Illinois Democrats show how gerrymandering is done

So in other words, Democrats are only against gerrymandering when it benefits the other side?

Good! They go low, we go even lower. But in the heart of hearts we know we are better people, much better than the fat, ugly cunt Repug troll R1.

Democrats in Illinois are merely responding to the pornographic gerrymandering and voter suppression of Republicans. This is defense

[quote] So in other words, Democrats are only against gerrymandering when it benefits the other side?

Or, there is no reason to play by the rules when your opponents refuse to.

Amen. Unilateral disarmament means you lose

That huge, contorted purple-colored district in the middle seems like a poster child for something.

I won’t be surprised when Texas releases theirs showing one Democratic district connecting Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio by a thin strip of land. All the other districts will be Rethuglican.

We need Cali to super gerrymander

All the blue states that can get away with need to do the same thing. If they did we wouldn't have to worry much about losing the House. They won't do it though because Democrats don't know how to fight dirty the way the Republicans do.

Sadly. These so-called non-Partisan committees are a bad idea that will only tilt the Gerrymandering imbalance toward Republic’s gerrymandering

Wanna see some Texas gerrymandering, r7? Take a gander:

ILLINOIS SUCKS

[quote]Sadly. These so-called non-Partisan committees are a bad idea that will only tilt the Gerrymandering imbalance toward Republic’s gerrymandering

Explain your reasoning.

The difference here is that Democrats, including the ones in Illinois, support a fair districting commission as long as it applies everywhere across the country. The Repugs don't because they know there is no way for them to win unless they cheat. So, in order to play defense, the Democrats have to do this. In fact, the only way for Democrats to force Repugs to get on board for fair districting commissions is to gerrymander the shit out of the blue states.

So, way to go Illinois. Other blue states, get on board to break the Repugs. When one side cheats over and over, the other side has no chance without legal intervention. This will force legal intervention. What would be hilarious is if some lawsuit brought by some Illinois Repug because of this is what changed the practice nationally at the Supreme Court level.

Only Democrats support these commissions. Until Republicans wholesale support them also, Democrats are foolish to institute them in blue states

Breaking: TX Gov Abbott signs extreme gerrymandered House & state leg maps

Whites 40% population but control 60% districts

Hispanics 39% of population but control 20% districts

Blacks 12% of population but control 2% districts

Asians 5% of population but control 0% districts

New York States needs to gerrymandering Elise Stefanik into obscurity. Get rid of all those red upstate districts

That Illinois map is no worse than what Republicans did in Ohio. A state split 45-55 is 14-3 Republican.

[quote] VA Democrats who let a bipartisan commission gerrymander the state

The commission was unable to agree on the redistricting so it will now go to the VA state supreme court for a final decision.

Gerrymandering was invented by democrats in 1812 so they already know how it's done.

So, in other words, r1 needs to get fucked on a running chainsaw until Republicans pass the Right to Vote act and ban gerrymandering at the same time as Democrats.

And until the Congress represents the majority of voters in this country, not just the greedy fat cats, Bible-thumping nutjobs and sister-fucking trailer trash.

[quote] So, in order to play defense, the Democrats have to do this.

Since both sides do it, how were you able to assign one side as offense and the other side defense? Wouldn’t Republicans make the same claim that they have to do it to make up for states like Illinois?

Because Republicans started the most extreme and nationwide version of gerrymandering in 2010.

Payback’s a bitch. This is what Republicans earned.

And to you 2010 wasn’t payback for the gerrymandering of past decades?

Nope.

The majority of voters want DEMOCRATS and Republicans can almost never win the popular vote in the presidency or Congress.

They have to cheat and rely on a rigged Senate and electoral college way beyond their numbers when they should be abiding by what the MAJORITY wants.

Everything Republicans do is an affront to the American majority — almost nothing they stand for is popular.

If people were offered a lot of free desirable things and are not told of any of the ill effects of them on society, the economy or the country, who wouldn’t be favor of them?

The top 10 percent of income earners in the United States who own 80 percent of the wealth and have the bottom 90 percent trapped.

When I look at my district on a map it's more like looking at an octopus on acid.

Hi!!....Ohio Here...Republicans are gerrymandering right now to make it more Trump Cult Friendly!! LINK.... The GOP will be ready for their Cult Leader to win in 2024....Endless GOP candidates running commercials about how evil the "left wing radicals" are and how great Trump was. Ohio is becoming a GOP septic tank. Do not come here. They are stripping our rights like Texas is there.

Bump

Breaking: Ohio legislature approves extreme gerrymandered Congressional map giving Republicans 80% of seats in state Trump won with 53% of vote

Can't wait to hear the bitching when the other side does this years in the future...

