Most gerrymandered district?

11-03-2010

[Vigilanteman]

Your history is correct, but i'm not so sure about your future prognostications. Most of the Pittsburgh suburbs, both inner and outer ring, are trending conservative now. Sure, there are isolated pockets such as the Mon Valley, Johnstown and Uniontown where the moron union mentality still holds sway, but they are dying out.

My district (the 18th) is so heavilly conservative that we could probably absorb the rest of the Mon Valley without any lasting damage. Ditto for Johnstown and the adjacent conservative trending districts.

OTOH, Pittsburgh itself is still shedding population and can easily add the remaining most leftwing suburbs such as Wilkinsburg. These changes would make less, not more, gerrymandered districts.

[PermaRag]

I'm in the 18th too, and although Tim Murphy had a breeze this time around I recall him being pretty well threatened in previous election cycles.

Perhaps the fact that he survived even in bad times proves that the lines can be smoothed out without endangering him or another R who runs in the 18th.

[JWinNC]

It’s wrong because gerrymandering has a negative effect on competition and voter turnout. It artificially enhances the incumbent’s advantage. It makes it harder and more costly for challengers to run. It negatively effects representation geographically. It negatively effects the voters’ choices because “who draws the district” becomes a factor over the voters’ desires.

It may be legal, but it’s still wrong. There are much better ways to draw districts then political and racial gamesmanship.

jw

[Hoodat]

How do they still get away with that. We got sued here in Georgia for doing that with the new District 11 created back in the early 1990s (Cynthia McKinney’s original district). It included South Dekalb County in Metro Atlanta and parts of Augusta, Macon, and Savannah (260 miles away).