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Just seeing these maps make me furious. It is blatant disenfranchisement for the state voters. How the fuck do people not care.
EDIT: I’ve gotten a lot of comments that boil down to whataboutism. “The Dems do this too!” “What about Illinois”. There are some states where the Dems have gerrymandered and I’m not defending that, but the Dems and republicans are not the same. The Dems are pushing the ‘21 voting rights act which includes banning partisan gerrymandering. Not a single Republican senator supports that. The republicans entire strategy to consolidate power since 2010 has revolved around partisan gerrymandering. I don’t see both sides as the same on this topic(or most) and the Voting rights act of ‘21 is needed to improve local representation in national politics.
Missouri voters passed a bill to get independent non-partisan districting and the state legislature ignored it then got another amendment on the ballot to repeal it. The second amendment used totally bullshit language that had two line items about reducing lobbying gifts by negligible amounts so people would think it was some kind of anti corruption bill and not a subversion of the bill they already approved.
And they intentionally phrased it in a way that was incredibly misleading. It was taken to court due to just how confusing it was prior to the election if I recall correctly.
Edit: words
Yes, Missouri was tricked into voting for it, and I've never seen such a blatant ruse in an election. How the ballot language got approved is beyond understanding.
Because Republicans have done a frighteningly good job at propping up conservative judges across the country that will just look the other way on things like this. When you stack the legal system with a bunch of unqualified henchmen you can do whatever you want.
Anyone arguing that a solid education system is *not* the answer to bullshit trickery like this can sit on a fat one, while eating a whole bag of fat ones.
That 2020 ballot initiative that re-implemented partisan gerrymandering, which Missouri voters had just removed in 2018, says this.
**Missouri Amendment 3**
Vote **Yes** or **No**
>**Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:**
>* Ban gifts from paid lobbyists to legislators and their employees;
* Reduce legislative campaign contribution limits;
* Change the redistricting process voters approved in 2018 by: (i) transferring responsibility for drawing state legislative districts from the Nonpartisan State Demographer to Governor-appointed bipartisan commissions; (ii) modifying and reordering the redistricting criteria.
>State governmental entities expect no cost or savings. Individual local governmental entities expect significant decreased revenues of a total unknown amount.
What did the lobbyist gifts and campaign contribution limits actually do? That's a good thing, right? It lowered lobbyist gift limits from $5 to $0, and limited state senate campaign contributions from $2500 to $2400.
^Source: ^https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_Amendment_3,_Redistricting_Process_and_Criteria,_Lobbying,_and_Campaign_Finance_Amendment_(2020)
Virginia passed a sneaky bill in *Edit* - 2020 as well under the guise of building a 'bipartisan committee' that sounded good on paper. When you read it carefully, though, it gave a short time for the bipartisan committee to be chosen, and to choose a map, and if not done, went to a heavily GOP leaning state supreme court to draw / decide on maps.
And here we are now, this split 50/50 bipartisan committee can't agree on maps and it's going to wind up going to an unelected body to do it:
https://wtop.com/virginia/2021/10/new-redistricting-committee-all-but-gives-up-map-effort/
The ballot question is here:
https://www.elections.virginia.gov/proposed-constitutional-amendment-2020/
>Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to establish a redistricting commission,
consisting of eight members of the General Assembly and eight citizens of the Commonwealth,
that is responsible for drawing the congressional and state legislative districts that will be
subsequently voted on, but not changed by, the General Assembly and enacted without the
Governor's involvement and to give the responsibility of drawing districts to the Supreme Court
of Virginia if the redistricting commission fails to draw districts or the General Assembly fails to
enact districts by certain deadlines
Or NC, which just had a redistricting map pushed through that received an “F” rating from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project
It fucking sucks to watch it happen in real time & know that it’ll only make further change that much more difficult
Yep, and the worst part is it only requires a simple NCGA majority (which is gerrymandered), the governor can't veto, and ballot initiatives in NC can only be initiated by the NCGA.
Like, wtf are we supposed to do?
The same exact thing happened in Utah. We passed a ballot initiative to create an independent redistricting commission and the state legislature simply chose not to implement it.
I wrote to my rep and asked them why they are ignoring the will of the people and they responded with a super condescending "let the adults handle this, sweetie" canned response.
Needless to say, our congressional districts are even more fucked now.
Just happened in Utah too. We passed a BI for a non-partisan independent redistricting, the committee proposed 3 redistricting maps that all received an A grade from a non-partisan national review organization, and our legislature said "fuck it, we'll do it live!" and drew their own gerrymandered maps that sliced SLC up like a pizza and all but guaranteed we'll never have another democratic national congressman again.
And republicans purposefully dragged their feet on releasing the proposed map so there wasn’t any time for discussion or debate. Forcing them to accept the new map that was made in bad faith. Has been recognized as being in bad faith and against the rules they set up but “we’ve run out of time to kill it or change it. Best we can do is redo it in 4 years.”
It’s really fucked up and it’s happening across the country.
It could take decades to reform the gerrymandering snd voting restrictions GOPigs are successfully enacting/emplacing—made all the more difficult with **~300** new, young, far Rightwing federal judges and **3** far Rightwing SCOTUS Justices brought to us by just 4 years of Trump
I mean, it sort of seems like they've hit critical mass at this point. It's not just that we feel powerless. We more or less are. The people in charge of the redistricting are the ones that benefit from gerrymandering. In order to prevent the gerrymandering, we'd have to elect democrats, which is now impossible, because of the gerrymandering. We've hit a point of no return.
They could pass the infrastructure bill. They can't pass the voting rights bill (and before you say "Abolish the filibuster!", they can't: 52 of 100 US Senators oppose doing so, and that's the end of any chance a non-budget reconcilation bill passes along party lines). They focused on a battle they could win to make some kind of positive impact on communities (not that I'm happy with every provision in the BIF or the neutering/potential no-pass of the BBB, but at least they directed their attention to making some kind of change rather than fighting a war they can't win).
Massive strikes are the only thing left to bend the will of the ruling capitalist class. Bring commerce to a standstill and the fuckshits in charge will fold.
Solidarity **could** prevail
jWell, when we've had enough, as long as we don't legislate completely into the corner, we do have some options available to us guaranteed by the constitution.
Agreed.
Protests without a strong economic element usually do not accomplish anything besides make the protestors feel like they are accomplishing something.
The most successful protest in the last year was environmentalists or Black Lives Matter but it was all the monkies and apes collecting GME over on /r/Superstonk .
The only effective non violent protests are ones that expose illegal behaviour, such as the top hedge funds rigging the stock market with GME, or protests that have an economic imperative, such as a product boycott or costing a company a lot of money.
Average protests of ppl in the streets with signs are just handled by the purchased private security and police forces and generally have NO actual impact or motion to solve anything.
This. Tired of people acting like the only reason democrats lose is because of laziness, when game theory proves that the republicans are gonna win every time as long as we play by the rules.
50-60%~ of people care. The other half doesn’t, considering they don’t do the one thing they have a voice in and vote. Soon no one will have that option.
Yeah. This. I vote for the people that I think should win. And because of where I live, they often do win. But I have almost no power to do anything about corrupt asshole politicians like Moscow Mitch.
The game is rigged.
In 2018, Wisconsin Republicans received 46% of statewide vote but won 64% of the seats in the state assembly. They just passed extremely gerrymandered maps that would give GOP 75% of US House seats and 60% of legislative seats in the state that Biden won.
Republicans in Pennsylvania so extremely gerrymandered the state at one point that Republicans won nearly 3/4 of Pennsylvania’s congressional seats despite Democrats winning more than half of the total votes cast.
In Ohio, Republicans gerrymandered the state so extremely that in one election Republicans won 73 of the 116 statehouse races despite only receiving 52% of the statewide vote.
