Why does gerrymandering always seem to favor the repugs?

[Ferrets are Cool]

Or am I looking at it through liberal colored glasses?

[SoonerPride]

1. Because they have to cheat to win

[Ferrets are Cool]

4. Well, I understand that, but why don't we do it? It seems to work.

[applegrove]

10. We did it in NY and the judges said he was not the right thing to do. Our states

are filled with people with integrity.

[A HERETIC I AM]

13. Because they're better at it.

I think the Democrats keep thinking they are up against some sort of honorable opposition.

We aren't.

Conservative political ideology is a national loser and widely unpopular and they have known it since FDR's days. That's why they rammed through the 22nd Amendment in 1947 (though it took until '51 to get it ratified) because if FDR had lived, the American public would have kept electing him.

They are good at cheating and they have had a lot of practice.

[bottomofthehill]

25. Because we tie our hands behind our backs

In states like New York, good government types helped pass legislation that says gerrymandering is bad and state courts uphold it. Where in states like Florida, the courts have held that you can not eliminate districts on basis of race , but the courts say, no harm no foul.

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. Because they do it 1,745 times more than we do. Or they do it to extremes

that democrats would be embarrassed to do.

[elleng]

3. right

[In It to Win It]

7. Unlike them, Dems actually enforce our anti-gerrymandering laws more

NY is a prime example. We draw a favorable map for us, and the court strikes it down with a majority Dem court willing to enforce Dem map drawing standards.

[In It to Win It]

5. They draw the maps. It works for them because Republicans draw the maps that favor them

[Ferrets are Cool]

6. But why do THEY get to draw them. Why can't we?

[Celerity]

14. We try, but often get fucked by stupid rules WE put in. NY is a classic example. We had a map

approved by the Assembly that would have almost certainly yielded 22 Dem seats, even with NY losing one seat during reapportionment.

But the Rethug minority tied it up due to legislation we put in, and it was then sent to one minor State judge, a RWer (ffs) who appointed some unaccountable Special Master, who drew up a new map that fucked us hard and the Judge (who had final say due to the law we put in), accepted it.

Now we may end up with a net loss of 14 seats (6 D to R flips, so we lose 6, the Rethugs gain 6, so 16 D, compared to that 22 D map), plus that lost seat went to TX, where it will likely flip D (in NY) to R (in TX) as the Rethugs have absolute control there.

PLUS, the new map forces big time Dem power players to run against each other, and also it will cause a certain, guaranteed loss of a Representative (maybe more than one) of colour.

Classic clusterfuck.

[In It to Win It]

18. I just want California to say "fuck the rules" and produce 54 solid Dem seats

They have enough Dem voters to do it. Gerrymander Kevin McCarthy out of existence.

[Celerity]

20. CA has in independent commission, so we cannot go full nuke there (but we did gain)

How Democrats are ‘unilaterally disarming’ in the redistricting wars

Democrats have greater control of state legislatures than in the last round of redistricting but have turned over map-making powers in some states to independent commissions.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/21/democrats-redistricting-wars-495303?cid=rdt-promo-bar (pardon the source, but the article goes into a lot of detail, and was referenced by Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes last year)

Oregon Democrats had finally secured total control of redistricting for the first time in decades. Then, just months before they were set to draw new maps, they gave it away. In a surprise that left Democrats from Salem to Washington baffled and angry, the state House speaker handed the GOP an effective veto over the districts in exchange for a pledge to stop stymieing her legislative agenda with delay tactics. The reaction from some of Oregon’s Democratic House delegation was unsparing: “That was like shooting yourself in the head,” Rep. Kurt Schrader told POLITICO. Rep. Peter DeFazio seethed: “It was just an abysmally stupid move on her part.”

Yet what happened this spring in Oregon is just one example, though perhaps the most extreme one, of a larger trend vexing Democratic strategists and lawmakers focused on maximizing the party’s gains in redistricting. In key states over the past decade, Democrats have gained control of state legislatures and governorships that have long been in charge of drawing new maps — only to cede that authority, often to independent commissions tasked with drawing political boundaries free of partisan interference.

snip

“We Democrats are cursed with this blindness about good government,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, a Democratic state that will nonetheless see its congressional map drawn by a newly created independent commission. “In rabid partisan states that are controlled by Republicans, they’re carving up left and right. And we’re kind of unilaterally disarming,” Connelly conceded, before adding: “But having said that, I still come down on the side of reforming this process because it’s got to start somewhere.”

