In Florida, as is common around the country, Democrats are highly concentrated in urban centers like Miami; Republicans are more spread out around the state...Representatives represent districts, geographical subdivisions of the state. Does it need to be seen as a problem that some of the representatives of some districts have constituents who vote for them by a greater percentage than representatives who win elections in other districts? The Democrats' disadvantage is created by their own strategic choice to appeal to voters who are less geographically dispersed. In their places of greatest appeal, they win by large margins, which makes them want to take the votes they didn't need to win in the districts they win and put them in districts where they lose. Of course, this is done to some extent in those simulations and in plans proposed by Democrats. It's just that with the traditional districting concerns of compactness,contiguousness, and respect for political subdivisions, it's not possible to do enough of it in Florida to get to get to that point that the NYT calls "perfectly unbiased."
In Florida... this Democratic concentration is so extreme that even in partisan-blind districts drawn by a computer, the Republican bias remains.... Through all of [the computer] simulations, not a single neutral or Democrat-biased plan was generated....
Even the districting plans proposed by Democratic state legislators for the 2002 redistricting, which were presumably drawn favorably for Democrats, carried a Republican bias.
July 14, 2015
"Is it even possible to draw congressional districts in Florida that do not favor Republicans?"
The NYT asks, laying down this unexamined assumption: "In a perfectly unbiased electoral system, a party winning 50 percent of the statewide votes would earn 50 percent of the congressional seats." If that's the standard, then Florida has a problem:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
115 comments:
Political districts are political and every plan to design them is a political act, regardless of who does it and by what process. Complaining about the process when it doesn't benefit one's preferred party is also political, as is defending the existing process.
Yes the definition of "problem" to progressives is "something that infringes on our accumulation of power."
Republican Privilege. Suppose we bus all democrat voter into GOP majority districts? It's the geographic idea that makes GOP win.
Better yet, try tunnels that emerge at the polling places.
Ask how much California or New York loves having their lives determined by people living in a few large cities.
Seems like that wouldn't be just Florida but many States.
Democrats do better in tightly packed areas. Easier to bus people to the polls that way and pay them off for their vote. Else, how else will the homeless get booze and cigarettes?
What is it about Democrats that causes them to live in nests? Someone should do a study.
I live in South Florida and my precinct is so blue that there might be five known Republicans registered in the precinct. As for the NYT, seriously? If it doesn't lean left then it isn't unbiased. Lets see if the NYT can draw non partisan districts in Southern New York state.
What is ideal congressional representation to the Times? And who cares what the Times thinks? They are journalists, not political scientists.
Surely Dems could bring a disparate impact case?
Law Profs would "find" that the EP clause has always prohibited Dem disadvantage and Tony K. would be happy to oblige.
In California, as is common around the country, Democrats are highly concentrated in urban centers like SF; Republicans are more spread out around the state...
In California... this Democratic concentration is so extreme that even in partisan-blind districts drawn by a computer, the Democratic bias remains.... Through all of [the computer] simulations, not a single neutral or Republican-biased plan was generated....
An article such as my edit would NEVER make the NYT as the NYT would never see such as a problem, and in fact don't or else it would have been written already.
Only because it goes against Democrats is this an issue.
It's amusing to see the left come around to the anti-gerrymandering position. I'm sure this change of position is completely unrelated to their losing control of the majority of state legislatures.
I should have also posted the headline:
Is it even possible to draw congressional districts in California that do not favor Democrats?
LOL, like the times would ever even think to ask such a question!
The New York Times inevitably leaves one with the unsettling realization that in exchange for returning one's allowance one's mother will cheerfully render additional, new services.
The same can be said for Democrats in highly affluent areas and subsidized high-density population centers. Fortunately, we have excessive immigration, directed migration, intimidation, and fraud to compensate for districts that favor Republicans.
Call it the "bubble penalty." People who live in bubbles should get less representation. They have less empathy for others.
I used to be for fair play. But then the gays started imprisoning Christians for not clapping loud enough. And the race-mongerers started digging up confederate soldiers.
So now? Fuck em. They want to play hardball while insisting we remain civil and fair? Ha. I know that the minute Dems could get in there and redistrict unfairly they would not only do it, but sneer at concerns over fairness.
WHen your political agenda is based on giving out free shit it just makes sense to concentrate on cities to save on shipping.
Curious George said...
WHen your political agenda is based on giving out free shit it just makes sense to concentrate on cities to save on shipping.
7/14/15, 11:18 AM
OK George, you now owe me a new keyboard and a new can of Coke! Where do I send the bill?
Representatives represent districts, geographical subdivisions of the state.
I don't think the Constitution requires this? Re-reading Article I, it doesn't say anything about how a state has to create districts within the state. Maybe the courts have added this along the way? But the Constitution itself seems to be silent on the issue.
