Posted on 11/04/2010 9:43:36 PM PDT by Libloather
Will Redistricting Be a Bloodbath for Democrats?
Republicans See Historic Victories; Gain Control of At Least 19 Democratic-Held State Legislatures
By HUMA KHAN
Nov. 4, 2010
Republicans gained a historic edge over Democrats in state legislature elections that will have national implications for years to come.
State legislatures in 44 states are responsible for one of the most important political processes: drawing district boundaries for the U.S. House of Representatives.
In a process that usually triggers partisan bickering, the reigning party usually has the upper hand, especially if the governor is also from the same party and cannot veto the legislature's decisions.
Republicans took control of at least 19 Democratic-controlled state legislatures Tuesday and gained more than 650 seats, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The last time Republicans saw such victories was in 1994, when they captured control of 20 state legislatures.
Republicans haven't controlled as many state legislatures since 1928.
Across the country, the map for state legislatures has turned noticeably red as Republicans now control 55 chambers, with Democrats at 38 and the remaining yet to be decided. At the beginning of this week, Democrats controlled 60 of the country's state legislative chambers and Republicans 36.
Tuesday also was a historic day for many state legislatures. In Minnesota, Republicans won the Senate for the first time ever, while in Alabama, they took control for the first time since reconstruction.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
That wouldn’t seem to be the smartest way to gerrymander.
Suppose you had a 60/40 split of people registered GOP/Dem in a state. If you concentrate the 40% into their own districts, then you guarantee they win those 4 out of 10 districts. By carefully arranging each district so it includes that same 60/40 split, the party with 60% of the voters means they can take ALL the districts. The party representing 40% of the people will never get any seats because they’ll be outvoted in their district every time.
Conversely, if the 40% get to control redistricting, they could arrange those districts so their loyal voters have a majority in 3/4 of the districts.
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That is essentially what they will do in North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, among other places.
Gerrymandering can help a minority stay in power simply by canceling out the votes of the majority. That is one of its many baneful effects. There are two ways to mitigate it: cut politicians out of the redistricting process or going over to proportional representation.
What do you mean by “proportional representation” ? My example assumed just two parties, but with Green, Constitution, Libertarian, The Rent’s Too Damn High, etc. it would be impossible to represent all parties. If you actually cut the district lines for a State such that each district contains the same percentage of each party as the State does overall, then the minority parties would never get a seat.
Personally, I favor letting a computer do it by minutes and seconds of latitude or longitude. Each district would be as wide as it needed to be to include the population of a district — roughly 700,000 people — and then a new district would begin. So you and the guy across the street might be in different districts, and people 500 miles away are in the same district as you are because they live at the same longitude. Districts would slice right across major cities and include just a slice of it but also include rural populations from the other side of the state. That would make it more difficult for Congressmen to bring home bacon for the locals, and they’d spend their time on issues that affect a broader cross-section of the people in their state and — shudder — maybe even the whole country.
The main thing is that states in the northeast will lose seats in Congress and states in the south and west will gain. Mass. will lose a seat, hopefully. Will be fun to see the monopoly party decide which of its members gets sacrificed, so the House seat can go to Texas, lol.
It would be helpful if the writer was well versed in Civics. Since when can’t a governor veto legislation passed by his own party?
I believe NC may be one such State.
Actually, NC-12 is not a majority black district. NC-1 is.
Practically, that makes a difference, because NC-1 is probably impossible to dismantle.
North Carolina is a key state for the GOP since its the only state where we can do offensive redistricting. The Democrats put up a pretty egregious map in 2001, and now we have a chance to.
The problem is that North Carolina has a lot of Dem areas that aren’t compact. You have the Northeast areas (NC-1, VRAed), the Durham/Chapel Hill/Raleigh/Greensboro areas (NC-4 and NC-13 I think), the counties to the south along the SC border (Mcintyre’s district), and Charlotte.
And of course Heath Shuler.
The Dems had an 8-5 majority for this entire decade, mostly. I tried playing with a map to turn it 8-5 our way, but it ends up being really tough to get all that territory in.
It’s more likely they go 7-5-1, the 1 being Heath Shuler until he retires 20 years from now. But at least he’s not a complete moonbat.
The populations and the VRA don’t allow for that.
For example, take Alabama. Pretty high Dem areas around Mobile, and the rest of the state is pure Republican.
But you can’t shatter Mobile into 7 pieces by drawing 60/40 districts mixing the Republican suburbs with a small chunk of Dem voters in Mobile due to the Voting Rights Act.
So, you put all the Dems in the state in 1-2 districts, and the create 6 safe R ones.
That’s what Tom Delay did in Texas, and why we have permanent control of 2/3 of the House seats there.
They are, though, most of the time.
Look at Charlie Rangel and how he just won.
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