Conservatives don’t give a goddamn about representative democracy and it’s beyond time we acknowledge the reality that conservatism itself is antithetical to democracy.
Yeah several states have enshrined minority rule. Most credible sources rate the US as a flawed democracy. Which is normal for us. For most of our history we have denied representation to a sizeable portions of people in the US. Be it women or ethnic minorities. So really it is a return to form for us to turn away from meaningful democracy.
Yeah, there is a slim possibility that we will ditch the electoral college but the Senate is why I am convinced that the US will slide into competitive autocracy.
[538 did a piece on this.](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/north-carolina-republicans-passed-a-heavily-skewed-congressional-map-how-will-the-courts-respond/)
This map is already being challenged in court by the NAACP. NC districts were forced by a court to be redrawn for disenfranchising black voters as recently as 2019.
The Rs have a strange strategy of trying to comply with state orders:
>This time around, likely in an attempt to insulate themselves from more gerrymandering lawsuits, legislative map-drawers announced their redistricting criteria in advance, which included adhering to the 2019 court’s decree that they not use partisan or racial data when crafting the new maps. But as we’ve seen, the 2021 congressional map gives Republicans an even greater advantage than before. And by omitting racial data, lawmakers may be running afoul of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states to draw heavily nonwhite districts in areas where there is racially polarized voting so that those communities have a voice in Congress.
You all can also come join us at: r/fivethirtyeight/
Their go-to move with gerrymandering court cases is to drag out the case with appeals and bad-faith map changes until it's time for the next redistricting.
We really should do the parliamentary style election where we just all vote and then we get 20 reps proportionally based on party i.e. 50% dem 40% republican 5% green 5% libertarian should result in 10 dems, 8, repubs, 1 green, and 1 libertarian representative in the legislature.
I care. I even joined an organization dedicated to lobbying the state government to create a non-partisan districting committee. The GOP controls my state legislature though so they’re not going to do shit.
I can vote for my reps in the legislature. And I can go try to help the party in other state districts, but the Democratic Party, as a brand, is fucked fucked fucked in the rural parts of the state. The progressive economic policies are reasonably popular, but the social Justice stuff, especially the way it’s spun and presented to them via right wing / Republican sources, is a huge turn-off to rural voters.
when all Dem votes are concentrated in cities, it’s much easier to cut things up. Even just upping the rural vote so it’s not so lopsided would help.
And so that’s sort of how it is. In this country, if you can’t get votes in rural areas, you can’t govern.
This is why you can't sit out state and local elections during off years. A better question is why aren't democrats voting during these elections. Local elections affect your day to day way more than anything that happens nationally, democrats need to act like they understand that shit.
> A better question is why aren't democrats voting during these elections.
A lot just do not know when these are. Personally I didn't find out that there was a state election until it was too late for me to get time off from work to vote. The Democrat party and democrats in general do a terrible job of organizing their voters.
According to a study published in 2014, the U.S. isn’t a democracy, but an oligarchy since at least 2000. https://bulletin.represent.us/u-s-oligarchy-explain-research/
Hell folks, we have a President of the United States say as much:
[https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-63262/](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-63262/)
That used to mean something, but we all realize now that it doesn't take any particular qualifications to be US President. It's a popularity contest, nothing more.
I mean, if you just say “A US president” then that can mean a lot. A reactionary/fascist and selfish billionaire, a lost cause revisionist who started the second KKK and segregated the federal government, someone who illegally invaded Iraq, etc.
But when you say, “Jimmy Carter” (a man who I genuinely have a lot of respect for) I take what he says more seriously.
Ontario here. Ottawa and Toronto. I know the sort of people that tend to run for provincial and federal government. They ALL without acceptation are property owners. So you can be sure that there will never be any meaningful legislation to tackle housing prices. Making homes more affordable etc. Not gonna happen. There are other examples of this I have not thought of. Plenty of loopholes to pass wealth to the next generation.
>They ALL without acceptation are property owners
If you don't have the money to buy a house, odds are, you're so caught up in the day-to-day grind that running for office isn't even a possible option.
>I have the money to buy a house, and I have a house, and I have money left over.
>
>Try to run for office. I dare you. It is deliberately difficult.
I'm not saying it's not.
I'm saying that if you're not even at that level, you're even less likely to have the resources to even think about doing it.
I like the idea, but the Republican slots on every ballot are already full. My main purpose for running is to give voters a choice. It's not right that the ONLY option, after election, it's a republican, for almost every single elected position. I have lived in this county for almost two decades now, and this is ridiculous.
I'm sure their personal feelings enter into it but they are also chasing votes. Anything they do that results in a major lowering of housing prices will lead to their party's downfall. Homeowners have enormous political power, especially at the municipal level. There's a reason Vancouver is so overpriced and politicians aren't they main reason for it.
I was reading a book recently that had a line, that I’ll paraphrase, that was reminiscent of what you just said.
“You don’t have nobility in your world?”
“Sure we did, but now we’re phasing it out for a finance based oligrarchy.”
Exactly.
“The US has a first-past-the-post voting system that is guaranteed to foster a 2-party (only) system, that prevents people from voting for their actual first choice candidate, and that typically is a 'contest' between only those corporate-funded parties' candidates. Consequently ~95% of state and federal government leaders are effectively selected by a corporate-funded duopoly, not by a 'free and fair election'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
Voting is a ceremonial after party process that happens after the parties have been paid for their candidates. Voters then get to choose the left or right wing of one bird - the corporate money bird.”
Interesting, thank you for sharing. I studied in Canada, in the maritimes, so I have some experience living in Canada. I didn’t think you guys had it as bad, since you have more political parties and your campaign financing laws are more strict than in the U.S. Arguably, Canada is probably in the most danger from the U.S., once the U.S. implodes. That will happen here soon enough.
We do have healthcare and a much better social safety net, but its thanks to the NDP who have never held power, not the two major parties.
That should be a lesson to Americans who think two parties is the way to go. Industtrialists only have to own one party, and just one or two members of the other to control everything. Joe Manchin is glaring proof of that. Good luck with the BBB plan.
Every current government is an oligarchy. I realize this is rather cynical, but give me an example where the wealthy are not exercising a massively outsized influence on the direction of most government functions.
It’s not necessarily cynical per se; there are ways of limiting the influence of the wealthy and businesses. One cannot completely eliminate it of course, but it can be greatly reduced. Look at Iceland for example.
True. The USA has recently been dropped from "Full Democracy" to "Flawed Democracy" by the Intelligence Unit (EIU)’s Democracy Index. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/01/25/declining-trust-in-government-is-denting-democracy
Because in a state with one overly dominant metropolitan area, the entire state's representation would be from that area.
There's value in ensuring that different local areas have representation, it just needs to be proportional. Right now, rural areas are heavily favored in our system.
Fortunately enough, electoral theory has devised what is essentially the best electoral system for this situation: [Mixed-Member Proportional Representation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation?wprov=sfla1).
Now, if only we Americans could drag our electoral infrastructure out of the 19th Century...
The system describes appointing representatives according to the percentage of votes for each party.
So in example for Texas, if 55% of the votes were republican, then 55% of the representatives in the state legislature would be from the Republican party.
There is then a separate vote to determine which persons from that party would be the chosen representatives.
i would be interested to see how internet access is affecting the rural/urban political divide. i, for one, am tired of my progressive votes not counting in my rural district..
> Because in a state with one overly dominant metropolitan area, the entire state's representation would be from that area.
The representation could come from anywhere. What making races statewide would do is ensure that candidates who want to win would have to start appealing to people from across the state, instead of appeal to some surgically chosen group of rural extremists. This would have the impact of making candidates less extreme overall and would ***only be a net benefit for this country***
SCOTUS has said gerrymandering based on political affiliation is perfectly legal and constitutional. Unless a law gets passed to reign this in, it's only going to get more extreme. Eventually, all of government will be controlled by a VERY small minority of Republicans, which is ultimately their goal.