Why not make Florida one district? That would mean that all 27 seats are at-large. It's still "one man, one vote," but instead of choosing between 2 people, you have 54 options. And the top 27 vote-getters go to Congress.
I know it's a radical suggestion. But wouldn't that solve this particular problem?
"In a perfectly unbiased electoral system, a party winning 50 percent of the statewide votes would earn 50 percent of the congressional seats." If that's the standard, then Florida has a problem:
What the NYT has an issue with is that holy of holy's, the Voting Rights Act and the requirements that encourage Majority Minority Districts. But they can't say that. The VRA has populated the entire South with White GOP and Black Dem districts. In Florida, the Dem Districts are sometimes Brown, not Black. And of course some of the Brown Districts are Cuban GOP, not PR Dems. Same principal.
The Democrats' disadvantage is created by their own strategic choice to appeal to voters who are less geographically dispersed. In their places of greatest appeal, they win by large margins...
Well phrased. And the Democrats' advantage is that they control the urban centers without opposition. In some grand scheme in which political power is quantified, the Democrats are at no disadvantage whatsoever.
"Call it the "bubble penalty." People who live in bubbles should get less representation. They have less empathy for others."
Be careful what you suggest - Dems might propose a non-bubble penalty, as those who live outside the bubble of the big city have fewer needs {policing, traffic control, etc.) than those who live in the bubble, and therefore have less need for representation.
At large elections allowing a vote for one of a slate of candidates would help Democrats in a state like Florida, but hurt in a state like Massachusetts. The unduly complicated system in Cambridge municipal elections does result in representation by neighborhood, but not exclusively. The voter decides whether that's their identity, or something else.
To the NYT, the 246/188 House distribution must be wrong, so working backwards by drawing lines on a map is the only logical solution.
Saint Croix said...
Representatives represent districts, geographical subdivisions of the state.
I don't think the Constitution requires this? Re-reading Article I, it doesn't say anything about how a state has to create districts within the state. Maybe the courts have added this along the way? But the Constitution itself seems to be silent on the issue.
Why not make Florida one district? That would mean that all 27 seats are at-large. It's still "one man, one vote," but instead of choosing between 2 people, you have 54 options. And the top 27 vote-getters go to Congress.
I know it's a radical suggestion. But wouldn't that solve this particular problem?
7/14/15, 11:21 AM
A solution in search of a problem. Incidentally years ago Miami-Dade County county commissioners were elected at large but that was changed as at large elections resulted in too few minority commissioners. Now we have even more waste and graft thanks to the Justice dept. and the left.
traditionalguy said...
Republican Privilege. Suppose we bus all democrat voter into GOP majority districts? It's the geographic idea that makes GOP win.
Better yet, try tunnels that emerge at the polling places.
It does make you wonder about Obama's recently announced plans for forcing inner city folk out into the 'burbs. We know making their lives better is not his point; winning elections is.
Why not make Florida one district? That would mean that all 27 seats are at-large. It's still "one man, one vote," but instead of choosing between 2 people, you have 54 options. And the top 27 vote-getters go to Congress.
I know it's a radical suggestion. But wouldn't that solve this particular problem?
In this case you would end up with 27 Democratic victories because the cities would overwhelm the rural areas.
You know what's interesting? This is one of the MANY reasons we have Senate and a House. To help preserve the power of rural areas/dispersed populations while also giving a voice to the majorities.
At-large districts for states with more than one representative were disallowed in 1967.
[Which is my way of saying, it might be smart for state legislatures to consider being formed in a bicameral way as well.]
[And, if they ARE formed in such a way, then a lot of the issues with gerrymandered districts goes away. They're still a problem, but they're now checked by the Senate equivalent.]
1. Politics explains Obama's "Regionalist" attack on the suburbs.
2. Just like politics explains his immigration policy.
3. Like his Iranian deal (and #1 above) explains his move to Hawaii after leaving office.
Big 3 broadcast nets deep-six Obama's suburb-busting plan, by Thomas Lifson
The Democrat-Media Complex have just told us what they fear the most as an issue in the 2016 election: President Obama’s plan to “fundamentally transform” suburbia (as explained today by Jeannie DeAngelis). This is an issue that literally hits voters where they live, by using the denial of federal funding to override local control and force communities to provide low-income housing distributed to approved minority groups.
Investor’s Business Daily reports that all three broadcast networks ignored the story that affects their viewers more directly than almost any other issue.
The Big Three news networks all punted on covering one of the Obama regime's most radical policies: new rules forcing cities to redraw the racial makeup of suburban neighborhoods. Why the hush-up? Politics.
ABC, CBS and NBC refused to cover the administration's official unveiling of a policy as ambitious and politically radioactive as its socialized medicine scheme.
