#gerrymandering
NEW YORK STATE: Court rejects congressional districting
On Wednesday, the New York Court of Appeals rejected new congressional maps that had been viewed as favoring Democrats. The court ruled Democratic leaders violated the State Constitution when drawing new congressional and State Senate Districts. Now, a court-appointed special master will draw replacement lines for the critical midterm elections this year. Congressional and state Senate primary elections will likely have to move from June to August, according to the Appeals Court. New York district maps were supposed to have been drawn by an independent commission according to a process passed by voters in 2014. That commission, equally made up of Democrats and Republicans, could not come to an agreement on one set of maps, so the Democratic-controlled legislature created maps and quickly signed them into law, which was followed by a Republican lawsuit.Source: American Geographical Society
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I’ve been avoiding posting about politics for a while, but noticed this today, and I really couldn’t avoid commenting, particularly on the claim “that the Congressional delegation & state legislature will be red in perpetuity.”
I understand Run for Something is trying to gin up support for its efforts, so this kind of rhetoric is to be expected; however, it provides an opportunity to discuss some past and recent history.
The idea that partisan gerrymandering will make Texas red or blue in perpetuity ignores demographic change, which is how Texas became Republican in the first place, despite Democrat gerrymandering. This is an issue I’ve discussed at some length on this blog, specifically that due to demographic change (migration, economic/wealth shifts, etc.) the Republican party began to grow, especially in urban/suburban areas, eventually controlling the state legislature in 2003, when they promptly began to redraw the political maps.
See the following posts:
Republican Patterns in Urban-Rural Categories
More recently (2016-2018), we can see a similar trend. Only this time its suburban counties becoming Democrat, especially around Austin, DFW, and Houston. For example, in 2018, Beto won Hays, Fort Ben and Williamson counties - all of which had been Republican counties but have been trending Democrat. Democrats also won state legislative seats in these counties, as well as other previously Republican seats, which is why they only need 9 seats to flip the Texas House in 2020, and their targets are again in seats which are trending away from the Republicans in spite of any partisan gerrymanders.
See the following posts:
In other words, demographic change eventually overtakes partisan gerrymandering.
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Gerrymandering in America is so bad, they made an entire font out of it.
This font is hard to decipher and makes no sense — just like most congressional districts —> uglygerry.com.
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How We Stop a Gerrymandering Catastrophe
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s ruling and allowed Alabama’s egregious gerrymandered Congressional map to remain in place.
There’s no reason to sugarcoat this. Across the country, Republican state legislatures are using extreme gerrymandering to cement their power for decades, and the window to stop them is closing fast.
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Btw, if you’d like my daily analyses, commentary, and drawings, please subscribe to my free newsletter: robertreich.substack.com
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Senate Democrats must use every tool at their disposal to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act before the GOP rigs their way back to power in the midterms.
Know the truth about how we got into this gerrymandering mess - and what we can do to get out of it.
Our best shot at saving our democracy is right now. It’s time to act.
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Florida judge orders election officials to use court-ordered fix to Ron DeSantis’ racial gerrymander
On Monday, according to The Tributary, a Florida judge in Tallahassee ordered state election officials to move forward with a court-picked remedial congressional map to fix a racial gerrymander recently signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
For those of you unfamiliar: on @artificial-father I started a series of maps designed to make the viewers uncomfortable. Seeing so many criticisms that, i decided on a more interactive project.
Map of the united states, but it is worth a total of $300, 6 dollars can buy you an entire state of your choice and declare it part of your empire, you can name it whatever you please.
If you cannot afford an entire state, that’s okay I made this map, I can cut divide states up as need be, prices will be adjusted. Therefore, if you wish to edit existing borders you may.
For the sake of fairness you may not purchase land that has already been bought.
—A copy of this map will be retained, and a new game with different rules will proceed with the generated map.
- Make sure to check the original post to make sure the state you want is still available
- Make sure to message me @dear-future-ai when a purchase is made to ensure quickest updates to the map, and username in the paypal message for easier verification.
Contributors:
- @pig-lota
- @facelessoldgargoyle
- @butter-da
- Unnamed paypal donor
- Unnamed paypal donor
“More than 90% of the nation’s sheriffs are white men, a statistic reflected in California, and the constitutionally minded ones seem to share an unwavering commitment to cowboy hats and cowboy attitudes, just like Villanueva. Of course, “patriots” love them, macho shtick and all. During the pandemic, many sheriffs who have espoused constitutional leanings, including Riverside County’s Chad Bianco and more than a handful in Northern California counties including Del Norte, Shasta and Siskiyou, refused to enforce COVID-19 mask mandates, much less public health advice for their deputies to get vaccinated. Others have voiced support for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, indulged in baseless claims of election fraud, voiced strong anti-immigrant views and created a “resolution” opposing any kind of registration for guns.”—
Why Sheriff Alex Villanueva acts above the law in L.A. County
GoogleLA SHERIFF’S GANGS
I don’t know if this is true across the country, but in my state, sheriffs are just politicians. They’re elected, not for any background in criminology or law enforcement, but because of their political stance. They’re just more proof (here in NC) that gerrymandering works.
The Secret GOP Plan to Keep Power
In 2020, we need to pay attention to state elections as well as elections for president and Congress. State elections could decide whether the Republican Party further corrupts American democracy.
As demographics change — and America becomes more diverseandmore liberal — the GOP has responded by implementing policies that will take away power from the American people. Rather than changing with the times, they’ve got another plan: minority rule – by them.
Beware. The 2020 elections offer a chance for Republicans to tilt political power in their direction for the next decade. In most states, the party that wins control of the legislature effectively gains the power to draw once-a-decade maps setting district boundaries for state and congressional elections after a new census count. And the next census count will be in 2020.
So you can bet that on Election Day 2020 Republicans will try to further entrench their gains from the last census in 2010, when they swept into power in 20 state capitols and redrew political maps that secured a decade of political dominance.
Despite the fact that Republicans continually receive fewer raw votes in national elections, they could regain control of the House through such gerrymandering.
And even though racial gerrymandering – drawing district lines on the basis of race – is unconstitutional, the Court’s new ruling could give Republicans an opening to use race and pass it off as partisan gerrymandering.
State governments can act now to prevent this power grab by taking redistricting out of the hands of legislatures, and starting independent commissions, as in Washington State and California.
Another way Republicans will seek to establish anti-democratic power if they win state houses in 2020 will be to suppress the votes of people of color through unjust voter ID laws and other attacks. These tactics, such as reducing the number of polling places in Democratic districts,tighter restrictions on early voting, or purging voter rolls, make it harder for people of color – who tend to vote Democratic – to cast their ballots.
We’ve seen this play before. After gaining full control of key state legislatures and governorships, Republicans in states such as North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin passed restrictive voter ID laws that disproportionately targeted minorities. These voter ID laws not only make voting harder for those who show up, they also discourage voters from even turning out in the first place.
So show up and vote in your state elections. Your votes could decide whether a shrinking Republican Party gives fewer and fewer people more power over the rest of us.
A country run by technicalities is not a true democracy, so these points are incredibly important. Also a great part of this discussion is the national popular vote effort,which most Americans support.
Gerrymandering has become a symbol for everything broken about the American electoral process. But many are fighting to change the system.
From Tribeca 2019, Chris Durrance and Barak Goodman’s documentary Slay the Dragon is a detailed, maddening, and ultimately inspiring look at those fighting to keep democracy alive. See it in theaters starting March 13th! ✊