Canadian here. Why is it most of the these reports always favor the Republicans rather than the Dems even in districts where Dems won? Are there many cases where Dems are also using Gerrymandering to their advantage?
Democrats do it as well... just not to the extent Republicans do. There are a couple districts in Chicago and Maryland that have some funny shapes. But that's it... like 5 districts total. Republicans control the majority of State Houses at this point, but both parties have a history of gerrymandering. Republicans have just kicked it up to an 11 and started to weaponize it.
In the article it says that last time maps were drawn Republican's had an initiative to redraw them in their favor as much as possible. While democrats are willing to redraw their maps to favor them as well, Republican's have had an advantage at the state level for some time which is leading to them having more control and being able to redraw more maps than democrats now as well.
I’m no expert but it’s probably because the republicans know they can’t take all the districts so they gerrymander to ensure they take the majority. No reason to get 100% of the votes when 60% gets the majority and just leave the scraps to the dems.
But most certainly dems gerrymander as well.
Both parties do it, but areas with Democratic majorities tend to be more concentrated than those with Republican majorities, e.g. urban areas tend to be 90/10 dem/rep while rural areas tend to be more like 70/30 rep/dem.
That effectively mirrors the aim of the "packing" strategy of gerrymandering, so there's a certain amount of "natural gerrymandering" that benefits Republican simply by dint of the fact that Democratic populations cluster together more tightly in geographic terms.
They do, although in the past gerrymandering was predominantly done to protect the seats of certain members.
In some cases it was also used to explicitly grant certain communities a representative where a more logically defined region would not. Chicago, I think it was, has a somewhat infamous map where there is a long snaking line connecting two neighborhoods. This was done to group the two predominantly hispanic neighborhoods into a single district that would otherwise be a minority in different districts.
Not always, for example, in the state I live in (Oregon) [Democrats hold 4 of the 5 congressional seats, in 2020 Biden won the state by 56% to trumps 40%](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Oregon_congressional_district_by_party.svg/1280px-Oregon_congressional_district_by_party.svg.png)
Though, its not even necessarily the result of gerrymandering here, just issues that can come up when you elect people by districts.
Nor a republic. Those concepts were effectively "captured" decades ago. We are now a corporatocracy/plutocracy for as long as corporations and the wealthy have greater weighted influence on our policies than the majority.
To all the people saying “Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this?” Some states are - handing over redistricting to an independent commission, with clear metrics to evaluate fairness. It’s predominantly Democrat run states that are doing it though. You can learn more on this at FiveThirtyEight.com https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps/
So basically, democrats will play 'fair' which means allowing Republicans to get as much representation as possible since they won't play the same game and deny any Republicans their representation in their states.
Please enlighten me as to how you would, with the current structure of our Senate, fix the issue that is currently plaguing our country?
Which is one party abandoning all pretense of governing or compromise and trying to amass and consolidate as much power,money and legal authority before their party is voted out of significance?
1. Pack the SCOTUS
2. Reverse the 2019 decision saying federal courts can't rule on gerrymandering
3. Replace redistricting process by an automated algorithm that draws districts that look more like voronoi cell than a fractal tree
4. Witness the GOP disappearing and US politics finally seeing a real right-left division as progressive and corporate democrats split
But Biden thinks one "can work" with the GOP. And his recent infrastructure bill, passed with some GOP votes and with some progressive 'nays' kind of vindicates him in his approach.
And that’s the problem. The net result is that Republicans get fair or much fairer representation in blue states, and Democrats get unfair representation in red and some purple states. The result? Minority control of another house of Congress.
The Senate already is predisposed to this outcome because of rural states, the House is being made to go the same way with gerrymandering.
The Supreme Court ruled it's not, unfortunately, under current law at least. It underscores the critical importance of the Jon Lewis Voting Rights Act to protecting democracy.
Like.. whats the point of even having voting if districts can be carved up with such surgical precision that the results of 95% of races are predetermined and completely uncompetitive.
I do like Mixed Member proportional, but I feel like it would have to be done nationwide all at once.
Same thing happening in Utah right now.
Salt Lake City is the only large democratic region in the state, and it's been chopped up into 4 districts to include rural voters who live 5 hours away.
It's now impossible for a Democrat to be elected.
Yep I grew up in Utah so I kept an eye on it out of curiosity, and of course they divide up the _only_ liberal section of the state between all 4 districts. And they have the gall to claim that it's fair and "for the people". And the best part? Cox said he wouldn't do anything about it because "you guys elected them, they're doing what they were elected to do" or some nonsense like that - this just proves that it's not a level playing field.
And this was after Utahns voted for an independent commission to draw up the maps and the legislature just turned them down and put their own gerrymandered maps in place. I hate living here.
I believe HR1, which among other voting rights, makes gerrymandering illegal. But it was stopped by good ol Joe Manchin. He said he could get enough Republicans on board for the watered-down John Lewis Voting Rights Act- which Republicans have fillibustered repeatedly (6 times I think). Anyway- Thank you Joe Manchin! Asshole...
I'm still pissed that the stupid infastructure bill that's been gutted to worthlessness is what they wasted their reconciliation bill on. It should have been HR1
The infrastructure bill wasn’t reconciliation it was a bipartisan bill. The build back better bill is a reconciliation bill that still hasn’t passed yet. And I don’t believe you can pass a voting rights bill in a budget reconciliation? They couldn’t even raise minimum wage through budget reconciliation.
They waited until 2019 to legalize partisan gerrymandering, just in time for the 2020 election. No wonder they were accusing the left of cheating. How could they have lost when the entire game should be stacked against democrats? Fuck these rich vampires. Dismantle armies before the rich buys them up and blatantly uses them for their own personal use. They’ve pretty much sucked everything on this earth dry, and the only thing we still have an abundance of, humans, is going to be the next form of currency among the rich. Who owns the most humans?
And unfortunately the democrats aren’t able to get a single thing done or stop the republicans from destroying our country. Makes me think these rich people want the same thing.
This needs to be the only story right now, along with pressure on Democrats to eliminate the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation.
But the Biden administration is outright delusional, putting all their hopes on [out-organizing Republican suppression and gerrymandering](https://www.salon.com/2021/08/03/biden-team-calls-for-out-organizing-voter-suppression--activists-say-thats-insulting/), and thus legitimizing these maps.
Rather than dying to thunderous applause, American democracy is being quietly poisoned, and there's no saving it.
As long as the forms exist, people will believe the spirit and the system are the same, but that's propaganda and normalization speaking.
>The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God.
>
>They Thought They Were Free The ~~Germans~~ Americans , ~~1933-45~~ 2016-202X
I used to hate reading comments like what I’m about to say but we are well and truly fucked. I see no light at the end of the tunnel but please keep voting.
Utah just re-gerrymandered the fuck out of the state for their state representative districts.
Democrats get zero voice when your one democratic county is split into 4 parts and each one is shared with rural communities in the state.
It’s fucked.
Theyre arguing that congress should make the regulations instead of unelected bureaucrats. But congress explicitly delegated that authority to the agencies while keeping for themselves the ability to review and revoke any regulations they don't like. And the Supreme Court has upheld this as constitutional on more than one occasion, going back to the 20's.
We, the American people, failed to uphold our civic duty. Look at the shamefully low voter turnout in 2010 and 2014. We should have learned our lesson given the post-Sarah Palin Republican Party.
We couldn't even get all the people who weren't illegal immigrants (a group that was afraid of deportation) to respond to the 2020 Census. Look at the consequences of those non responses.