Our mainstream media increasingly resemble the old Soviet Union’s state-controlled media, which used to feature stories of heroic workers busting production quotas and young pioneers (the Boy Scout equivalent) bringing food to shut-ins, instead of real news of the outside world.
"Instead of mentioning this expansion of the federal government, the CBS Evening News devoted a news brief to viral video of a ground trap blowing wildly in a rain delay during Tuesday night's Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game," NewsBusters noted.
ABC's World News Tonight, meanwhile, devoted one segment to the announcement that Taco Bell will start home delivery.
The Obama administration is simultaneously targeting grievance industry activists to join in burb-busting effort through lawsuits, while keeping the silent majority unaware of what is going on until it is too late:
After President Obama in his Saturday radio address encouraged civil-rights activists to join HUD in enforcing the new rule to bring more Section 8 housing to the suburbs — "Now you'll have the data you need to make the case" — the networks still weren't interested in the story.
On their Sunday news shows, the Big Three networks all ignored the issue again, focusing instead on socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and the sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird," which recasts protagonist Atticus Finch as a racist.
The gamble is that low-information voters simply will not notice. And that gamble will pay off only if GOP candidates for president refuse to bring up the issue, fearful of offending minorities, and if social media remain silent. I think that gamble will not pay off, since all that is necessary is for Hillary Clinton and her rumored running mate, HUD Secretary Julián Castro (who is in charge of enforcing the regulations) to be confronted with the program and asked if they support overriding local control of zoning to enforce quotas on housing.
This is an issue that transcends the usual political divide, with an overwhelming percentage of even Democrats in opposition....
There is a sinister poltical motive behind the plan, one our own Ed Lasky first pointed out last year, and elaborated upon this year. First comes immigration, legal and illegal. Then comes amnesty. Then comes forcing newcomers into GOP-held congressional districts, so as to swing them to Democrats. Then comes permanent Democrat control of Congress and the Oval Office, and the utopia of statism, with the government in control of every aspect of our lives.
The NYT is perfectly biased itself. Ask, and they will tell you so.
I can't help but think the Times wants "whatever makes Democrats win".
To be a little more charitable, they probably more consciously want "democracy" (as opposed to a republic), as close to "direct democracy" as they can get.
Which is more respectable, if still terrible policy.
I don't think it's possible to draw districts that the Times would call "unbiased" and still meet the contiguous requirement, much less compactness.
This reminds me of my sister's endless "fair" plans to decide Bush v Gore. Every fair plan she came up with, Gore won. The rules in place before the election? Well, under those, Bush won, so they were obviously not fair.
The NYT has defined unbiased for us. This definition is incorrect because it is biased by what the NYT wants.
Well of course.
I remember a glorious article in the NYT written back when the Republicans took the majority under Bush: it was all about how previously, the NYT had argued that the filibuster was antiquated and needlessly obstructionist of the will of the People's Congress... but now, the wise NYT realized that hey, sometimes ensuring that the majority of people can't do whatever they want to do is actually a really good idea. Long live the filibuster!
Up until the Dems became the Senate majority. Then, turns out they were right the first time, and the filibuster is nothing more but a tool for a bitter minority to lash out like a tyrant.
Turns out that whether a law or procedure is 'fair' is whether or not it hinders or helps the Democrat party. Who knew?
This is a consequence of having your base live in urban blighted areas or in small gated communities.
Let the war on suburbs commence !
No one at the NYT can even comprehend that anything or anyone actually favors Republicans. No one they know has ever even voted for one!
The NYT: Don't read it and be uninformed; read it, and be misinformed.
Didn't the NYT recently come out in favor of making California's electoral votes be allotted proportional to each party's nominee's percentage of the overall vote in the state, because that would be more fair to the millions of GOP voters who are disenfranchised? No? Well, I'm sure they'll come around to it.
I think that the obvious problem is that it is far easier to get out the vote in dense urban areas where the payoff is greatest, than in driving from house to farm to remote camp in rural areas. For this reason urban areas are over-represented in the actual electorate that shows up to vote.
For this reason, I suggest that a geographic division of districts is the most fair. Since it balances these tendencies.
Plus, if Republicans saw any benefit from it politically, they would also be concentrating their efforts on the vote rich urban areas, where they would never command a local majority, but where there are still a lot of votes to be harvested.
The New York Times will never understand that if the incentives change, the results will change.
In this case you would end up with 27 Democratic victories because the cities would overwhelm the rural areas.
Like he said, problem solved!
And people whose names are on the pay to section of the check are much easier to round up.
I grew up in Florida. It's not urban vs rural. There are twenty kinds of rural. And three or four kinds of urban. (Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando.) By way of example: The term 'cracker" came from landed gentry who rode tall in the saddle, surveying their land and humped Brahman cattle, cracking bullwhips, mostly just for show.