It’s gonna be a long time before Democrats have a majority of state legislatures again

It was the Republican appointed Justices on the Supreme Court that ruled that Gerrymandering was not something they would do anything about. Prior to that ruling it was something they would rule on.

OHIO just finished up their Gerrymandering by the GOP = 15 districts....3 for Democrats and 12 for Republicans....Trumper Governor DeWine will be signing it tomorrow.

Yep, that’s indicative of Republican gerrymandering nationwide. Republicans will rule for the foreseeable future. Even if 2030 elections are great for Democrats, it’s still gonna be hard for Democrats to win control of state legislature and Congress with this level of radical gerrymandering

If the Democrats lose a”gerrymandered” district, it’s because they didn’t convince a majority of the voters in the district to vote for them. If a party can’t convince a majority of voters in a district that the party’s agenda makes any sense, it’s not the fault of how the lines were drawn.

R39 = You really are beyond stupid. You have no idea what gerrymandering is.

Hillary was right about the vast right wing conspiracy. .........."At this point it's probably not correct to say it's a conspiracy because it's out in the open," Clinton said. "There is no doubt about who the players are, what they're trying to achieve... It's real"............(Feb 3 2016).........The GOP robs us in broad daylight. SCOTUS seats...Tax and Stimulus money for the Rich....Voting Rights...

And Democrats lack the fortitude to fight

Can someone explain to me why more blue states aren't gerrymandering districts to benefit Democrats? The only way to balance out redistricting in red states is for blue states to do the same.

[quote] Can someone explain to me why more blue states aren't gerrymandering districts to benefit Democrats?

Because other blue states, and even the red states, don’t have the gall to create a map as egregious as the Illinois map. Other states would be too embarrassed to display such a Frankenstein’s monster.

R44 Utah's is just as bad.

No chance the GOP will ever play fair. Why should the Dems keep putting themselves at a disadvantage?

This is why it is VERY important to have Dem governors in place the year of the census. The governors decide how districts will be assigned

No they don’t. Legislators decide districts

Not only did Democrats mess up in 2016 in a way that will screw up for generations, but the failure to turn out in 2010 continues to reverberate over a decade later

Democratic turnout in 2020 was only good relative to previous elections. It was wholly inadequate to get the job done in the face a massive Republican and conservative turnout

R48, and the plans have to be signed by the governor. The governor decides who in on the district planning groups

[quote] Can someone explain to me why more blue states aren't gerrymandering districts to benefit Democrats?

Maybe because they already have. And the beneficiaries are not going to allow a thing to change the system that guarantees they will always win.

Apparently the Dems states that set up bipartisan district-drawing committees are totally ignoring the committees

Ohio Republicans = 12 districts for us and 3 districts for Democrats. You're welcome. ......BTW = This was a improvement from their previous TWO Democrat districts.

r50, what massive Republican turnout? Trump lost bigtime

VA Dems were stupid to set up a bipartisan Commission. They should have gerrymandered the heck out of the state to benefit Democrats. Now, they lost control

IMHO, for House districts in states with metro areas that have 3-5 million+ residents, we SHOULD start by drawing multi-member districts that follow the metro area's de-facto boundaries, so an area like southeast Florida (Dade, Broward, eastern Palm Beach) would elect 3 or 4 representatives by some NON "first past the post" system, like ranked-choice multi-member districts.

Basically, a method that distributes party ratios more or less the way proportional representation would, but leaves the selection of actual candidates to voters rather than parties.

I forgot the system's name, but a few weeks ago I stumbled over a rather clever one developed by someone about 25 years ago. It's Condorcet-like, in the sense that it tends to favor non-polarizing centrist compromise candidates who are everyone's grudging second or third choice... but allows ONE polarizing-but-popular candidate from each Party to slip through IF they have rock-solid broad support among Party members... but the more polarizing they are, the more weight the system automatically throws to non-polarizing candidates for the remainder of seats.

The nice thing about a system like this is, it allows voters to gerrymand THEMSELVES in an adhoc manner each election, and decide who among the pool of winning Representatives is THEIR representative.

In the context of South Florida, such a system would almost guarantee the elections of:

* A black Democrat

* A staunch Cuban/Venezuelan Republican

* A Centrist Democrat who's pro-Israel

* A dice-roll between a very, very neutered moderate Republican, a very conservative Democrat, or a fickle, enigmatic Independent... who's nobody's first choice, and probably not many people's second choice, but almost everyone who doesn't adore one of the first 3 can view as grudgingly-tolerable. In an election where the Republican in the first 3 seats is polarizing, a Democrat or Independent would probably win. In a race where a "normal" Republican (think: Jeb) won, another normal, semi-bland Republican might win. But it would be almost impossible for polarizing Republicans despised by everyone else to win BOTH seats.

