Posted on 03/25/2022 8:17:57 PM PDT by TBP
On March 25, a state trial court in Maryland issued an opinion in Szeliga v Lamone, Anne Arundel Circuit Court, C-02-cv-21-1816. This is the case that argues that the U.S. House district boundaries constitute an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. The 94-page ruling invalidates the districts, and finds that the Maryland State Constitution prohibits partisan gerrymanders. Here is the opinion. Thanks to Bob Johnston for the link.
The primaries are July 19.
Bkmk
Fantastic.
Save Andy Harris!
Could be big, probably won’t amount to much because of how inept the Maryland republican party is.
Maryland, outside of the B-W collar counties, is basically as red as south carolina as far as the population goes, but you’d never know that from their carefully carved house districts and just as lopsided statehouse representation.
Maryland’s house representation is currently 7-1 D-R, but should be more like 6-2 with a competitive D district... and could be as much as a 4-4 split in a year like 2022 could shape up to be. The would-be R voters don’t get touched or engaged though, in large part because of the absurdly drawn district lines.
Still, if the north and west of the state didn’t have those little boundary fingers dipping down to DC, there is at least a one seat pickup there. If the south of the state kept to the bay coastline and not poke into the densely populared DC collar areas, another possible pickup. North and northeast of Baltimore even has promise for a Larry Hogan type moderate and that’s even before you would figure in the future state where conservative leaning voters wouldn’t keep resettling North of the Mason Dixon line to escape the Maryland government.
That is one area where the Canadian system for laying out voting districts works far better.
A note about terms
Federal riding, federal electoral district and constituency can all be used interchangeably.
When and why do the boundaries need to change?
According to the Constitution of Canada, federal electoral boundaries must be reviewed every 10 years based on the most recent census to reflect Canada’s ever changing population.
Who decides where the boundaries go?
An independent electoral boundaries commission is created for each province, for a total of 10 commissions. The commissions use demographic data from Statistics Canada and spatial data from Natural Resources Canada to determine if the boundaries need to be changed.
What about the Territories?
Due to their limited population size and the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, the territories are each allocated only one federal electoral district, which is not reviewed.
Who is a part of a federal electoral boundaries commission?
Each commission has three key players: one judge who chairs the commission and two members appointed by the Speaker of the House of Commons (usually academics and researchers).
What criteria are used to determine the new boundaries?
The main criterion is population equality (plus or minus 25%); however, other criteria are also considered by the commission, such as:
communities of interest or identity,
historical patterns of previous boundaries, and
manageable geographic size.
Do citizens get a say?
Of course! Once the commission has prepared proposals of the revised boundaries, there are public hearings held in the affected districts for the public to participate in the
process. Members of the House of Commons can also participate in the hearings.
Does Elections Canada decide where the boundaries go?
Elections Canada plays an impartial support role, such as providing data and assisting with mapping. It then implements the boundary decisions made by the commissions and produces new electoral district maps.
Governor Hogan and his Redistricting Commission, to their credit, presented a much fairer plan. The overwhelmingly Dhimmicrap legislature rejected it and passed a plan of their own. That’s the one that got thrown out.
It wasn’t that long ago that it was 4-4. Of course, that included RINO Connie Morella, as well as kind of squishy Republicans in one or two other districts, but it was still 4D-4R. By 2010, it was 6D-2R, then the Dhimmicrap legislature gerrymandered the state to make it 7D-1R. (Check out MD-3 and MD-2.) They rejected a plan in 2011 sponsored by the Maryland GOP and the Fannie Lou Hamer PAC, a black group, that would have created 3 minority-majority districts instead of the present 2.
This time around, Governor Hogan created a Redistricting Commission with equal D-R representation. The commission created a pretty decent, pretty fair map. The legislature threw it out and imposed their own plan instead.
Now, it’s going to have to be done yet again. I hope we can revive the commission’s plan.
I think that's Helen Bentley's old seat.
We’re supposed to respect “communities of interest” also, but it doesn’t really happen that way. For example, the City of Laurel, in PG County, is in the Fourth District (under the existing (2011) plan, not the new one.) The Anne Arundel part of Laurel is in the Third (proudly the most gerrymandered district in America), and North Laurel is in the Seventh. (It’s in Howard County.)
Functionally, those are one community — Greater Laurel, usually just considered Laurel. For all practical purposes, they’re the same community. People travel across those county lines all the time. They’re in three different districts.
The Sventh, BTW, is the district where Kimberly Klacik ran.
Separation of powers
Except it resulted in Trudeau and his hugely fascist government.
Point ceded.
That has more to do with the difference between Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, and the rest of the country. The 3 big cities have a very large amount of the population, and they vote left ALWAYS. They have more people, they get more seats. That’s just how it goes.
They pulled off a plurality because the Tories had an utter milquetoast as leader, and he backpedalled harder than I’ve ever seen. If you think the pubbies are the stupid party, take a look at our Tories up here. Don’t look for too long though, you’ll die of laughter combined with utter horror.
I honestly thought that Klacik was a good candidate and ran a good campaign (what I saw of it). She would have been a firecracker I think.
This forum loves to crap on any politician that doesn't breathe fire and scream their fealty to Trump or a preferred political position, but there are some decent, hardworking politicians out there outside of that mold who are actually doing good work, and I'd much rather have a politician who is going to agree with my positions 60% of the time and wins elections than one who takes the donations, loses in a landslide, but agrees with my positions 100%.
In Maryland, Larry Hogan is probably about as good as you're going to see in a statewide republican candidate. Andy Harris won't be Governor or Senator in Maryland. Dan Bongino and Kim Klacik should still try to run their races and use their national celebrity to make local outreach and turn perennial D+27 districts (where the dem candidates never have to really try for reelection in the general) into consistent D+8 seats (where the dem candidates might actually have to show up to a debate and spend some of their warchest locally in a wave year), but expecting them to flip solid blue seats in a single election is just genie wishing and a waste of campaign donations.
I think that computer technology could be used to draw districts which are both as geographically compact as possible, and equal in population, at the same time. But apparently this never happens.
Maybe we can turn seats held by Dhimmicraps with zero or near zero ratings into 20 percent ratings. It’s still bad, but if we could do that with a lot of deep blue seats, we’d win more votes and more battles.
Right now, Hogan is about as good as it gets in Maryland. Unfortunately. However, he has done some good. (He’s also done things I don’t like.) We need to chip away and move the state gradually right.
One such matter is redistricting. If Hogan’s plan were adopted, they would be fair districts. The legislature’s plan is an unconstitutional gerrymander.
Good. This was an outrageous scam.
Yes, indeed, I don’t want to lose Andy Harris as my Congressman and be forced into John Sarbanes’s district in Baltimore County!!
My take on how districts should be done.
Use zip codes, county lines, city lines, natural boundaries like rivers and streams, man made boundaries like major freeways and railroads.
Then use the decade census for these areas and create the smallest compact areas with the smallest perimeter length and with the smallest difference between the most populated district and least populated district. I believe that mathematically there would be only 1 solution. It would take a computer to find it. Use the same formula every 10 years.
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