Here's the highest-rated comment over there: "If the Republicans want to stop this kind of gerrymandering then they need to support the voting rights legislation being proposed by congress. However, should Republicans succeed in stopping that legislation the Democrats can’t unilaterally disarm. They must use everything the current system allows to attempt to further their agenda including gerrymandering."
१५ सप्टेंबर, २०२१
"Yet with Republicans preparing to use their control of states like Texas, Florida and Georgia to pile up a dozen or more new red seats, Democrats seem intent..."
"... on using New York’s laws to their advantage. [One elections analyst] said that New York’s gains would likely be greater than others whose process was under single-party control, such as Texas, because those states have already been more thoroughly gerrymandered."
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"If the Republicans want to stop this kind of gerrymandering then they need to support the voting rights legislation being proposed by congress."
If the Republicans want to stop us from doing something unethical then they need to support our unethical end-run being proposed by congress.
FIFY.
they need to support the voting rights legislation being proposed by congress.
I've read a lot about HR-1; i don't remember ANYTHING in it, about Gerrymandering...
Did i miss something?
Democrats have historically been leaders, innovators even, in the field of gerrymandering, so it's hysterical to hear them whine.
You still can't find a box of ammo at the sporting goods store.
Where could all this be heading??
i guess
SEC. 2401a
) the redistricting plan developed and enacted into law by the independent redistricting commission established in the State
Isn't THAT what we have NOW? partisan redistricting done by 'independent' commissions?
As if the Democrats would stop if the Republicans disarmed. As if they don't do it already where they have control, and their pious "non-partisan redistricting commissions" are nothing but a pose. If it threatens their power, Democrats will throw away their so-called "principles."
Aren't the Democrats already everything, including things the system doesn't allow, to further their agenda?
Don't call it "voting rights" legislation. It needs an honest name. Protection of Democrats Act. Or something like that.
Both sides gerrymander with equal enthusiasm. Democrats only pretend to care when it's a Republican legislature drawing the lines. Republicans are honest enough not to care either way.
The left-wing hypocrisy is usually not so explicit as here in the comment Althouse highlighted.
It is wishful thinking that the Democrats can somehow gerrymander New York state any worse than it already is. The only way they can get rid of 5 Republican seats in the state is to split New York City's population into every single district drawn while also doing the same with Buffalo, Rochester, and Albany.
Alternative headline: Democrats Claim Jerrymandering Harms Democrats, Demand More Jerrymandering
Ah the classic Progressive hypocrisy of “it’s only wrong when they do it,” which is the more malignant cousin of Civility Bullshit. NYT commenters are as shameless as the politicians.
The 2030 census should be interesting after Covid.
Work from home is here to stay in these office jobs.
NYC is a relic, as are most large urban downtowns.
Plus the violent crime spike in large cities combined with their shifty schools that wouldn’t even open last year will lead to hollowed out downtowns.
Suburbs without cities.
That highest rated comment might well have read, “[Democrats] must use everything the current system allows to attempt to further their agenda including gerrymandering [and election fraud].
While Democrats might blanch at the public disclosure, their voting patterns, behavior and public comments certainly clarify that they believe “anything goes” to further the agenda. How fortunate for them that the current system ostensibly allows a variety of means to alter the outcome of elections including traditional election fraud.
At the risk of sounding overly cynical, who gives a fat flying squirrel whether the scumbag we send to DC wears an ass or an elephant sticker? I know there some 10+ million deplorable types in NY, some even inside city limits, but we know who’s in charge, and it isn’t our people, and wasn’t even when the GOP ran Albany. Rural NY, by which I mean the entire state besides Manhattan and Long Island, should secede and join up with PA ex Philadelphia and make a big city-free state.
Let's consider, but not diagram, that "Yet with . . . Democrats seem intent on using NY's laws to their advantage[.]" sentence.
It's a hinky rhetorical strategy, implying that without R provocation, D's would not think of using NY's laws to their advantage. Perish the thought!