Maybe everyone who has lived somewhere a long time feels the same about his state but Florida is very complicated politically, economically, racially, demographically. The Gulf Coast and the Atlantic are radically different. And as for the Keys down there at the bottom... when I lived in Key West the Fire Chief, a Black Bahamian/Cuban "Conch", a drug dealer, disappeared for good. His name was Bum Farto. Democrat?
All politics is local.
The Left is itching to do away with the Electoral College and anything that gets in the way of a straight, collective vote. They know demographics, and time, are on their side. They know that resistance is shrinking into limited regions and districts. They're a little giddy and can't wait for Christmas.
I live in Philly burbs. of Penna. It is the same here as in Florida. Dems get 90% of the votes in 5-6 districts due to high % of libruls [i.e. blacks, hispanics, Jewish voters]. There is no way to fix that unless you use extreme mental gymnastics.
I live in Philly burbs. of Penna. It is the same here as in Florida. Dems get 90% of the votes in 5-6 districts due to high % of libruls [i.e. blacks, hispanics, Jewish voters]. There is no way to fix that unless you use extreme mental gymnastics.
Well, you could use the power of the federal government to force GOP communities to offer a mandatory amount of Section 8 public housing within their borders. Nah, that's a little too Machiavellian, even for modern progressives.
Even "extreme mental gymnastics" won't do it. There's just no way around the fact that, in most of the country, cities are highly Democratic, while just about everywhere else is mildly Republican. "Majority-minority" districts only make this worse, as district-drawers struggle to corral all the black and Hispanic voters into particular enclaves, making everything surrounding them whiter.
There are ways around this, naturally. You could, say, district a state alphabetically by surname, dividing the alphabet into X segments of equal population. Or you could do it all by making horizontal slices across the state. But the point is that all such schemes defeat the whole purpose of having districts, which is to group people of (presumed) common interests under one representative. Any way around the difficulty amounts to making the House a second Senate. Haven't we got enough trouble with just the one?
CJinPA,
Tongue well in cheek, I expect; they're doing that.
A couple of miles from my parents' place in rural Maryland is a public housing project. It's a ridiculous place for one -- miles from everything, including food and gas -- but there's no shortage of tenants.
Districts should be by city, county, or some other contiguous natural area. But as Insty would say, not enough opportunities for graft and corruption
Any way around the difficulty amounts to making the House a second Senate.
The 17th Amendment made the Senate into a second House of Representatives long ago.
Last time I checked, Massachusetts had a republican governor but zero republican US representatives. They do send 9 democrats to DC.
Is any state as gerrymandered as Massachusetts? And yet we never hear about it in our media.
Why stop at Florida? Why not gather up all "excess" Dem votes from New York to California and ship them to districts where they're needed?
Chris403-
Polls show that in Massachusetts there are three Democrats for every Republican. The congressional seats should be, at best, 7-2 Democrat to Republican.
I'm sure the NYT will be right on this voting unfairness. Perhaps AG Lynch will appoint a special investigative team. Maybe National Public Radio will do a big story on it.
In this case you would end up with 27 Democratic victories because the cities would overwhelm the rural areas.
I think it would give an "unfair" advantage to the Democrats, in that everybody would start to focus on cities and ignore the rest of the state.
It would also give an unfair advantage to rich candidates, or people who have access to money. You would have to campaign state-wide, so it would be more expensive to win a House seat. Running for the House would be like running for the Senate, a state-wide endeavor.
On the positive side, I think such a plan might wreck havoc with safe districts. And the gerrymander is out the window. Man, I hate the gerrymander.
And there might be other unusual aspects, too. For instance, "extreme" candidates might be more likely to go to Congress, since a vocal minority can make sure their candidate is one the of the 27. People can no longer vote "straight ticket" for the House. You actually have to pick somebody.
The interesting question is why the left has not pushed this sort of plan, which would be far more populist and democratic than the status quo. And the answer, I think, is that Democrats are not populist or democratic. They much, much prefer the power to draw districts and keep themselves in office. Both parties are in silent agreement on this. Democrats and Republicans love the gerrymander. They will bitch and moan and complain (and sue!) over the drawing of districts. But if we actually attack the gerrymander? They don't like that at all.
Terry, I am doubtful your numbers are correct. Republicans win the governorship there more often than not. 5 republicans and only 1 democrat since 1991.
One possibility is to arrange it by proportional representation--if your party gets 40% of the vote statewide, then 40% of the seats go to your slate and it basically benefits those who are favored by their party. That's how a lot of European systems work.