Put another way: under this system, the victory of ONE polarizing candidate automatically stacks the deck against other polarizing candidates appealing to the same base.

The catch is... only a few metro areas in the US really have the size & political diversity to pull it off successfully. Southeast Florida unquestionably does. Central Florida would be tougher, because neither "Orlando" nor "Tampa" is quite big enough on their own, and the I-4 region is just a little too big and non-cohesive to combine.

Outside of Florida, obvious other areas where it would work are Los Angeles, the SF Bay Area, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, etc.

For metro areas like DC, St. Louis, Kansas City, etc., it probably wouldn't work, because their populations are split between multiple states, so you don't quite hit the 5 million+ "sweet spot" where you'd "naturally" all-but-guarantee at least one winner per major party, plus the dominant cohesive ethnic blocs.

NY could pull it off through sheer brute-force size, even if NJ & CT had to find another way. Boston is "iffy" -- if all/most of Mass. were a single multi-member district, it might work. Philly is similarly problematic. As an eastern-PA super-district, maybe... as "Philly" per se, probably not.

oh... and we really need to increase the House to 700-800 members, which might make politically-diverse multi-member House districts (with at least 3, preferably 4-5, representatives) viable in more places (including portions of state-spanning big cities within a single state).

More than 700-800 would be logistically-problematic, but up to 700-800, the majority party could get most of the "Floor" area (with 25% or so left for the minority party, plus the gallery for the remainder).

Increasing the House size would also dilute the outsized Electoral College influence of small states, ESPECIALLY if "winner takes all" allocation of EC votes were prohibited (not sure if the Constitution would allow banning WTA, though).

It's very discouraging. I ALMOST hope that the Supremes ban abortion. THAT would get people's attention, and the blame would go 100% to Republicans with subsequent losses even of some so-called safe districts. Because no matter what women say in public, in private they are NOT about having the government decide what they can and cannot do with their own bodies. Barring that, we are facing a decade, even if we elect Democratic presidents for the two next cycles of , of a federal legislature that is against voting rights, against minority rights, against gun control, against regulation of corporations that do harm, against any kind of environmental legislation, and in favor of filling our prisons with as many bodies as they can stuff in there, of suppressing free speech, and of empowering white supremacists everywhere. And let's be honest - they are not going to let liberal or moderate judges through, which means that gay rights are also going to be cut back whenever and wherever possible.

[quote] I ALMOST hope that the Supremes ban abortion. THAT would get people's attention

That assumes that society wouldn’t adapt to changed circumstances. There would be uproar, but it may be followed by acceptance of a new normal.

The “uproar” over abortion restrictions is overstated.

Dallas sneers at Illinois' feeble attempts.

[quote] The “uproar” over abortion restrictions is overstated

It is. Even if Roe was overturned which I don't expect to happen it still would just leave it to each state to permit or not. If Texas won't allow it for example Louisiana next door will.

Yes, but I think that the political reaction to abortion being criminalized is also overstated because a lot of people who are nominally pro-choice still think abortion itself is seriously immoral, problematic, or wrong. Many who say they are pro-choice vote Republican nonetheless because they don’t think abortion is important enough to determine their vote.

[quote]Breaking news: The Justice Department is suing Texas over its new electoral maps, saying they deny "black and Latino voters an equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process." Several districts were drawn with "discriminatory intent," Vanita Gupta says. - Sam Levin of the Guardian

[quote] Even if Roe was overturned which I don't expect to happen it still would just leave it to each state to permit or not. If Texas won't allow it for example Louisiana next door will.

I don't even know what to say to such ridiculous fucking nonsense. The states that will ban abortions will also put in place laws that will make it illegal to travel to another state for an abortion. They'll also have laws like Texas does, that allows the public to turn in people who have gone to other states for abortions.

And almost all insurance policies are only valid in the state they originated from. So 99.9% of women won't be able to use their insurance for an abortion. It usually costs $1,000 at a very low cost clinic. It's actually quadruple that price if the woman goes to a private doctor

If a woman earns $12/hour, it will take her 83 hours of work to go to a low cost clinic or 333 hours to go to a private doctor. And then there may also be a cost of having to stay overnight, because many states have a 24 hour waiting period for abortions. Some have up to a 3 day waiting period

I don't know a lot of women who can afford to pay the equivalent of 2 to 8 weeks salary for an abortion

Dumbass