Only a handful of states had redistricting commissions a decade ago, but the number has grown since then thanks in large part to a campaign from national Democrats, including former Attorney General Eric Holder, to increase voter awareness of gerrymandering — casting it mostly as a Republican abomination, despite the practice’s bipartisan history.

snip

[In It to Win It]

21. I know. I'm aware of CA's process. It's times like these where I wish all that went out the window

Thanks for the link! I didn't know about Oregon.

[Zeitghost]

23. In the last two CA House elections

We have taken +10 and +7 seats over what the percentages said we should take if the seats were won in accordance with the total popular vote by party. I'd day that's pretty good.

[In It to Win It]

16. Because they have a majority of state legislatures and most state governorships

The GOP state legislatures draw the maps and the GOP governors sign them into law. If the GOP have a super-majority, they can override the governor's veto if that governor happens to be a Democrat. The GOP controls more state legislatures than Democrats do.

For example, Kentucky has a Democratic governor and a GOP-led legislature. The GOP has a super-majority, enough to override the governor's veto. The governor in Kentucky vetoed their map and they overrode his veto, and their maps will be in use for the next decade. The same happened in Kansas. The Democratic governor vetoed the GOP drawn map but they have a supermajority, and can ovveride the governor's veto, which they did.

Additionally, some Democratic states have instituted independent redistricting commissions and they have handed that process over to a separate commission to keep it "fair." Republicans have not done that at all. Additionally, as I've posted upthread, Democrats are more willing to enforce their anti-gerrymandering laws in their states. New York is a great example of that.

Democrats drew the map in NY to the Democrats' advantage, and appeals court in NY struck down the map, enforcing NY's own fairer standards of map drawing.

I live in Florida, we actually passed an amendment to state constitution (the fucking highest body of law in the state) to produce fairer maps, and the GOP didn't care about that and the court was not willing to enforce that standard. Therefore, the GOP map will stand for this year's election, and it may be thrown out by 2024 but the damage will be done by then. That's seats lost while Biden is President.

If I recall correctly, the GOP-led legislature in NC controls the map-drawing completely. The Democratic governor has no power to veto the maps.

The Ohio supreme court struck down the GOP drawn map FIVE TIMES for violating the state constitution! But the legislature ran out the clock, and now they have no choice but to use their ridiculously gerrymandered map per an order from the federal court.

When you have a majority, you control the map drawing and you control the courts. Then you are left with no remedies to crooked maps.

[Ferrets are Cool]

19. Thank you for that detailed explanation.

[Zeitghost]

8. The net gain in the House

For the past few cycles has been R+1-2 when you compare the % of total votes cast for each party and the % of seats held by each party. So it's negligible at the national level.


What it really does is push each party away from the middle. Ever wonder why California sends such conservative Representatives to the House (Nunes, McCarthy, etc.)? It's because the conservatives in CA have been packed into a few districts where they have comfortable majorities.

[SYFROYH]

9. GOP has done a better job of controlling state legislatures.

[zipplewrath]

11. Kinda depends upon what you mean

In the far distant past, the democrats gerrymandered extensively. Mostly in the "Dixiecrat" era. Of course, when they were doing it, the strategy was maximizing their majority to ensure that they had total control. The GQP is doing it to create a majority control when they only have a minority of voters. Strangely, by creating these "safe" districts for republicans, they have also created this "trump" problem because the radical right is in a position to choose who the GQP candidate is.

[FoxNewsSucks]

22. Back in those days,

Democrats didn't have the advantage of computer-enabled surgical precision when drawing districts to choose their voters.

[Baitball Blogger]

12. The Dems in New York tried it, and the dem judges turned it down.

[Freddie]

15. Unfortunately we tend to concentrate ourselves in urban areas

Leading to blue districts bring “very” blue. Major geographic disadvantage.

[TheBlackAdder]

17. Scumbag Cheaters gonna Scumbag Cheat

[SergeStorms]

24. They're the ones with the Sharpies.

We gotta' get us some of those Sharpies. Then we have to win all the State Houses in order to use them.