If the Republicans want to stop this kind of gerrymandering (i.e. temporary gerrymandering)...blah, blah, blah...
They must submit to permanent gerrymandering. FIFY.
The Democrats are going to gerrymander no matter what - and so are the Republicans. This isn't thing that can be altered - at least right now - by anything anyone can think, say or do. It's only events that will make, no, force, changes in what parties do. The fall of New York City, the slaughter in Chicago streets, the filth in San Francisco streets have led to no changes in Dem policies - that shows how great the events will have to be to finally cause real change. And since what can't last, won't last, these events are coming. All we can do is be like Rick Rescoria.
At least gerrymandering is legal.
I often hold my breath when Althouse prefaces with, "The highest-rated comment at that page was this..."
But here, I find the highest-rated comment to be matter-of-factly true. I am happy to listen to Republicans or Democrats promote redistricting commissions, or denounce redistricting commissions. Both sides engage in Gerrymandering.
When it came down to it, I thought that the US Supreme Court's decision in Arizona Legislature v. Arizona Redistricting Commission was a bad one, and when I had a vote in Michigan, I voted against a redistricting commission.
But Althouse's "highest-rated comment" exemplar doesn't even need to go to the merits or problems of commissions, or the merits or problems of legislative redistricting. It simply goes to consistency of thought.
This is a more blatant example of the decades-old media narrative: "Democrats are motivated by principle, Republicans by politics, except for cases in which Republicans, who are unprincipled, force Democrats to reluctantly be motivated by politics."
It's a way for media outlets to shovel organically fed red meat into the gaping maws of their partisan readership without insulting their sensibilities.
We're having a gerrymander fight here in WI. I stopped one of the Progs cold the other day, asking "So you oppose having majority-minority districts which are created expressly to allow for minority representation?"
It was fun watching him try to explain why the creation of majority-minority districts by gerrymandering isn't, in fact, gerrymandering.
So for him at least, some gerrymandering is more equal than others.
Civility bullshit.
It is a lot easier to say people are fleeing Democrat/Uniparty rule and Democrats seek ways to keep people under their thumb.
So Elbridge Gerry was a Democrat, right?
The 2030 census should be interesting after Covid.
-----
Why wait? If the GOP wins Congress and the WH in 2024, order a new census.
What was it that Republicans were doing that drove the Democrats to wage their 'Lawfare' campaign in 2019 / 2020, to install laws and regulations, sometimes extra-legislatively, in order to guarantee the Absentee Ballot free-for-all and other irregularities that helped put the Presidential election in their pocket? What egregious Republican behavior inspired that? Winning elections?
This is a friendly reminder that Democrats *do not* care about "voting rights." They care about your right to vote for Democrats. The GOP likes to stack the deck through redistricting, the Democrats attack ballot access. The Democrats are just as ruthless in partisan trickery as the GOP but they never get called out for it.
How did this play out in 2020? The Democrats successfully got the Green Party kicked off the ballot in Wisconsin and Biden won the election by fewer votes (~20k) than Jill Stein received in 2016 (~30k). There's your margin of victory.
The GOP is too busy chasing Krakens and Sasquatch to fight and win the real battles that actually matter and that are hiding in plain sight.
What looks like sub-optimal gerrymandering may not be. Ideally, you'd like to maximize the seats your party wins by having a small majority of party faithful in as many districts as you can. But then you face the danger that a small change in voter sentiment might cost you a lot of seats. So you settle for fewer districts with bigger majorities.
Another problem is that powerful incumbents in your party are going to demand big majorities in their districts to keep their seats safe.
So I expect the writers of the article will be disappointed if they expect a drastic change in gerrymandering.
It is not voting rights legislation; it is vote fraud facilitation legislation. To the modern Progressive, the only honest outcome is: "We win."
From "New York Will Soon Lose 1 House Seat. The G.O.P. Might Lose 5. A new bipartisan commission is drawing up district lines, but New York Democratic leaders are laying the groundwork to take over the redistricting process" (NYT).
