Posted on 12/04/2006 1:33:47 PM PST by Princip. Conservative
A clear majority of Ohioans who voted in the Nov. 7 election preferred a Democratic congressional candidate.
So did Franklin County voters, where Democratic House candidates drew in excess of 10,000 more votes than Republicans.
The result?
While Democrats won nearly 53 percent of the congressional votes statewide, only about 39 percent of Ohioans will be represented next year by Democrats in Congress.
That’s the biggest so-called "wrong winner" disparity in the country from the 2006 midterm elections, says the nonpartisan FairVote.org.
Aided by gerrymandering — the drawing of districts to favor one party — Republicans captured 11 of the state’s 18 congressional seats, assuming that GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce, of Upper Arlington, survives a recount in the 15 th District. If she does, all three House members representing Franklin County will be Republicans.
(Excerpt) Read more at columbusdispatch.com ...
If we got rid of gerrymandering altogether, the Dems would be outnumbered 2 to 1.
Dude... don't you know that gerrymandering is only evil and racist when Republicans do it? :)
Sounds like they are planting seeds for proportional representation. But then Dems would get even less.
No mention of the umpteen decades old 'Rat gerrymandering in my state of TN. The Republicans have received a majority of the vote in legislative and federal elections for a decade, and we get a minority of the seats. Consider Ohio a correction for TN disenfranchisement.
Well, it's still true that each district is represented by the party chosen by a majority of their people.
Some say gerrymandering is actually better, because it can tend to put people of like mind together, so that the average representative is BETTER representative of the people in the district, having been elected by a larger majority of people in the district.
What's better, having every representative elected by 50.1% of the people, or having every representative elected by 60% of the people?
I stopped reading right there. There's no such thing as nonpartisan. Such a term is quite often used to stifle dissent.
"What's better, having every representative elected by 50.1% of the people, or having every representative elected by 60% of the people?"
I think the main point is that redistricting is used by both sides. There will have to be bilateral dismantling of the system or it will never die. The Republicans win in Texas, while the Democrats win in California and so forth - thanks to redistricting.
In Texas, it was the exact opposite with the GOP getting nearly 60% of the vote but having far less than half of the congressional delegation. And when Tom Delay fixed it, the Dems cried bloody murder and that dipwad in Austin indicted him in recrimination. Apparently, the whole goose-gander thing is lost on the idiots in Cleveland.
The problem in Massachusetts isn't the lines, it's that we can't find anyone worthwhile to run.
It's wrong wherever it's done. And yes, the article could have pointed out that a similar gerrymandering is done by the Democrats in numerous states, including my own California (54% vote for Kerry, yet the state Leftistlature is about 65% Democrat).
Where were these jerks when the same thing was happening for years in Texas? Oh, I forgot: the Democrats BENEFITTED from that, so the press ignored it.
It's incredible Republicans still control the Ohio state house and state senate.
I don't know how "wrong" it is. You have to draw the lines somewhere, and if it's completely random it is possible that, if the state is 60-40 republican, EVERY SINGLE representative could end up a republican. It all would depend on how segregated the population is.
So the question is, are we better represented if districts are governed by self-segregation of the population, or if we districts are governed by chosen segregation by the legislature?
If the nation picked it's entire representative set based on correctly balancing the political parties based on total votes received, we'd need a couple of green party and other 3rd-party representatives, and we'd probably almost always end up with a closely divided house given the way the political parties have divided their issue base.
The real question is, how many democrats have a democrat representative, and how many republicans have a republican representative, vs the opposite.
My bet is that a majority of the democrats in Ohio are represented by a democrat who reflects their point of view.
Tell you what, let's get rid of the dead voters, the illegal alien voters, the rest of the fraudulent voters and require photo I.D. when you vote, and then, maybe, I'll worry about gerrymandering in Ohio.