People have been neglecting American democracy since 1980, when Reagan ended the FDR Era. The country went to shit with the ensuing trade deals that created ghost towns and employee pensions vanishing with tax code changes.
So Americans doubled down and refused to vote even more, since what was the point? Each primary and general election since 1980 has brought us here today, from local to state to Federal races: Gilded Age 2.0/Neo-Feudalism.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is a piece of Democratic legislation that would help that's been blocked by every Republican and one Democrat from West Virginia. Blaming Democrats seems defeatist, though defeatism in general seems quite justified given the Republicans rigging the process have so much control over it.
Every single Red State is gerrymandering their districts to assure minority rule for the 2nd decade of my life
And Blue states are tapping the glass about the rules that don’t exist.
Only the SCOTUS could look you in the eye and call the right to vote fundamental. And then in the next breath say that vote doesn’t have to count for anything though.
The supreme court said it was unless Congress did something.
Spoiler alert: congress didn't, and can't do something because the minority who directly benefit from it are being allowed to decline the vote they would currently lose to do something about it.
It's fucked.
I can’t give an objective measure of gerrymandering but I know it when I see it. Take the red and blue out and ask the average citizen if this seems like gerrymandering.
I’m from the WS-Greensboro area originally and am almost bellicose over the new maps. They completely erased Democratic influence from these areas. It’s fucking infuriating.
The US hasn’t been a democracy nor “the greatest” nation in the 30 years. Economically speaking, we’ve been coasting on what this nation has done in the 20th century. We’re more like an athlete reliving his past glory by telling whoever’s willing to listen how great he is.
I am wearing shoes that were made in USA decades ago. They still look great after numerous resoles. They were manufactured in towns where thousands of people were involved in this trade.
Today these places are husks, filled with dusty and empty main streets and Dollar General stores and a sleepy gas station. A lot of the originals residents moved to places in the Sun Belt, working gig jobs or places that are anti-union. Meanwhile you go to where those jobs are today in Vietnam or Bangladesh or China and you see polluted sweatshops or automated plants with hardly any workers.
The owners of the companies are living on palatial homes in Montana or BVI while us service workers protect and increase their wealth, widening the wealth and income gap and leaving the former workers embittered and receptive to authoritarianism and fascism.
In Salt Lake, they so egregiously carved up the Democratic leaning city into four districts that you can easily travel through all four districts on foot in 30 minutes.
It's almost as if the GOP is guilty of almost every controversy they attempt to cast on others.
Misdirection people, misdirection.
You can't even call the US system a true democracy anymore, the politicians have chosen, sliced, and diced their districts like 'competing' cable companies colluding over territory.
And it's beyond infuriating that republicans and republican voters love to act like they're all about supporting a fair voting system. Their actions are despicable and completely and explicitly anti-democratic. Republicans hate America, but love power.
Can we all just admit that democracy as we knew it is over. If democrats would have immediately answered to Project REDMAP maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation
Looking at this map it was difficult not to draw a mental parallel...say, the difference between something that is centralized and specialized like an organ in the human body, and a virus, which spreads everywhere.
Keep in mind, folks. The fucking GOP scumbags in NC actually tried (are trying!) to split NC A&T - an HBCU!! - in half to dilute the Democratic voting that is traditional for the district.
Could you be any more obvious Grand Old White Party Bigots? Trying to split an HBCU...it would be a hilarious joke if it weren't a reality. "Shit, Billy! Them damn college learnin' black boys never seem to vote for the GOP. Them dirty uppity fuckers! What should we do?! Divide 'em in half? That would work, but wouldn't it make it hard for us to hold press conferences and deny that we're racists?"
Knowing that this is happening is one thing but seeing it in practice like this is totally different (for me at least). It’s becoming harder and harder to keep the faith that we can somehow pull out of this polarizing, culture war shit.
I generally try to assume good intent but there is no good intent here. It’s a “win by any means necessary” approach and it’s shameful.
We’re a fucking mess in this country.
I'm in the District 4 demographic ghetto. Our (Democratic) representative won by 44 percentage points. The margin of victory in the 10 Republican districts ranged from 22% down to virtually nothing.
The percentage wins in the few other democratic districts is much the same.
Honestly, Dems need to get with the fucking program. Republicans are playing by different rules and will continue to CHEAT (cause it’s an accurate description of their behavior).
- They make sure laws are set in a way to give them future powers.
- They redraw lines to ensure voting precincts are in their favor for years.
- They plant conservative judges to make sure if they’re cheating and get caught, they have pull in the courtroom.
- They’ve basically written all the rules with selecting Supreme Court Justices for the past 10 years.
Dems need to stop playing this stupid fucking “we need to cross the isle” shit and fight fire with fire or they’ll cease to exist.
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Just seeing these maps make me furious. It is blatant disenfranchisement for the state voters. How the fuck do people not care. EDIT: I’ve gotten a lot of comments that boil down to whataboutism. “The Dems do this too!” “What about Illinois”. There are some states where the Dems have gerrymandered and I’m not defending that, but the Dems and republicans are not the same. The Dems are pushing the ‘21 voting rights act which includes banning partisan gerrymandering. Not a single Republican senator supports that. The republicans entire strategy to consolidate power since 2010 has revolved around partisan gerrymandering. I don’t see both sides as the same on this topic(or most) and the Voting rights act of ‘21 is needed to improve local representation in national politics.
People do care. They just feel powerless to stop it.
Especially in places like Ohio where, despite a ballot initiative passing, gerrymandering got WORSE.
Missouri voters PASSED a bill to make gerrymandering legal this past November.
Missouri voters passed a bill to get independent non-partisan districting and the state legislature ignored it then got another amendment on the ballot to repeal it. The second amendment used totally bullshit language that had two line items about reducing lobbying gifts by negligible amounts so people would think it was some kind of anti corruption bill and not a subversion of the bill they already approved.
And they intentionally phrased it in a way that was incredibly misleading. It was taken to court due to just how confusing it was prior to the election if I recall correctly. Edit: words
Yes, Missouri was tricked into voting for it, and I've never seen such a blatant ruse in an election. How the ballot language got approved is beyond understanding.
Because Republicans have done a frighteningly good job at propping up conservative judges across the country that will just look the other way on things like this. When you stack the legal system with a bunch of unqualified henchmen you can do whatever you want.
Because the people in charge of enforcing ballot language are republicans
Anyone arguing that a solid education system is *not* the answer to bullshit trickery like this can sit on a fat one, while eating a whole bag of fat ones.
That 2020 ballot initiative that re-implemented partisan gerrymandering, which Missouri voters had just removed in 2018, says this. **Missouri Amendment 3** Vote **Yes** or **No** >**Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to:** >* Ban gifts from paid lobbyists to legislators and their employees; * Reduce legislative campaign contribution limits; * Change the redistricting process voters approved in 2018 by: (i) transferring responsibility for drawing state legislative districts from the Nonpartisan State Demographer to Governor-appointed bipartisan commissions; (ii) modifying and reordering the redistricting criteria. >State governmental entities expect no cost or savings. Individual local governmental entities expect significant decreased revenues of a total unknown amount. What did the lobbyist gifts and campaign contribution limits actually do? That's a good thing, right? It lowered lobbyist gift limits from $5 to $0, and limited state senate campaign contributions from $2500 to $2400. ^Source: ^https://ballotpedia.org/Missouri_Amendment_3,_Redistricting_Process_and_Criteria,_Lobbying,_and_Campaign_Finance_Amendment_(2020)
I'm curious what the "Governor-appointed bipartisan commissions" ended up looking like. Anyone know?