The downside is there would be no local representation, as in say Florida all the representatives could come from Miami and Tampa, with little incentive to look out for low population areas. Plus, elections would have less to do with the politicians on the ballot and everything to do with whether you prefer one party's slate at large (though presumably the parties would have more incentive to put more broadly popular candidates on their slates, rather than "safe" hacks who just have to appeal to the activists in their loaded districts).
"Polls show that in Massachusetts there are three Democrats for every Republican. The congressional seats should be, at best, 7-2 Democrat to Republican."
Maybe by registration, but Mass voters tend to vote GOP far more than their registration numbers suggest.
Wait a minute. In many areas there are 60% Democrats, 40 % Republicans but with winner takes all those Republicans are not represented. Shouldn't the winners reflect the proportional voting patterns?
For instance, NYC is impoverishing-up state New York by preventing fracking in the up-state Marcellus shale formation using down-state city votes. Down-state NY does not care at all about this kind of impoverishment because it isn't urban. Their attitude is ____ the red necks. But why shouldn't up state people be represented?
What about seceding from a state dominated by a rotted big city - up-state NY from downstate NYC, agricultural California from IT California? Long ago about in 1830 there was a plan to make Chicago part of Wisconsin, that failed, and we in Wisconsin have been the better for it. Then a little later in 1861 a majority in Virginia voted to secede from the United States and then in 1862 West Virginia seceded from Virginia. And that was entirely legal. So a part of a state can legally secede from another part. And when you get that blind contempt of the urban democrats for another part of their state which you have in NY, IL, and CA, I think people should behave like the West Virginians and split off from the rotted cities while remaining in the United States.
Too bad we can't just let computers pick our leaders from the first 100 names listed in the Boston phone directory, as W.F. Buckley famously suggested. Cheaper, simpler and with way better outcome.
I lost the link, but I got my number from a poll that showed that in MA, self-identification (not registration), ran 35% D, 11% R, with 54% answering no party ID.
"In a perfectly unbiased electoral system, a party winning 50 percent of the statewide votes would earn 50 percent of the congressional seats."
Another person for whom the democracy/republic distinction escapes them.
I could just as easily argue that with regard to future elections, the present system favors the Democrats. The democrats have to "convert" far fewer voters in any one district to turn it blue, than republicans would have to "convert" to turn it red. Possible for a dem, but nearly impossible for a republican. But that would mean campaigning on ideas, policy, and your constituents' interests rather than just drawing yourself a congressional seat, and that's just crazy talk.
Strange. When Texas had massively biased districts (in the 2002 election 53% of its elected Congressmen were Democrats despite only winning 45% of the total vote), it was considered, by the Times, a massive outrage when the Texas legislature in 2003 fixed the bias.
Is any state as gerrymandered as Massachusetts? And yet we never hear about it in our media.
Look at the Maryland Map
Times gonna Times.
"Districts should be by city, county, or some other contiguous natural area. But as Insty would say, not enough opportunities for graft and corruption"
The simplest solution would be each state divided into squares on a grid.
Some districts could be half water or straddle municipalities and counties, but it would still be a fairer system.
To follow up, the squares enlarge or divide on the grid until you have the right number of seats.
"Is any state as gerrymandered as Massachusetts?" We invented it, the rest should pay royalties.
"Is it even possible to draw congressional districts in Massachusetts that do not favor Democrats?"
File under Questions Never Asked, Articles Never Written.
The simplest solution would be each state divided into squares on a grid.
This would likely reduce the number of minority candidates elected, so the Supreme Court would rule these districts unconstitutional due to disparate impact.
The Democrats' disadvantage is created by their own strategic choice to appeal to voters who are less geographically dispersed.
The "disadvantage" is almost entirely due to the need to create safe seats for minority candidates to prevent the Justice Department from filing a disparate impact case.
"This would likely reduce the number of minority candidates elected, so the Supreme Court would rule these districts unconstitutional due to disparate impact."
Yeah, fake fairness.
"This would likely reduce the number of minority candidates elected"
Would also force minority candidates to offer broader appeal than simply their race. You know, like the Tim Scotts and Nikki Haleys and Susana Martinezes already have to.
@EMD:
I didn't say I agreed with the policy.
I'm actually proud of he fact that White Republicans will vote for minorities, instead of coming from Gerrymandered minority majority safe districts like the Democratic minorities do.
I think it should be done by computer, if it was possible to make it secure. Cali and now Arizona passed laws to create a bi partisan commission , and Cali's was gamed by Democrat stealth candidates. I guess in Cali it wouldn't matter anyway, but Arizona now will probably end up with a big Dem advantage.
If you make it fair though, the CBC will have to all get real jobs.
The term 'cracker" came from landed gentry who rode tall in the saddle, surveying their land and humped Brahman cattle, cracking bullwhips, mostly just for show.
