Democrats won't take back the House until 2030 due to 2010
- Thread starter FAH1223
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we get the congress we deserve.I told y'all this months ago, but the story is deeper. That was the whole reason aside from progressive politics that I supported Sanders. I don't trust HRC with a Republican legislature.
'Gerrymandering On Steroids': How Republicans Stacked The Nation's Statehouses
July 19, 2016
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took to the Wall Street Journal and laid out a plan to win majorities in state legislatures across the country.
"He who controls redistricting can control Congress," read the subhead to Rove's column.
The plan, which its architects dubbed REDMAP for Redistricting Majority Project, hinged on the fact that states redraw their electoral maps every 10 years according to new Census data. REDMAP targeted states where just a few statehouse seats could shift the balance to Republican control in the crucial Census year of 2010.
That plan worked spectacularly. It's why today Republicans have a majority in nearly two-thirds of the country's state legislative chambers. And it's why in 2012 Democratic statehouse candidates won 51 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania, which voted for Barack Obama in the presidential election, yet those candidates ended up with only 28 percent of the seats in the legislature.
Here & Now's Robin Young learns how this happened from David Daley, editor-in-chief of Salon and the author of "Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy."
Interview Highlights: David Daley
On what gerrymandering means:
"Gerrymandering is the word that put us all to sleep in eighth grade civics class, but it is the most important factor in the building blocks of our democracy, which is how the lines are drawn in our legislative districts. Politicians on both sides do it in order to get revenge on an enemy, maybe steal a seat here and there where they didn't deserve it. Gerrymandering changes in 2010. What the Republicans hit upon is a brilliant new plan to put gerrymandering on steroids, and build themselves a voter-proof firewall and it holds up in 2012, as you said."
On what the Red Map Project was:
“The Democrats cleaned the Republicans clocks in 2008. Republicans get depressed. One day, Chris Jankowski is reading a story in the New York Times, and he realizes, wait: 2010 is a zero year. My party is on the out now, but historically the party on the out does better in midterm elections, and Jankowski is a state government guy. He runs something called the Republican State Leadership Committee, so he understands how redistricting works at the state level. What he also understands is that there are 18 state legislative chambers in the country that the margin of control is so close that it's four votes or fewer. So he says, "Hey, it wouldn't cost me a whole lot of money to try to flip four or five legislative districts in these states.' So they go into Pennsylvania.”
“The Democrats lose the Pennsylvania House. They lose the governor's race that year, and they do not have a seat at the table when it comes to redistricting. So the maps that the Republicans draw are water-tight. And they hold up in 2012.”
“The Republicans spent $30 million on this and they were able to build themselves a firewall, a full Chamber of Congress for a decade, for less than the price of a losing Senate race in a small state.”
On the effect of the Red Map Project:
“Yes. The first piece of what the Republicans do with the gerrymander essentially happens in the 1990s, and this is when they use the Voting Rights Act to create majority-minority seats in Southern states. The only way to do in many of these states is to pack as many Democratic voters as you can into one district. These voters do elect African-Americans to Congress, and what you see, starting in mid-1990s is the highest level of African-American representation in Congress of anytime since Reconstruction. But it also has another impact. It turns all of the other neighboring districts more Republican.”
“I don't have any problem with the Republicans winning when they win. The problem comes in when you have states like Pennsylvania in which Democrats get more votes and Republicans take 13 of the 18 seats. Or a state like Ohio, which is the bellwether state that keeps us all up on election night, a 50-50 state. The Republicans have 12 of the 16 seats. So, this is about being sure that elections matter, and that the side getting the most votes wins. And this is the difference between the gerrymander that happens in 2010 and any other gerrymander.”
On getting an outside commission to do redistricting:
"We are the only democracy in the world that allows the politicians to draw their own lines and essentially choose their own voters. When a nonpartisan commission is on the ballot, whether this a red state, or a blue state, or a purple state. In Ohio, Arizona, Florida, California. They always say yes. We want to take this out of the hands of the politicians. But the politicians, because they understand how important it is, are really reluctant to let go of this power. Even sometimes in states where nonpartisan commissions have been put into place, the politicians have found a way to worm their way into them."
Link to full article: 'Gerrymandering On Steroids': How Republicans Stacked The Nation's Statehouses
nikkas think KSA is in the stone age, just you wait. It's gonna be like 1776 in this bytch
all it would take is for the democrats to lose a presidential race and it's game over because the republicans would have control of everything else anyway. but the supreme court is our protector against the stone age and if hillary wins she should be able to appoint a few justices and swing the ideology of the court to the left for a few decades.
Only if she gets a Senate majority.
theworldismine13
God Emperor of SOHH
yeah, and?
Are they going to stonewall for 4-8 years. Highly doubt it. At worst we may get more moderate/ center -left nominations but at least Scallias will not be appointed. At least I have faith it won't be the case.
Feel free to call me naive and if Clinton starts appointing Scalias to satiate a republican congress I'll eat my shoe.
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Terrible conservative ideas will never go away
Even when they get less number of votes
Payback for fdr stacking the supreme court and passing all his bull shyt
Shut up you clown. FDR is probably why your fresh off the boat grandparents made it through the depression.
He prolonged the depression but whatever not getting into that debate