So, let's see if I understand this correctly:
NY Democrats passed a law setting up a "new bipartisan commission" to do redistricting.
Now that it's time to actually do the redistricting, they want to junk the law?
And the NYTimes commenters ar all deviously happy at this destruction of law?
Color me skeptical that the current Voting Rights Legislation is the key to stopping Gerrymandering, a practice that earned it's name for things being done over 200 years ago.
Jeff at 2:27 p.m. nails the the factors that keep gerrymandering under control for both parties.
I Suppose we could use math / mapping as follows : has it been attempted? how many different solutions are possible?
Problem - how to divvy up state X into /n/ pieces each containing /m/ voters with all perimeters equal/same
"NYC is a relic, as are most large urban downtowns."
I was in mid-town yesterday-pretty thriving relic.
Why Would They? Start Here
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/09/because_they_are_evil.html
"If the Republicans want to stop this kind of gerrymandering then they need to support the voting rights legislation being proposed by congress."
Shorter version: Trust us!
Epilogue: [in Otter voice] You f___ed up. You trusted us!
With apologies to Joe Walsh, you can't argue with a sick mind. How degreed, professional people who like to think of themselves as 'progressive' can think that asking for an ID to prove you are who you are, and adding more dates and hours to our already bizarre and ridiculous 'window' of voting is to be considered racist and anti-voter's rights is a stretch by any rational person.
As for New York, it appears they want to me even more like California than they already are. And who could blame them? Who doesn't love the highest taxes in the Western world? Who doesn't love shit patrols in your major cities, thousands of homeless shooting drugs and tumbling outside of stylish glass towers? Who could possibly not want worse schools, closing and/or moving business? Well, New York for one.
The reason they lost congressional seats is because they lost a ton of people. And the word is that they should have lost more, but the census team kept a chunk of their population loss off the books for the 2020 so it won't show up for 10 years. If they do more of what California does, they'll lose even more people. And I have to tell you, I'm not sure we want anymore New Yorkers in Florida. Just remember why you left, please.
Yancey Ward,
The only way they can get rid of 5 Republican seats in the state is to split New York City's population into every single district drawn while also doing the same with Buffalo, Rochester, and Albany.
I wouldn't put it past them, actually, but, yes, that's what it would take. Throw all that "compact and contiguous" stuff out the window, forget about natural boundaries and the like, and just figure out how to put just enough Democratic voters into as many districts as possible. Need I point out that this is the very definition of partisan gerrymandering?
I am not saying that Republicans don't gerrymander. But I can't see any Republican (or "bipartisan") commission doing what the NY situation would require. Republican gerrymanders tend to be subtler than that. Consider the WI map after the last census. Was it gerrymandered? Probably. But it is a fact that any state where one party is crammed into cities with an overwhelming margin, and the other is spread out all over the state with much narrower margins, will show an advantage for the second party unless you really put your back into finding ways to help the first party. The problem is that Democrats waste their votes b/c a large fraction of them live in 90% Dem districts, and there's literally no way to get around that except by throwing out all the standard (compact/contiguous/&c.) rules for making decent districts.
There is one other way to gerrymander, and of course both parties do it: Put two incumbents into the same district, so that they're forced to duke it out. I think IL has a couple of instances pending.
If and when the Republicans take control of Congress and the Presidency one solution to voting fraud would be the abolition of mail in voting for federal elections. The other is to legislate only citizens can be counted for apportionment. As for Gerrymandering, I doubt that could ever be solved but it would be interesting if cartographers could create districts that are contiguous with the longest and widest section of the district being the portion that contiguous to the equivalent adjacent district.
Simple civics.
The Federal government is controlled (answers to) the States and People.
What the Democrat Party has realized for a long time now, 20-25 years? Is Republicans concentrated on winning State and local elections. Remember, Dems had control of the House for decades. So Republicans, weaponized the constitution, and sought to govern though the States...Just like the Constitution directs.
We have several Governors that have taken the power back from the Feds, and other Governors are paying attention, and learning.