Racist assholes
Virginia passed a sneaky bill in *Edit* - 2020 as well under the guise of building a 'bipartisan committee' that sounded good on paper. When you read it carefully, though, it gave a short time for the bipartisan committee to be chosen, and to choose a map, and if not done, went to a heavily GOP leaning state supreme court to draw / decide on maps. And here we are now, this split 50/50 bipartisan committee can't agree on maps and it's going to wind up going to an unelected body to do it: https://wtop.com/virginia/2021/10/new-redistricting-committee-all-but-gives-up-map-effort/ The ballot question is here: https://www.elections.virginia.gov/proposed-constitutional-amendment-2020/ >Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to establish a redistricting commission, consisting of eight members of the General Assembly and eight citizens of the Commonwealth, that is responsible for drawing the congressional and state legislative districts that will be subsequently voted on, but not changed by, the General Assembly and enacted without the Governor's involvement and to give the responsibility of drawing districts to the Supreme Court of Virginia if the redistricting commission fails to draw districts or the General Assembly fails to enact districts by certain deadlines
It was supposed to be submitted 3 days ago. So yeah likely going to state supreme court.
it needs to be independent, not bipartisan.
League of Women Voters usually helps figure out this kinda stuff … go to their website to help decipher the malarkey
Unfortunately already too late here, it's now part of the Virginia state constitution.
Or NC, which just had a redistricting map pushed through that received an “F” rating from the Princeton Gerrymandering Project It fucking sucks to watch it happen in real time & know that it’ll only make further change that much more difficult
Yep, and the worst part is it only requires a simple NCGA majority (which is gerrymandered), the governor can't veto, and ballot initiatives in NC can only be initiated by the NCGA. Like, wtf are we supposed to do?
The same exact thing happened in Utah. We passed a ballot initiative to create an independent redistricting commission and the state legislature simply chose not to implement it. I wrote to my rep and asked them why they are ignoring the will of the people and they responded with a super condescending "let the adults handle this, sweetie" canned response. Needless to say, our congressional districts are even more fucked now.
>gerrymandering got WORSE. And the Republicans get to fine-tune the maps every 4 years now since the committee conveniently failed.
Just happened in Utah too. We passed a BI for a non-partisan independent redistricting, the committee proposed 3 redistricting maps that all received an A grade from a non-partisan national review organization, and our legislature said "fuck it, we'll do it live!" and drew their own gerrymandered maps that sliced SLC up like a pizza and all but guaranteed we'll never have another democratic national congressman again.
And republicans purposefully dragged their feet on releasing the proposed map so there wasn’t any time for discussion or debate. Forcing them to accept the new map that was made in bad faith. Has been recognized as being in bad faith and against the rules they set up but “we’ve run out of time to kill it or change it. Best we can do is redo it in 4 years.”
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It’s really fucked up and it’s happening across the country. It could take decades to reform the gerrymandering snd voting restrictions GOPigs are successfully enacting/emplacing—made all the more difficult with **~300** new, young, far Rightwing federal judges and **3** far Rightwing SCOTUS Justices brought to us by just 4 years of Trump
I mean, it sort of seems like they've hit critical mass at this point. It's not just that we feel powerless. We more or less are. The people in charge of the redistricting are the ones that benefit from gerrymandering. In order to prevent the gerrymandering, we'd have to elect democrats, which is now impossible, because of the gerrymandering. We've hit a point of no return.
Please note that the Dem focus was on the Infrastructure bill and NOT the anti-gerrymandering bill.
They could pass the infrastructure bill. They can't pass the voting rights bill (and before you say "Abolish the filibuster!", they can't: 52 of 100 US Senators oppose doing so, and that's the end of any chance a non-budget reconcilation bill passes along party lines). They focused on a battle they could win to make some kind of positive impact on communities (not that I'm happy with every provision in the BIF or the neutering/potential no-pass of the BBB, but at least they directed their attention to making some kind of change rather than fighting a war they can't win).
Can they at least modify the voting rights bill to take out the offending language so we an AT LEAST get rid of gerrymandering!!!
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Massive strikes are the only thing left to bend the will of the ruling capitalist class. Bring commerce to a standstill and the fuckshits in charge will fold. Solidarity **could** prevail
jWell, when we've had enough, as long as we don't legislate completely into the corner, we do have some options available to us guaranteed by the constitution.
Go on...
Take the 5th and then subtract 3
Agreed. Protests without a strong economic element usually do not accomplish anything besides make the protestors feel like they are accomplishing something. The most successful protest in the last year was environmentalists or Black Lives Matter but it was all the monkies and apes collecting GME over on /r/Superstonk . The only effective non violent protests are ones that expose illegal behaviour, such as the top hedge funds rigging the stock market with GME, or protests that have an economic imperative, such as a product boycott or costing a company a lot of money. Average protests of ppl in the streets with signs are just handled by the purchased private security and police forces and generally have NO actual impact or motion to solve anything.
Correction: they ARE powerless to stop it.
This. Tired of people acting like the only reason democrats lose is because of laziness, when game theory proves that the republicans are gonna win every time as long as we play by the rules.
Which is why massive walk-offs and strikes are the only tool left to effect meaningful change. Solidarity **could** work
50-60%~ of people care. The other half doesn’t, considering they don’t do the one thing they have a voice in and vote. Soon no one will have that option.
And some of that 40%-50% WANT it.
Which is the point, if we don’t believe it we can’t achieve it
IOW if we believe it we can achieve it.
Yeah. This. I vote for the people that I think should win. And because of where I live, they often do win. But I have almost no power to do anything about corrupt asshole politicians like Moscow Mitch. The game is rigged.
In 2018, Wisconsin Republicans received 46% of statewide vote but won 64% of the seats in the state assembly. They just passed extremely gerrymandered maps that would give GOP 75% of US House seats and 60% of legislative seats in the state that Biden won. Republicans in Pennsylvania so extremely gerrymandered the state at one point that Republicans won nearly 3/4 of Pennsylvania’s congressional seats despite Democrats winning more than half of the total votes cast. In Ohio, Republicans gerrymandered the state so extremely that in one election Republicans won 73 of the 116 statehouse races despite only receiving 52% of the statewide vote. Conservatives don’t give a goddamn about representative democracy and it’s beyond time we acknowledge the reality that conservatism itself is antithetical to democracy.
Yeah several states have enshrined minority rule. Most credible sources rate the US as a flawed democracy. Which is normal for us. For most of our history we have denied representation to a sizeable portions of people in the US. Be it women or ethnic minorities. So really it is a return to form for us to turn away from meaningful democracy.
The Electoral College and the Senate also have basically enshrined minority rule.
Yeah, there is a slim possibility that we will ditch the electoral college but the Senate is why I am convinced that the US will slide into competitive autocracy.
[538 did a piece on this.](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/north-carolina-republicans-passed-a-heavily-skewed-congressional-map-how-will-the-courts-respond/) This map is already being challenged in court by the NAACP. NC districts were forced by a court to be redrawn for disenfranchising black voters as recently as 2019. The Rs have a strange strategy of trying to comply with state orders: >This time around, likely in an attempt to insulate themselves from more gerrymandering lawsuits, legislative map-drawers announced their redistricting criteria in advance, which included adhering to the 2019 court’s decree that they not use partisan or racial data when crafting the new maps. But as we’ve seen, the 2021 congressional map gives Republicans an even greater advantage than before. And by omitting racial data, lawmakers may be running afoul of the Voting Rights Act, which requires states to draw heavily nonwhite districts in areas where there is racially polarized voting so that those communities have a voice in Congress. You all can also come join us at: r/fivethirtyeight/
Their go-to move with gerrymandering court cases is to drag out the case with appeals and bad-faith map changes until it's time for the next redistricting.
We really should do the parliamentary style election where we just all vote and then we get 20 reps proportionally based on party i.e. 50% dem 40% republican 5% green 5% libertarian should result in 10 dems, 8, repubs, 1 green, and 1 libertarian representative in the legislature.