I always thought it came from the phrase "white as a soda cracker".
My 9th grade science teacher insisted that fuck was an acronym....
For
Unlawful
Carnal
Knowledge
I didn't have the heart to show her the etymology tracing back to low German.
Actually, those squealing the loudest in Florida over the court-ordered redistricting are black Democrat legislators, who stand to lose their odd-looking safe districts. And the most impartial of analysis of the current Florida maps would suggest that the maps were not biased by party, but by incumbency. This was a bipartisan effort which created a sinecure for those in power. We might as well have a nobility-grant system here. If your read the article and saw the map, kindly note that squiggly line in the upper right hand corner, a "minority-majority" VRA created district.
And the Times did correctly note, begrudgingly, that no matter who does the redistricting, the Republican party will still carry a majority because registered Democrat majorities are pretty much crammed into only four or five counties, home to, among other, the charming Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the Honorable Alcee Hastings, and the gregarious Alan Grayson. What state could ask for more?
1) Is it possible to gerrymander Congressional seats in favor of the Democrats? I don't know about Florida -- a VERY complex polity as has been pointed out above -- but it was certainly done here in NC, where I now live. In 2010, when the districts were determined by the majority-Democrat legislature, the Republicans won 54% of the votes for Congress, but got only a minority, 6 of 13, of the Congressional seats.
2) Matthew Sablan mentioned above the possible use of bicameral state legislatures to deal with some of these issues. In Connecticut, where I grew up, the state Senate was districted in accordance with population, whereas the state House was based on "Towns" (169 towns in the state, each with one representative, except two for those towns with more than (I think) 10,000 population). Like the US Senate. That was found unconstitutional.
3) Brando above mentioned that in Mass. the GOP vote is greater than its registration. It used to be the case (I haven't lived in New England for a long time) that a lot of people who voted solidly Democrat for national offices (except when Eisenhower was running) often voted Republican for local and state offices. Many of those who voted this way were yankees, i.e., anglo-saxons, who were sure that the Irish, Italians, Poles, and other ethnics, would steal the state blind if they controlled the local and state governments. (Of course, that never happened.)
Alcee Hastings, judge impeached for bribery has an interesting district.
http://alceehastings.house.gov/district/interactivemap.htm
Didn't the New York Times pretty much go to the mattresses over the fact that Texas redistricted to obtain a result that was more in line with the fact that the majority of voters voted for Republicans, when before the redistricting the majority of congresspersons were Democrats?
Despite the state's national reputation as a Republican stronghold, the Texas state legislature has historically been dominated by the Democratic Party. In fact, as of 2002, Republicans had not held a majority of seats in both houses of the legislature in 130 years (since Reconstruction following the Civil War). By the 1990s, this Democratic advantage had allowed the party to create what political analyst Michael Barone argued was the most effective partisan gerrymander in the nation. Following the redistricting session after the 1990 census, Democrats won 70 percent of the state’s congressional seats in 1992, while taking only half of the votes statewide.
What did the NYT have to say about this situation?
The redrawing of election districts in Texas in 2003, which Tom DeLay helped engineer to make the state's Congressional delegation more Republican, lands in the Supreme Court today. Democrats are asking the court to rule that the plan is unconstitutional and violates the Voting Rights Act. The court should strike down the plan. It should also use the case to set limits on this kind of politically motivated drawing of districts by both parties, a practice that is making voters increasingly irrelevant.
Texas's 2003 redistricting was an extreme case of partisan gerrymandering.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/opinion/01wed2.html
Oh yeah. Right. What a joke. Imagine the bubble you must live in to not see that the paper is a joke. I guess though that in Manhattan the bubble is pretty nice.
That's assuming you have to confine your districting to only two dimensions.
Which is sort of ironic, considering the advantage accruing to two-dimensional thinkers.
There is no way to fix that unless you use extreme mental gymnastics.
For some people, the mental pinkie flex is gymnastics enough.
I live in Philly burbs. of Penna. It is the same here as in Florida. Dems get 90% of the votes in 5-6 districts due to high % of libruls [i.e. blacks, hispanics, Jewish voters]. There is no way to fix that unless you use extreme mental gymnastics.
You mean the great GOP urban policy isn't working to make them competitive there?
Sucks for dems in Florida. Now matter which way the slice it the repubs have the advantage. Good. Maybe don't cluster like sardines in can. Then again, I don't want htem spreading their influence outside of their close knit circle. PLease stay exactly where you are.
Yeah, R&B, I say we think in four dimensions. Any Democrats who ever flew over an district in an airplane at any point in time in the past get to vote in that district. Finally! A use for flyover country!
The Democrats' disadvantage is created by their own strategic choice to appeal to voters who are less geographically dispersed.
Althouse, you nailed it.