If you don't see what's wrong with a political party's drawing ridiculous-looking lines (traveling dozens of miles down highways, then ballooning out, then repeating the process, etc.) that cram as many opposing-party voters into as few districts as possible, all to maximize said majority-party's numbers of seats, then there's nothing for us to discuss. It's self-evident to me.
What I favor is a system whereby district lines follow geographical (rivers, hill ranges, etc.) and historical (city and county lines) boundaries to the extent possible, and that ignore not only race but also political party.
Luckily the USSC refused to hear Texas case against the redistricting. They would have to undo years of gerrymandering to get minority districts and that would never do.......would it? LOL
I'm just saying that your method still draws discriminatory lines, you are just using a different method of discrimination.
In your method, if I live too close to a city, I'm toast, because the city is going to overwhelm my vote and vote democrat, whereas if I live in the country I get a republican to represent me.
I don't like gerrymandering, especially with the tools we have today to do it so "precisely", but you have to draw the lines somewhere.
You could of course do a statewide election and apportion representatives, except that would be illegal.
The real problem isn't gerrymandering, it's that we don't have a representative for each 30-50 thousand people anymore. IF we did, it wouldn't really matter much where you drew the lines.
Tough sh!t, the media didn't give a damn about this when Texas was vastly overrepresented by Dems.
Then Ohio lost a seat in the 2000 census. The Dems agreed that it would be Traficant's district that would be eliminated. Then the Republicans started snipping and cutting "just a little", dumped some of (Dem) Dayton out of the 3rd district and added some of the (Republican) outer suburbs so for now the district is mostly (but not absolutely safe) Republican. The Dems in the state house howled about being cheated.
Before the redistricing in 2004, the DemocRATS controlled 60% of the Texas congressional delegation despite getting only 40% of the vote. What was fair about that? Now Republicans have 19 out of 32 seats. That's pretty much in line with how people in Texas actually voted.
"The problem in Massachusetts isn't the lines, it's that we can't find anyone worthwhile to run."
Are you sure? I find that a little hard to believe, even in hardcore Dem Massachusetts.
In literally EVERY state (and especially places like Washington) state races are largely decided by corrupt, concentrated parasite nests (cities).
Well, there are more factors than that. We don't have any chunks of Republican territory big enough to form a district, so every district is at least competitive for the Democrats, if not outright favoring them.
We've been decimated in the legislature. We have no bench. Conservatives run in the Democrat primaries because they have a better chance of getting elected to higher office. In the past, conservatives (albeit pro-union) ran the legislatures. No one knows what our party stands for because the Democrats stand for every conceivable opposing view.
So we have no bench, and after many years of failure to advance against Democrats, no good candidate thinks it's a good use of his money or name.
LOL! Great definition. Big cities suck.
What a bunch of psychobabble. Sore Loosers once again. Thank God the GOP still controls the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate. This sounds like the same argument against the Electoral College.
Goodness knows we don't need that many leeches on the loose in Washington.
the new gravitas:
"wrong winner"
When democrats gerrymander, its a right winner despite the same lying with statistics argument.
This paper must have hearalded the 4% unemployment of Bill Clinton and was "WE ARE DOOMED" with the 4% unemployment under GWBush.
You'd pay them a small sum, so they would still have to work for a living (or at least small enough so it wouldn't be a career), and the house would have to come up with ways to to their business better. We have the technology so they don't all have to be in the same room in order to meet together.
You really need to have representatives for small numbers of people in order to AVOID the factions that we have today. The parties would be weaker if they had to get 2000 elections taken care of instead of only 435.
Note that, as it is, there can be surprises in house elections because it IS hard to keep track of even a few hundred thousand voters, but imagine trying to track 10,000 voters in 2000 places -- polls would be almost meaningless, it would be much easier for people who simply are hard-working citizens would good ideas to actually GET ELECTED (because you could literally knock on EVERY door in your district before the election).
I love state elections precisely because you just have to reach 20,000 voters, and so money isn't quite as important.
Actually, wasn't it like that in the earliest days of the Republic? I don't think politics ever became a full-time career for so many people until much later.
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