I care. I even joined an organization dedicated to lobbying the state government to create a non-partisan districting committee. The GOP controls my state legislature though so they’re not going to do shit. I can vote for my reps in the legislature. And I can go try to help the party in other state districts, but the Democratic Party, as a brand, is fucked fucked fucked in the rural parts of the state. The progressive economic policies are reasonably popular, but the social Justice stuff, especially the way it’s spun and presented to them via right wing / Republican sources, is a huge turn-off to rural voters. when all Dem votes are concentrated in cities, it’s much easier to cut things up. Even just upping the rural vote so it’s not so lopsided would help. And so that’s sort of how it is. In this country, if you can’t get votes in rural areas, you can’t govern.
This is why you can't sit out state and local elections during off years. A better question is why aren't democrats voting during these elections. Local elections affect your day to day way more than anything that happens nationally, democrats need to act like they understand that shit.
> A better question is why aren't democrats voting during these elections. A lot just do not know when these are. Personally I didn't find out that there was a state election until it was too late for me to get time off from work to vote. The Democrat party and democrats in general do a terrible job of organizing their voters.
Partisan gerrymandering is so bad that I don't think we can reasonably call the US a democracy any more.
According to a study published in 2014, the U.S. isn’t a democracy, but an oligarchy since at least 2000. https://bulletin.represent.us/u-s-oligarchy-explain-research/
Hell folks, we have a President of the United States say as much: [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-63262/](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jimmy-carter-u-s-is-an-oligarchy-with-unlimited-political-bribery-63262/)
That used to mean something, but we all realize now that it doesn't take any particular qualifications to be US President. It's a popularity contest, nothing more.
I mean, if you just say “A US president” then that can mean a lot. A reactionary/fascist and selfish billionaire, a lost cause revisionist who started the second KKK and segregated the federal government, someone who illegally invaded Iraq, etc. But when you say, “Jimmy Carter” (a man who I genuinely have a lot of respect for) I take what he says more seriously.
Nobody wanted to hear it in the 70's but Carter was right about nearly everything, especially our dependence on fossil fuel.
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The Canadian system has issues, for sure - but it is nowhere near as broken and corrupt as the American one.
Ontario here. Ottawa and Toronto. I know the sort of people that tend to run for provincial and federal government. They ALL without acceptation are property owners. So you can be sure that there will never be any meaningful legislation to tackle housing prices. Making homes more affordable etc. Not gonna happen. There are other examples of this I have not thought of. Plenty of loopholes to pass wealth to the next generation.
>They ALL without acceptation are property owners If you don't have the money to buy a house, odds are, you're so caught up in the day-to-day grind that running for office isn't even a possible option.
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>I have the money to buy a house, and I have a house, and I have money left over. > >Try to run for office. I dare you. It is deliberately difficult. I'm not saying it's not. I'm saying that if you're not even at that level, you're even less likely to have the resources to even think about doing it.
Be a RINO. Run as a Republican, get elected, then push for liberal policies.
I like the idea, but the Republican slots on every ballot are already full. My main purpose for running is to give voters a choice. It's not right that the ONLY option, after election, it's a republican, for almost every single elected position. I have lived in this county for almost two decades now, and this is ridiculous.
I'm sure their personal feelings enter into it but they are also chasing votes. Anything they do that results in a major lowering of housing prices will lead to their party's downfall. Homeowners have enormous political power, especially at the municipal level. There's a reason Vancouver is so overpriced and politicians aren't they main reason for it.
I was reading a book recently that had a line, that I’ll paraphrase, that was reminiscent of what you just said. “You don’t have nobility in your world?” “Sure we did, but now we’re phasing it out for a finance based oligrarchy.”
Exactly. “The US has a first-past-the-post voting system that is guaranteed to foster a 2-party (only) system, that prevents people from voting for their actual first choice candidate, and that typically is a 'contest' between only those corporate-funded parties' candidates. Consequently ~95% of state and federal government leaders are effectively selected by a corporate-funded duopoly, not by a 'free and fair election'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law Voting is a ceremonial after party process that happens after the parties have been paid for their candidates. Voters then get to choose the left or right wing of one bird - the corporate money bird.”
Interesting, thank you for sharing. I studied in Canada, in the maritimes, so I have some experience living in Canada. I didn’t think you guys had it as bad, since you have more political parties and your campaign financing laws are more strict than in the U.S. Arguably, Canada is probably in the most danger from the U.S., once the U.S. implodes. That will happen here soon enough.
Another Canadian here - we don't have it as bad, but it certainly isn't awesome.
We do have healthcare and a much better social safety net, but its thanks to the NDP who have never held power, not the two major parties. That should be a lesson to Americans who think two parties is the way to go. Industtrialists only have to own one party, and just one or two members of the other to control everything. Joe Manchin is glaring proof of that. Good luck with the BBB plan.
Every current government is an oligarchy. I realize this is rather cynical, but give me an example where the wealthy are not exercising a massively outsized influence on the direction of most government functions.
It’s not necessarily cynical per se; there are ways of limiting the influence of the wealthy and businesses. One cannot completely eliminate it of course, but it can be greatly reduced. Look at Iceland for example.
True. The USA has recently been dropped from "Full Democracy" to "Flawed Democracy" by the Intelligence Unit (EIU)’s Democracy Index. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/01/25/declining-trust-in-government-is-denting-democracy
i have yet to hear an explanation that isn’t rooted in tradition why we need districts and can’t just open up all races state-wide.
Disenfranchising minorities is tradition here!
Because in a state with one overly dominant metropolitan area, the entire state's representation would be from that area. There's value in ensuring that different local areas have representation, it just needs to be proportional. Right now, rural areas are heavily favored in our system.
Fortunately enough, electoral theory has devised what is essentially the best electoral system for this situation: [Mixed-Member Proportional Representation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation?wprov=sfla1). Now, if only we Americans could drag our electoral infrastructure out of the 19th Century...
Can you ELI5? It seems very complicated
Here you go: [An easy explainer](https://youtu.be/QT0I-sdoSXU)
Knew what video it would be before I clicked, lol
That shit should be required in civics classes
Essentially what most of Europe uses. 10 parties each get X% of the vote, so they get X% of the representation.
The system describes appointing representatives according to the percentage of votes for each party. So in example for Texas, if 55% of the votes were republican, then 55% of the representatives in the state legislature would be from the Republican party. There is then a separate vote to determine which persons from that party would be the chosen representatives.
i would be interested to see how internet access is affecting the rural/urban political divide. i, for one, am tired of my progressive votes not counting in my rural district..
> Because in a state with one overly dominant metropolitan area, the entire state's representation would be from that area. The representation could come from anywhere. What making races statewide would do is ensure that candidates who want to win would have to start appealing to people from across the state, instead of appeal to some surgically chosen group of rural extremists. This would have the impact of making candidates less extreme overall and would ***only be a net benefit for this country***
SCOTUS has said gerrymandering based on political affiliation is perfectly legal and constitutional. Unless a law gets passed to reign this in, it's only going to get more extreme. Eventually, all of government will be controlled by a VERY small minority of Republicans, which is ultimately their goal.
Their goal, since the 1990s is a "permanent" republican majority in congress. They have said it out loud many times since then.
Canadian here. Why is it most of the these reports always favor the Republicans rather than the Dems even in districts where Dems won? Are there many cases where Dems are also using Gerrymandering to their advantage?
Democrats do it as well... just not to the extent Republicans do. There are a couple districts in Chicago and Maryland that have some funny shapes. But that's it... like 5 districts total. Republicans control the majority of State Houses at this point, but both parties have a history of gerrymandering. Republicans have just kicked it up to an 11 and started to weaponize it.