The New York Times was thinking 4D. They believed that it was of the utmost fairness that a long expired advantage among voters should live on in perpetuity as an advantage for Democrats in representation in Texas. It was only fair, due to an advantage that had happened earlier in the fourth dimension of time should continue so that a 1-1 split in votes should produce a 2-1 bounty in Congressional seats!
That doesn't even take into account the 3D component, including those in passing airplanes!
That's why the NYT are and will ever be our betters.
From Tim in Vermonts linked content: "Despite the state's national reputation as a Republican stronghold, the Texas state legislature has historically been dominated by the Democratic Party. In fact, as of 2002, Republicans had not held a majority of seats in both houses of the legislature in 130 years (since Reconstruction following the Civil War)."
This is not possible since each and every one of those racist white southerners immediately became Republicans in 1968 and everyone denying it is a denying denier. But those same racist white southerners who immediately decided to become republicans in 1968 were very clever indeed. They decided they would continue to vote democrat for the next 40 years. Just to hide the fact they were racist republicans.
It was a brilliant plan and perfectly executed.
If you go 4D, you can count people vote from other times. It's the next logical step from Chicago where temporal matters are no bar to voting.
Static Ping: "If you go 4D, you can count people vote from other times."
They already do.
Yeah, I meant "If you go 4D, you can count people from other times" as in redistricting. In Chicago the dead vote but they typically don't count in redistricting. (Or do they?)
I need an editor.
Presumably, in modern America, the point of people having a vote is that those people will have influence on their government.
If you believe this, Althouse's solution is absurd. If the majority wants particular policies, Althouse says they should abandon their policy preferences so that they'll support the preferences of the minority, which happens to benefit from a vote counting system that gives them the majority of the political power. Why wouldn't Atlhouse advise them to stop voting completely, since their votes literally don't count toward political power? Althouse's suggestion that the majority should vote against what they want so they can give the governing minority the appearance of being the majority seems like a big ask.
Sheesh.
The districts should be the areas enclosed by the Delaunay triangulation of pseudo-random Poisson disk sample points.
Gee, do you think that all this Democratic interest in districting and the coincidence of the media attention are an accident? Look the recently filed action in Wisconsin (with UW Law emeritus Prof. Bill Whitford as one of the plaintiffs) and ask yourself, why, when they argued the contrast between 2008 and 2012 made their case, did they wait until July of 2015 to file suit? I'd say, and it is just mine opinion, that they are gaming the time line, hoping to get to a particular point in front of friendly judges who will issue an injunction mandating a result favorable to the plaintiff's contention just for the 2016 election, on the basis that there is not enough time to fully adjudicate the issue. Which is a function of the Democrats waiting long enough to file their complaints so that, oh, it just lined up that way. Un huh.
"electoral"
Were it not for men such as Justice Thomas I would hate, this, my own, country.
But such as Thomas are, and will be, then everything is okay.
Electoral is a term that people use knowing the right people use it the right way.
Electoral benefits from the "majority" not knowing.
But when it's reduced to caring from knowing: Oh I know what happens.
Ha ha ha some chump got raped twice...
ha ha ha.
THey know they deserve bad things: not you.
"You mean the great GOP urban policy isn't working to make them competitive there?"
The Democrats seem to not want to entice white working class voters ...
Redistricting is essential; the only alternative is for the government to coerce and control where people live, move, and reproduce.
Redistricting is essentially, therefore, political.
Given that, the question is: What level of government ought be entrusted with the essential, raw, and necessarily political task of redistricting?
I live in a state that was one-party Democratic for the first half of my adult life. In the mid 1990s it flipped to become a one-party Republican state.
It took another decade for that fundamental change in the political allegiance of an overwhelming majority of the state's voting public to catch up with its Congressional representation, through the voting of the most-directly representative organ of government, the state legislature (and, secondarily, its executive).
The federal Congress and federal courts have done nothing -- nothing -- but skew and delay that intrinsically political and raw process. Fie on them.
The Democrats seem to not want to entice white working class voters ...
Not if the entitlement of stupid, sectarian, racist pride is the cost.
Not if the entitlement of stupid, sectarian, racist pride is the cost.
Pop Quiz:
Which party elects minorities to represent majority White districts, and which party only elects minorities to represent Gerrymandered majority minority districts?
Which party elects minorities to represent majority White districts, and which party only elects minorities to represent Gerrymandered majority minority districts?
Hell, racist old Confederate flag-flying SC has an Indian governor and a black Senator. I bet enlightened NY or MA are the same. Ditto CA.
I don't see why conservatives must pay because white liberals are bigots.
