And thus the difference between the Democratic voters and the GOP voters is laid bare.
We are better than that, and I’m glad to see it.
It’s because our ideology isn’t just the pure pursuit of power at all costs. Also, we aren’t totally completely lacking in empathy.
Edit: Including recent Vox article I just came across 👉
It’s hard to even imagine what the country would like right now if Trump wasn’t such an incompetent piece of shit. The GOP would probably be locking down various state and local government ownership for decades, while whispering sweet nothings about the evil Democrats into their cultists’ ears.
If nothing else, at least it’s nice to know I affiliate with the party that actually cares about fair governance and democracy.
Or at least the party that will back down when confronted with significant resistance from their constituents. It’s not much, but it’s better than the other guys.
Supreme Court to hear cases on partisan gerrymandering
https://wapo.st/2FaNXx5
Be interesting to see if a decision is made this time, or we get more burying of heads in sand.
Have to make sure that only the whiteright people are voting.
Our founding fathers would hang these people.
GOP will find some (probably unconstitutional) way to weasel out if it. Have no fear!
I don’t think that will work this time. Court could order the legislature to be held for contempt, and Cooper would be happy to have the state troopers round up the Republicans.
Doesn’t sound like the GOP SCOTUS is going to save us either
If SCOTUS won’t stop it then not sure what else we can do except hope the Democrats gerrymander the shit out of everything they can while they’re in charge of the House.
Pack the courts. That is clearly now the only recourse.
This isn’t how it works.
Congressional districts are drawn by the states themselves. The GOP was able to do this, because the Democrats were basically idiots after 2008, and were all basking in the glow of electing Obama while the GOP did the work to flip a ton of state legislatures, which then let them gerrymander the districting.
And no, the answer isn’t “gerrymander the crap out of everyhing.” Jesus Christ.
The answer is for you to make anti-gerrymandering rules at the state level, like we did in PA. While the SCOTUS has thus far refused to say that gerrymandering is illegal on a constitutional level, it has likewise refused to step in when states have done their own anti-gerrymandering things. The GOP tried to fight against state level rulings in various places, like Florida and PA, and the SCOTUS took the same fundamental position of, “This is up to the states to figure out on their own.”
But you need to do the work on the ground, at the local and state levels. The Democrats dropped the ball and stopped caring about stuff below the national level, and it hurt them. They’re gonna have to work harder to get things back in line now. Sucks, but that’s where we’re at.
At some point Democrats are going to get tired of being the only party that does the right thing.
You are not wrong of course but it is holding Democrats to a higher standard than the Republican party and essentially letting them get away with what they have done already. Whats good for the goose etc.
Or, you know, put Republican voters in camps. That also works!
If you need to gerrymander the districts, then you probably aren’t doing good for the people anyway. That’s the point. It means you are intentionally disenfranchising your voters.
You should be able to win elections by acually getting people to vote for you. If you need to disenfranchise the voters, then what are you doing?
That’s the whole problem. That we have a ton of voters who want to vote against the current GOP policies, but their votes don’t really count because of the way districts are drawn.
Saying, “We should just gerrymander stuff ourselves!” suggests that you want to implement policies that you can’t get the voters to support. That tyranny is fine, as long as you’re the tyrant.
What sort of measures where used in PA to ensure that a future GOP majority can’t just remove the state-level anti-gerrymandering rules? I’m also curious if the GOP gerrymandering of state districts didn’t allow them to maintain control of the state legislature and block new rules that way?
It was ruled unconstitutional under our state constitution. So they’d need to actually change the constitution to negate the ruling.
It does.
But the thing about Gerrymandering is that it doesn’t guarantee victory. It gives you an edge under normal (low) voter turnout.
But you can absolutely overcome it with get out the vote efforts. In many cases, if you increase turnout, gerrymandering backfires.