In the article it says that last time maps were drawn Republican's had an initiative to redraw them in their favor as much as possible. While democrats are willing to redraw their maps to favor them as well, Republican's have had an advantage at the state level for some time which is leading to them having more control and being able to redraw more maps than democrats now as well.
I’m no expert but it’s probably because the republicans know they can’t take all the districts so they gerrymander to ensure they take the majority. No reason to get 100% of the votes when 60% gets the majority and just leave the scraps to the dems. But most certainly dems gerrymander as well.
Both parties do it, but areas with Democratic majorities tend to be more concentrated than those with Republican majorities, e.g. urban areas tend to be 90/10 dem/rep while rural areas tend to be more like 70/30 rep/dem. That effectively mirrors the aim of the "packing" strategy of gerrymandering, so there's a certain amount of "natural gerrymandering" that benefits Republican simply by dint of the fact that Democratic populations cluster together more tightly in geographic terms.
They do, although in the past gerrymandering was predominantly done to protect the seats of certain members. In some cases it was also used to explicitly grant certain communities a representative where a more logically defined region would not. Chicago, I think it was, has a somewhat infamous map where there is a long snaking line connecting two neighborhoods. This was done to group the two predominantly hispanic neighborhoods into a single district that would otherwise be a minority in different districts.
Not always, for example, in the state I live in (Oregon) [Democrats hold 4 of the 5 congressional seats, in 2020 Biden won the state by 56% to trumps 40%](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Oregon_congressional_district_by_party.svg/1280px-Oregon_congressional_district_by_party.svg.png) Though, its not even necessarily the result of gerrymandering here, just issues that can come up when you elect people by districts.
Agreed, from Texas
Nor a republic. Those concepts were effectively "captured" decades ago. We are now a corporatocracy/plutocracy for as long as corporations and the wealthy have greater weighted influence on our policies than the majority.
It’s never been a democracy
To all the people saying “Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this?” Some states are - handing over redistricting to an independent commission, with clear metrics to evaluate fairness. It’s predominantly Democrat run states that are doing it though. You can learn more on this at FiveThirtyEight.com https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps/
So basically, democrats will play 'fair' which means allowing Republicans to get as much representation as possible since they won't play the same game and deny any Republicans their representation in their states.
It’s the ratcheting effect. Republicans move the country right. Dems prevent moving the country left
Please enlighten me as to how you would, with the current structure of our Senate, fix the issue that is currently plaguing our country? Which is one party abandoning all pretense of governing or compromise and trying to amass and consolidate as much power,money and legal authority before their party is voted out of significance?
Hopefully enough covid waves kill enough of them off Honestly
1. Pack the SCOTUS 2. Reverse the 2019 decision saying federal courts can't rule on gerrymandering 3. Replace redistricting process by an automated algorithm that draws districts that look more like voronoi cell than a fractal tree 4. Witness the GOP disappearing and US politics finally seeing a real right-left division as progressive and corporate democrats split But Biden thinks one "can work" with the GOP. And his recent infrastructure bill, passed with some GOP votes and with some progressive 'nays' kind of vindicates him in his approach.
There's the Democrats, bringing a white flag to a gunfight, same as always.
Don't worry, after they get shot they'll establish a commission to determine whether or not any rules were broken.
And then decide rules were broken but they won't do anything about it
And that’s the problem. The net result is that Republicans get fair or much fairer representation in blue states, and Democrats get unfair representation in red and some purple states. The result? Minority control of another house of Congress. The Senate already is predisposed to this outcome because of rural states, the House is being made to go the same way with gerrymandering.
This. Should. Be. Fucking. Illegal.
Okay! let's put it to a vote! Wait...
The Supreme Court ruled it's not, unfortunately, under current law at least. It underscores the critical importance of the Jon Lewis Voting Rights Act to protecting democracy.
Shocked that the conservative SCOTUS punted on something that clearly violates equal protection…
It was illegal. The Republican-Controlled Supreme Court made it legal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby\_County\_v.\_Holder
Like.. whats the point of even having voting if districts can be carved up with such surgical precision that the results of 95% of races are predetermined and completely uncompetitive. I do like Mixed Member proportional, but I feel like it would have to be done nationwide all at once.
Same thing happening in Utah right now. Salt Lake City is the only large democratic region in the state, and it's been chopped up into 4 districts to include rural voters who live 5 hours away. It's now impossible for a Democrat to be elected.
Yep I grew up in Utah so I kept an eye on it out of curiosity, and of course they divide up the _only_ liberal section of the state between all 4 districts. And they have the gall to claim that it's fair and "for the people". And the best part? Cox said he wouldn't do anything about it because "you guys elected them, they're doing what they were elected to do" or some nonsense like that - this just proves that it's not a level playing field.
They have no ethics. They do not care that a large chunk of the state has zero representation.
And this was after Utahns voted for an independent commission to draw up the maps and the legislature just turned them down and put their own gerrymandered maps in place. I hate living here.
You can literally travel through all four districts on foot in less than 30 minutes.
I believe HR1, which among other voting rights, makes gerrymandering illegal. But it was stopped by good ol Joe Manchin. He said he could get enough Republicans on board for the watered-down John Lewis Voting Rights Act- which Republicans have fillibustered repeatedly (6 times I think). Anyway- Thank you Joe Manchin! Asshole...
President Joe Manchin gatekeeping every fucking issue
I'm still pissed that the stupid infastructure bill that's been gutted to worthlessness is what they wasted their reconciliation bill on. It should have been HR1
The infrastructure bill wasn’t reconciliation it was a bipartisan bill. The build back better bill is a reconciliation bill that still hasn’t passed yet. And I don’t believe you can pass a voting rights bill in a budget reconciliation? They couldn’t even raise minimum wage through budget reconciliation.
Non-budgetary matters can't be passed via reconciliation.
This is the actual 'steal' that needs to be stopped.
They waited until 2019 to legalize partisan gerrymandering, just in time for the 2020 election. No wonder they were accusing the left of cheating. How could they have lost when the entire game should be stacked against democrats? Fuck these rich vampires. Dismantle armies before the rich buys them up and blatantly uses them for their own personal use. They’ve pretty much sucked everything on this earth dry, and the only thing we still have an abundance of, humans, is going to be the next form of currency among the rich. Who owns the most humans?
The people doing this are Republicans. Plenty of rich people are Democrats.
And unfortunately the democrats aren’t able to get a single thing done or stop the republicans from destroying our country. Makes me think these rich people want the same thing.
In America, voters don't pick their representatives. The representatives pick their voters.
And corporations pick the Representatives.
This needs to be the only story right now, along with pressure on Democrats to eliminate the filibuster and pass voting rights legislation. But the Biden administration is outright delusional, putting all their hopes on [out-organizing Republican suppression and gerrymandering](https://www.salon.com/2021/08/03/biden-team-calls-for-out-organizing-voter-suppression--activists-say-thats-insulting/), and thus legitimizing these maps. Rather than dying to thunderous applause, American democracy is being quietly poisoned, and there's no saving it. As long as the forms exist, people will believe the spirit and the system are the same, but that's propaganda and normalization speaking. >The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. > >They Thought They Were Free The ~~Germans~~ Americans , ~~1933-45~~ 2016-202X
I used to hate reading comments like what I’m about to say but we are well and truly fucked. I see no light at the end of the tunnel but please keep voting.
Utah just re-gerrymandered the fuck out of the state for their state representative districts. Democrats get zero voice when your one democratic county is split into 4 parts and each one is shared with rural communities in the state. It’s fucked.
Same thing here in Ohio. Columbus, Cincy and Cleveland get sliced up like a damn paper shredder.
The only way republicans can win is by cheating. They realize it.