This is not possible since each and every one of those racist white southerners immediately became Republicans in 1968 and everyone denying it is a denying denier. But those same racist white southerners who immediately decided to become republicans in 1968 were very clever indeed. They decided they would continue to vote democrat for the next 40 years. Just to hide the fact they were racist republicans.
That's what I never understood. If all the segregationists just became Republicans, how do they explain all of the old segregationists who stayed in Congress as Democrats?
Sam Irvin, of Watergate fame, was quite a segregationist. Byrd, of course, had his issues. Ditto Fulbright. Ditto Gore. Thurmond was as much a "reformed" segregationist as any of those 4.
"This is not possible since each and every one of those racist white southerners immediately became Republicans in 1968 and everyone denying it is a denying denier. But those same racist white southerners who immediately decided to become republicans in 1968 were very clever indeed. They decided they would continue to vote democrat for the next 40 years. Just to hide the fact they were racist republicans."
I'd also note that JFK won most of the Deep South states in 1960--this was of course before black voters down there had the Voting Rights Act to protect them, so he was winning white southern votes. Those same Deep South states voted for Stevenson in '52 and '56 (in fact, those were the only states he won). Although Goldwater carried the Deep South in '64, that region wasn't won by the GOP at the presidential level in '68 (Wallace won it then) or '76 (Carter). Nixon and Reagan only won those states in their landslides because they won everything else--New England, Midwest, Left Coast--so the idea that they had some "special appeal" to racist Southern secret Republicans is ludicrous, unless their evil plan was to appeal to every other region and sneak in the South as well.
Some parts of the South (namely, the "near south", e.g. VA, NC, TX) did start drifting to the GOP around Ike's time. But if this was due to some secret racist appeal (like Ike supporting civil rights legislation, that sneaky reverse psychology master!) that appeal took decades to work on the Deep South.
Basically, the GOP does as well as it does in the South today because the South is the most conservative region in the country (note also the other area the GOP is dominant--plains and mountain states, and rural parts of coastal states). These are voters who care more about religion, prefer less restriction on business, don't trust unions and love the military. So of course they're going to go with the party they associate with that--the Dems who represent those sentiments started leaving the party around McGovern's time, though you can still find some popping up (e.g., Heath Shuler, or the man Bill Clinton ran as in '92).
But the idea that "the south is racist and they love the GOP because the GOP harbors racists" does not make sense. It happens to be that the south is far less racist now than it was during the time when the Dems dominated there. Do some racists prefer the GOP? Sure, just like some murderers prefer the Dems. But that doesn't mean the Dems are pro-murderer any more than the GOP is pro-racist. And it so happens that the South has been drifting ever more towards the GOP at the same time its white population is (a) becoming more and more intermingled with transplants from the North and overseas immigrants and (b) far less racist than two generations ago.
Beldar said...
Redistricting is essential; the only alternative is for the government to coerce and control where people live, move, and reproduce.
7/14/15, 11:05 PM
And in fact they are now planning to.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/07/here-we-go-hud-releases-new-fair-housing-rule/
Not if the entitlement of stupid, sectarian, racist pride is the cost.
R&B called us racist again without any evidence, logic, or argument of any kind. What a surprise. It is almost as if you didn't have to read his comments to know what he is going to say and almost as if he feels that his own personal hatred for anybody who disagrees with him on matters of politics dominates his capacity for reason...
Naah!
R&B called us racist again without any evidence, logic, or argument of any kind. What a surprise. It is almost as if you didn't have to read his comments to know what he is going to say and almost as if he feels that his own personal hatred for anybody who disagrees with him on matters of politics dominates his capacity for reason...
I voted for an Indian governor and a black Senator. Just in the last few years.
Can he say the same?
"The Democrats' disadvantage is created by their own strategic choice to appeal to voters who are less geographically dispersed."
And about a hundred years ago the relative advantages were switched--the GOP was the party of the urban sophisticates and small townsfolk, while the Democrats dominated in rural areas and among the more working class parts of cities. This enabled them to dominate Congress (and it didn't hurt that a large region of the country was dead set against ever electing a Republican) even while the GOP often won the presidency.
The setup by districts is the way the game is played. Learn to play it, don't scream about the rules only because they no longer benefit you.
"I voted for an Indian governor and a black Senator. Just in the last few years."
I'm sure they 'govern white' though, so neither really counts.
I'm sure they 'govern white' though, so neither really counts.
True. They need to govern more like a real black person --- Hillary Clinton.
damikesc said...
I'm sure they 'govern white' though, so neither really counts.
True. They need to govern more like a real black person --- Hillary Clinton.
7/15/15, 12:37 PM
Are you saying Hillary! is black by marriage?
When Republicans have held majorities, often veto-proof majorities, in both the House and Senate for 60+ years, as the Democrats did starting in the 1930s, get back to me about unfair electoral gerrymandering.
Post a Comment