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In favor of Democrats? Bwahahahaha. Yeah if by "in favor of" you mean "fair". It doesn't give the democrats any great advantages. It just removes them from the Republican side.
IE if half the people vote democrat, now half of them would get democrats in place. Thats fair.
And its interesting how folks seem to want to turn it into "thats not fair!". What nonsense.
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"Moldy Tater Gangrene, even before Moscow Marge."
(set 4 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,601,582 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by phantompilot
Voting districts is stupid anyway. What's wrong with at large elections ?
"At Large" districts tend to dilute the power of the minority (not just racial, but political too)
Say a state has 12 congressional districts, but decides for an at-large state election. Whatever party wins more than 50% of the state vote will likely have a hyper-majority in their state's congressional delegation.
And that's before we consider the racial balance. Most states in the South (specifically ones under Justice Department supervision) are prohibited from having "At Large" municipal and county elections in large part for this very reason.
All we've heard for the last few gerrymandered years is how the 'grassroots movement' of republicans put the lopsided majority of GOP members of the House in office because the entire county is conservative and wants republicans in office.
It will be interested to see how things turn out for the 'grassroots' when the playing field is level. At lease we will know it was a fair fight.
"...HAVING the first modern democracy comes with bugs. Normally we would expect more seats in Congress to go to the political party that receives more votes, but the last election confounded expectations. Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234 to 201 margin. This is only the second such reversal since World War II..."
...Through artful drawing of district boundaries, it is possible to put large groups of voters on the losing side of every election. The Republican State Leadership Committee, a Washington-based political group dedicated to electing state officeholders, recently issued a progress report on Redmap, its multiyear plan to influence redistricting. The $30 million strategy consists of two steps for tilting the playing field: take over state legislatures before the decennial Census, then redraw state and Congressional districts to lock in partisan advantages..."
The map was first gerrymanders by the Republican majority lawmakers; now it's gerrymandered by the Democrat majority Judges. It won't be "fair" until it is drawn up by a nonpartisan entity using citizen population numbers only; no party registrations, racial make ups, or other demographics.
States rights should allow them to draw their districts however they choose.
And they did. It's the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that said that the districts did not comply with Pennsylvania's Constitution. The Pennsylvania legislature refused to redraw the districts, so the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did it for them. That's a classic example of states' rights in action.
(All states have a process for who draws the district maps, and what happens when someone disagrees. Apparently, in Pennsylvania it's the state Supreme Court that has the final say.)
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