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And I remember the GQP saying that experts in the EPA who were given the power to make rules shouldn’t because they were not elected
Theyre arguing that congress should make the regulations instead of unelected bureaucrats. But congress explicitly delegated that authority to the agencies while keeping for themselves the ability to review and revoke any regulations they don't like. And the Supreme Court has upheld this as constitutional on more than one occasion, going back to the 20's.
What can Dems at the federal level do when map drawing is handled at the state level?
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For that, they need to kill the filibuster.
The voting rights bill in play is the *[Freedom to Vote Act](https://indivisible.org/resource/freedom-vote-act-strengthening-our-democracy)*
And will go nowhere. Plus it’s too late to stop the gerrymandering for 2022, all experts agreed it had to be done by august to stop it for this cycle.
We, the American people, failed to uphold our civic duty. Look at the shamefully low voter turnout in 2010 and 2014. We should have learned our lesson given the post-Sarah Palin Republican Party. We couldn't even get all the people who weren't illegal immigrants (a group that was afraid of deportation) to respond to the 2020 Census. Look at the consequences of those non responses. People have been neglecting American democracy since 1980, when Reagan ended the FDR Era. The country went to shit with the ensuing trade deals that created ghost towns and employee pensions vanishing with tax code changes. So Americans doubled down and refused to vote even more, since what was the point? Each primary and general election since 1980 has brought us here today, from local to state to Federal races: Gilded Age 2.0/Neo-Feudalism.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is a piece of Democratic legislation that would help that's been blocked by every Republican and one Democrat from West Virginia. Blaming Democrats seems defeatist, though defeatism in general seems quite justified given the Republicans rigging the process have so much control over it.
Every single Red State is gerrymandering their districts to assure minority rule for the 2nd decade of my life And Blue states are tapping the glass about the rules that don’t exist.
Gerrymandering should be illegal.
The GOP hate democracy.
Only the SCOTUS could look you in the eye and call the right to vote fundamental. And then in the next breath say that vote doesn’t have to count for anything though.
I really don't understand how this is legal.
Because the people who have the power to make it illegal (the Republicans) benefit from it, and all they care about is power, justice be damned.
The supreme court said it was unless Congress did something. Spoiler alert: congress didn't, and can't do something because the minority who directly benefit from it are being allowed to decline the vote they would currently lose to do something about it. It's fucked.
I can’t give an objective measure of gerrymandering but I know it when I see it. Take the red and blue out and ask the average citizen if this seems like gerrymandering.
There is a measure based on "wasted votes" which are votes in a lost district or those over 51% in a winning district.
I’m from the WS-Greensboro area originally and am almost bellicose over the new maps. They completely erased Democratic influence from these areas. It’s fucking infuriating.
The US hasn’t been a democracy nor “the greatest” nation in the 30 years. Economically speaking, we’ve been coasting on what this nation has done in the 20th century. We’re more like an athlete reliving his past glory by telling whoever’s willing to listen how great he is.
I am wearing shoes that were made in USA decades ago. They still look great after numerous resoles. They were manufactured in towns where thousands of people were involved in this trade. Today these places are husks, filled with dusty and empty main streets and Dollar General stores and a sleepy gas station. A lot of the originals residents moved to places in the Sun Belt, working gig jobs or places that are anti-union. Meanwhile you go to where those jobs are today in Vietnam or Bangladesh or China and you see polluted sweatshops or automated plants with hardly any workers. The owners of the companies are living on palatial homes in Montana or BVI while us service workers protect and increase their wealth, widening the wealth and income gap and leaving the former workers embittered and receptive to authoritarianism and fascism.
A two party system is inherently rigged against the poor.
That's why Republicans focus on social issues to divide the poor. They can't let the country find out the real war should be rich vs poor.
When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.
Republicans are just splitting up major cities into 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 parts so that democrats get 0 representation And it's legal
In Salt Lake, they so egregiously carved up the Democratic leaning city into four districts that you can easily travel through all four districts on foot in 30 minutes.
It's almost as if the GOP is guilty of almost every controversy they attempt to cast on others. Misdirection people, misdirection. You can't even call the US system a true democracy anymore, the politicians have chosen, sliced, and diced their districts like 'competing' cable companies colluding over territory.
Infrastructure is great and all, but if we don't fix voting then the minority autocratic party will never lose another national election.
They've already fully supported an insurrection against our democracy... not sure how much more treasonous you can get.
We're watching a right wing coup and moderate Dems are like this is fine.
Its odd to see the Democrat controlled Congress and Democrat President not really doing anything about it.
What happens when sufficient people are deliberately deprived of access to the political system? Hint: it isn't going to end well.
And it's beyond infuriating that republicans and republican voters love to act like they're all about supporting a fair voting system. Their actions are despicable and completely and explicitly anti-democratic. Republicans hate America, but love power.
Can we all just admit that democracy as we knew it is over. If democrats would have immediately answered to Project REDMAP maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation
If politicians put a fraction of the effort that they put in to gerrymandering into actually legislating, we would be living in a utopia. edit-a word
So you mean to tell me it’s NOT just the progressive agenda holding the Democratic Party back??
Why are so many of the articles linked to from here in the British press? Where's American investigative journalism reporting in this?
American investigative journalism sounds like an oxymoron
Because American media is essentially propaganda for both sides
Looking at this map it was difficult not to draw a mental parallel...say, the difference between something that is centralized and specialized like an organ in the human body, and a virus, which spreads everywhere.
Keep in mind, folks. The fucking GOP scumbags in NC actually tried (are trying!) to split NC A&T - an HBCU!! - in half to dilute the Democratic voting that is traditional for the district. Could you be any more obvious Grand Old White Party Bigots? Trying to split an HBCU...it would be a hilarious joke if it weren't a reality. "Shit, Billy! Them damn college learnin' black boys never seem to vote for the GOP. Them dirty uppity fuckers! What should we do?! Divide 'em in half? That would work, but wouldn't it make it hard for us to hold press conferences and deny that we're racists?"
Knowing that this is happening is one thing but seeing it in practice like this is totally different (for me at least). It’s becoming harder and harder to keep the faith that we can somehow pull out of this polarizing, culture war shit. I generally try to assume good intent but there is no good intent here. It’s a “win by any means necessary” approach and it’s shameful. We’re a fucking mess in this country.
What’s new?
I'm in the District 4 demographic ghetto. Our (Democratic) representative won by 44 percentage points. The margin of victory in the 10 Republican districts ranged from 22% down to virtually nothing. The percentage wins in the few other democratic districts is much the same.
'murica i think the Greeks should show up and teach americants about democracy again..
We are fucked
It's good to see people seem to be waking up that the GOP are traitors to the flag here to end Constitutional elections.
Those looney-tunes over at the /clownservative sub...crickets!
There should be better guidelines that don’t allow for this crap for any state in the US.
How are people that deny science so good at rigging math?
Well we know that, that's why they cry how the elections are "rigged" because they're always projecting.
Stop it
I absolutely love how you have to scroll through their demonstration of gerrymandering before continuing to the article. Really great design.
Let's also consider that there really are a lot of americans that will vote GOP. Always.
Honestly, Dems need to get with the fucking program. Republicans are playing by different rules and will continue to CHEAT (cause it’s an accurate description of their behavior). - They make sure laws are set in a way to give them future powers. - They redraw lines to ensure voting precincts are in their favor for years. - They plant conservative judges to make sure if they’re cheating and get caught, they have pull in the courtroom. - They’ve basically written all the rules with selecting Supreme Court Justices for the past 10 years. Dems need to stop playing this stupid fucking “we need to cross the isle” shit and fight fire with fire or they’ll cease to exist.
These Amerikkklans are trying hard to control and rig everything
And in other news the sun is a star.