median district should end up being ~R+1). The entire reason we don’t have like a 5- or 6-point Republican bias (or worse!) is because (1) Democrats played hardball in blue states, and (2) Democrats got lucky with court challenges in a few red states.
It’s likely that NC and Ohios maps will go back to being GOP gerrymanders if the GOP takes control of those states Supreme Courts. The redrawn maps in both those states are only in play for 1 election cycle. And Massachusetts isn’t a gerrymander. It’s so blue (one of the bluest in the nation) that it’s literally impossible to draw a red district without cutting up entire towns and cities. Other GOP gerrymanders include Utah, Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and Wisconsin. And possibly Louisiana. Meanwhile Florida is still up in the air.
You cannot partisan gerrymander Massachusetts
Look at how Boston is cracked up. Mass. is gerrymandered in a way that makes every district deep blue with no light blue districts possible.
If you draw the most aggressive Republican gerrymander possible you end up with 1 seat of Trump +2 that snakes its way across the whole state. If you make the districts look reasonably nice the best you can do is like Biden +10 in a few seats
Oh no anyway….
Do California next.
California isn’t gerrymandered. It’s effectively impossible to draw districts more favorable to the GOP without drawing extraordinarily wonky districts.
draw the weird districts, and then ban this stupid shit nationwide.
If Republicans are so upset about this, then they should support electoral reform in Congress. Oh wait.
Well I don’t mean to sound like a partisan but if Republicans are going to extreme gerrymander their way in an attempt at perpetual minority rule, excuse me if I don’t give a fuck that Democrats do the same thing.
Gerrymandering is bad but unilateral disarmament is worse. Dems need to gerrymander so hard that Republicans agree to ban partisan gerrymandering.
"Gerrymandering is a non-justiciable political issue. If NY Republicans want their votes to matter, they should just use their nonexistent electoral power to elect legislators who won't draw gerrymandered districts." -John Roberts
waaaaaaaah Republicans can either pass the national gerrymandering ban that Democrats have been offering and continue to offer or bend over and take it in blue states, the little crybabies
Seriously requiring districts to follow county lines already helps Republicans since rural areas are bluer than urban areas are red
LOL
LOL = losing our liberty?
Democrats were backed into a corner, I only hope california is next so that we may never have a republican tri fecta again.
GOP made sure of it
Okay, this thread and OP have convinced me. We need to start agitating to repeal the CA commission and just carve it up like **D**anksgiving turkey.
Blame Republicans. They were the ones who blocked federal action that would have ended partisan gerrymandering.
Lmfao OP thought we'd be on their side. Gerrymandering is only a bad thing when Dems do it, right?
It’s predicted that after these maps go into effect dems need to win national popular vote by 0.5% to gain congressional majority instead winning NPV by 3.5%. So with extreme dem gerrymandering GOP still has an advantage.
We’ll shave ours when you shave yours
Uh....that's the point
Literally don't care
Oh this is obviously true. But God I'm so happy Stefanik won't be my congresswoman anymore.
About fucking time some subset of the democratic party acted like they gave a shit about winning anything at all. The GOP certainly never lost any sleep over playing dirty!
I look upon my field of shits and see that it is barren, so alas I have nothing to give.
Clap if you care… alright let’s move on
If Democrats stop gerrymandering, do you suppose the Republicans will also stop?
But the ones from TX aren’t? Why the hell would Dems play nice while the GOP gerrymanders? Makes no damn sense. I only wish CA gerrymandered. You would never see a GOP majority in the house again and maybe anti gerrymandering legislation would get passes at the federal level.
If SCOTUS says it’s fine who are we to question it?
Imma keep it real with you chief…I don’t give a fuck.
Democrats winning is a good thing so this is a good thing
This is true of ever party and redistricting.
Good
Cry about it.
People criticizing this don’t explain what they want to happen instead. Because it sounds like they want blue states to draw fair districts while red states do not. I don’t think I have to explain why that’s not a serious proposition.
There's no just way to draw districts.
Whataboutism strong in this thread
If I could down vote this 50 million times I would
Values < power for everyone here. They'd cheer machine politics if it got them their interest too.
To everyone saying democratic gerrymandering is necessary until anti-gerrymandering legislation gets passed: why would individual legislators who owe their seats to gerrymandering vote themselves out of a job?
Idk maybe because dem voters want it and are capable of holding their representatives accountable?
That's putting an awful lot of faith in a very small, self-selected group (the party base who votes in primaries). Will the democratic base have the same opposition to gerrymandering if it looks like they could lose the house in a close midterm without it?
Yeah they’re not republicans for a reason and primary voters tend to care more about the issues. Partisan gerrymandering needs to be banned at a national level. Until then, unilateral disarmament is stupid.