The Gerrymander Excuse Implodes: Democrats’ total vote share roughly matches their House majority.

Elections have a way of blowing up partisan conceits—see what happened to the Democratic Party’s Electoral College “lock” in 2016. This year Democrats busted one of their own cherished myths by proving that Republican gerrymanders weren’t preventing them from retaking the House of Representatives. There’s a lesson here for voters and judges.

State legislatures have been drawing congressional boundaries to favor one party or another since America’s founding. During the 40 years of sustained Democratic control of the House in the late 20th century, this worked in the Democrats’ favor. As political scientist Matt Grossmann has shown, Democrats sometimes enjoyed congressional majorities nearly 10 percentage points larger than their share of the House popular vote.

Then came the Republican romp of 2010, followed by the Census and the regular 10-year redistricting to reflect population ebb and flow across the U.S. The new GOP majorities in several states drew districts that increased their representation in the House, as Democrats also did where they had a partisan advantage.

For many commentators the post-2010 redistricting created a crisis of democracy by supposedly locking Democrats out of power. Days before the 2018 election the New York Times’ David Leonhardt cited Republican gerrymandering as evidence that the U.S. could “slide toward Hungarian autocracy.”

Well, so much for that. Democrats last week made their largest gain in House seats since 1974 and appear to be closing in on a 233-seat House majority with several races still not called. This means Democrats will hold about 53.6% of seats—a 7.1% edge. And, what do you know, Democratic House candidates nationwide have 52.8% of votes—7.3% more than Republicans, according to the latest Cook Political Report tally.

I don’t think that we would have lost the Lehigh Valley district. It was made a lot more Democrat by the corrupt judges, and it looks as if the GOP nominee in the special election held under the old lines for the rest of Dent’s term (who also was the nominee for the regular election under the new lines) narrowly won the special election despite being completely unknown in the areas excised from the new district.

Heck I forgot to even look at the special results. A pretty good indicator.

https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=852410

Our campaigns has the rat ahead by less than 1000 votes. Northstein (R) conceded it yesterday, apparently. So yeah it might have been a hold, 50/50.

https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=847768

In the other special Pearl Kim was very competitive but lost. Under the old lines though someone stronger than Pearl Kim would have probably been the nominee.

In the third seat, Costello may have not dropped out and probably could have survived like Fitzpatrick did.

So perhaps we indeed would have held all 3 seats. I may have jumped the gun with my theory. ;-d

In any case they are harder (Dent seat), very hard (Costello Seat) and impossible (Meehan seat) to win back under the new lines.

F.ing court.

The GOP held the PA legislature, although the RAT governor was reelected. In 2021, the GOP legislature can draw a map that gets us back most of those districts, and RAT Gov. Wolf will veto it. It then becomes a battle of the courts. If before then SCOTUS has ruled that the Constitution mandates that congressional districts be drawn by the state legislature, that the only limitations they face are those imposed by federal courts, and that political gerrymandering is permissible, then either the legislature and Wolf agree to a map or it is drawn by a federal court withoutpaying any mind to that unconstitutional 2018 decision by the PA Supreme Court.

Yes, it certainly can, and it did, until the courts redrew several districts a few years ago. And unlike after 2012 redistricting, the FL Supreme Court that will be interpreting whether the newest map is consistent with the state “Fair Districts Amendment” will have a solid conservative majority as opposed to a liberal majority. On January 8, 2019, the only three remaining Democrat appointees to the FL Supreme Court (well, one of them had been nominated by Democrat Lawton Chiles and then Jeb agreed to retain the appointment) will be leaving the court, and Governor DeSantos will appoint three conservatives to replace them. The three will be joining in the court Scott appointee Alan Lawson, former Congressman Charles Canady (one of the House impeachment managers from 1998, and a very conservative justice despite having been named to the court by Charlie Crist), Ricky Polston (another conservative justice appointed by Crist) and Jorge Labarga (another Crist appointee; this one seems to be more of a moderate).

When the FL Supreme Court struck down the 2012 congressional redistricting map, it was a 5-2 vote, with the 3 Democrat-appointed liberals that will retire on January 8 being joined in the majority by a liberal judge appointed by Crist (who since has been replaced by a Scott appointee) and by Labarga, with Canady and Polston dissenting. Assuming that Scott did his job and DeSantis will do his, there will be 6 votes for the proposition that state legislatures can draw congressional districts that may have the effect of helping one party more than another without such districts being “unfair,” and Labarga will be alone in dissent (unless he can be convinced to come over to the majority).

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