From NCSL. National Council of State Legislatures
Required: Compact, Contiguous, Preserve Political Subdivisions
Prohibited: Intentionally Favor a Party, Incumbent, Person or Group; Use Partisan Data
Iowa has non partisan legislative staff draw the districts. The legislature votes on it. If they vote it down, it is moved to the Supreme Court. They will adjust if needed and then their plan is law.
I think Iowa is one of the few using this process
They are who they say we are and will do what they say they despise.
It does not even cross their minds that they might be 1% responsible. The mark of a fanatic.
"The reason they lost congressional seats is because they lost a ton of people."
"New York City, long the country's largest metropolis, grew more populous over the past decade — adding 629,000 people to bring its population to more than 8.8 million"
https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2021/08/13/new-york-city-census-data-population-grows
Facts are stupid things.
“I was in mid-town yesterday-pretty thriving relic.”
Thriving compared to what? I was in midtown today, and I would say that there are approximately a third of the usual number of people—an increase from last year but still nowhere near what it was. Busy, but not New York level busy. And why would it be? People are still, absurdly, terrified of covid and the local government has its foot on our necks. Vaccine passports—thanks, Deblasio! I’m a dyed in the wool New Yorker and I’m ready to call it quits.
“The largest destination, the New York City metro, is expected to see an 88% collapse in annual hotel business travel revenues, from $4.6 billion in 2019 to a projected $531 million in 2021.”
https://wolfstreet.com/2021/09/15/business-travel-conventions-office-occupancy-stuck-in-collapse-mode-its-been-so-long-people-forgot-what-the-old-normal-even-was/
"New York City, long the country's largest metropolis, grew more populous over the past decade."
But the masters of the universe types who fund the metropolis have not returned. According to this article in the NYT How Coronavirus Changed NYC Transit commuter rail ridership is 80% lower than in pre pandemic days (scroll down for the relevant chart). Without commuters and the money they bring in (even non masters of the universe types) New York will die.
Mutaman,
"New York City, long the country's largest metropolis, grew more populous over the past decade — adding 629,000 people to bring its population to more than 8.8 million"
Yes, but we aren't talking about NYC; we're talking about NY State. And the point isn't that NY State lost population, but that it grew less than other parts of the country.
Facts are stupid things.
Yup, they sure are.
Mutaman said...
"New York City, long the country's largest metropolis, grew more populous over the past decade — adding 629,000 people to bring its population to more than 8.8 million"
Facts are stupid things.
Leftists are stupid people. Those numbers are from March / April 2020. If the Census cutoff date had been June, NY would have probably lose another Congressional seat
Narayanan said...
I Suppose we could use math / mapping as follows : has it been attempted? how many different solutions are possible?
Problem - how to divvy up state X into /n/ pieces each containing /m/ voters with all perimeters equal/same
Do you honor political boundaries? IOW, do you try, as much as possible, to put all the NYC residents into "NYC districts", with at most one district that has city and suburb voters intermixed? (IOW: City has 1 million people. District is 300k people. So 3 districts that have 300k city residents, 1 district w 100k city residents, 200k other residents)
Do you honor physical boundaries? Do you let rivers, lakes, hills (esp if they're lightly populated, with heavily populated low-lands on both sides) divide up districts? How about freeways / expressways / railroad tracks (which sometimes create political boundaries)?
If the majority of people in a district use mass transit, I would define "compact" by "travel time over mass transit to get from point A to point B". If the majority use cars, then I claim travel time by car is more important than physical distance.
the "problem" is that any reasonable distracting hurts Democrats, and will continue to hurt Democrats until they stop being an "urban first, everyone else can FOAD" Party
As Yancy pointed out, the only districting that the Democrats would consider "fair" (i.e. % of representatives from each party roughly matches % overall vote) is one that violates pretty much every single neutral principle of redistricting, which is to say it requires doing wedges of city + suburb + rural, where the city voters overwhelm everyone else, and only the city interests are valued.
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