You know what pisses me off....

[RightBWrong]

.... the fact that Republicans sit there so smug on television bragging about their continued majority in the House. The low information voter thinks that Republicans actually legitimately won the votes to retain control in the House. They don't know how to spell gerrymander, let alone understand its definition. But us people in the know understand that had the districts been drawn as they were before 2010, then we *may* be talking Speaker Pelosi right now. More Democratic votes than Republican votes for House members. Period!

But the right wing spin about some sort of House mandate will remain and it irks me to no end!!

[Fridays Child]

1. k/r

And welcome to DU!

[defacto7]

2. Welcome

to the free for all..... that is DU!

[PoliticAverse]

3. The Washington Post disagrees on the 2010 thing...

"But while Democrats won the popular vote, their numbers weren’t enough to overcome the Republican majority, not even if the pre-2010 congressional map were still in place."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/rep-barney-franks-claim-about-a-should-be-democratic-house-majority/2012/11/13/8fc42b0a-2dd8-11e2-89d4-040c9330702a_blog.html?tid=pm_politics_pop

[RightBWrong]

4. Changed my would to a may re: Speaker Pelosi n/t

[MustBeTheBooz]

5. You know what pisses me off...

Socks that are too damn long! Oh sure, it says calf-high on the package, but when you put them on they go all the way to the back of your knee!

Well, that and gerrymandering!

[AlbertCat]

6. I'm for a rule that...

...districts must follow county lines. Of course you can have more than one county in a district, but the lines must follow the counties' boundaries.

This wouldn't stop gerrymandering, but it would help dampen it.

[merrily]

7. Aren't some counties more populated than others? IMO, it's bad enough that relatively arbitrary

lines on a map determine Presidential elections.

As among the Executive, the House, the Senate and the Judiciary, the House of Representatives is the one component of government that is supposed to represent human beings. What is the advantage to human beings of changing that?

I don't believe that we can change the Constitution these without endangering the nation. Otherwise, I would suggest a constitutional amendment requiring districts to be drawn rationally, and not in crazy shapes to protect any politician or political party.

Inasmuch as I would rather leave the Constitution as it is, I can only hope that the courts start to declare crazily-drawn districts unconstitutional.

[AlbertCat]

9. Aren't some counties more populated than others?

God I hope so!

But that's why you can have more than one county in a district.

It's just a suggestion to help districts from looking like a cat's hairball or spilled baby food.

[surrealAmerican]

12. You would also need need ...

... more than one district in a county. How would those boundaries be decided?

[Bluenorthwest]

14. Los Angeles County contains 18 US Congressional Districts....

So following 'county lines' is not possible in any way....

[jmowreader]

8. Or at least give entire cities to the same Congressman

Example: Fayettenam, NC. Part of it's in NC-7, part in NC-8.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. City of Los Angeles has 14 Congressional seats.

How would you work that out?

[jmowreader]

16. With megacities there would be an exception

You could do LA by district lines - the congressman from Watts, say.(It's the first LA district I thought of, sorry.) You wouldn't give the north half of Watts and half the district above it to one person and the south half to someone else. A congressman might get two districts. But they'd be whole districts.

On the other hand, the whole Fayetteville metro area has about 150,000-if you include Fort Bragg. It's a significant difference, and that metro contains three cities and two Army bases.

[JNelson6563]

10. This irks me more...

Why did the Rethugs get to hold the pen (again!) for redistricting?

Ah yes. Our side was busy looking askance at Obama the Imperfect, longing for our ponies and rainbows and we couldn't be bothered to vote and what not. So yes, once again the R's hold the pen and we got nothing but safe red districts.

Oh and our self-righteousness.

If only we could quit whining and stay on task more than a few months every four years...if only!

Julie

[JoeyT]

11. Actually it's because moderates didn't vote.

That few months every four years is the only time some people quit crying about how terrible the left is.

[JNelson6563]

17. That was almost lucid.

Sadly not quite relative.

Julie

[daybranch]

13. Want to do something about it

Help gerrymandered sates get rid of gerrymandering. Here in Ohio we tried but too much emphasis went to Obama and Brown without connecting them to what is a very popular idea (independent and fair redistricting commission) with the vast majority of people as a concept. We dems also failed to close up the uncertainties in the proposed legislation leaving us looking like Romney and Ryan refusing to discuss details of the plan. Republicans pointed these deficiencies outand beat back Issue 2 convincingly. But we now must start anew, learning from our past mistakes, add more definition to the bill, and move forward. If you are upset, fight back. We are.
Nothing we could do in my view is more important than letting votes count equally. Weused to count slaves as 3/5 of a person for representation and now we reduce the impact of democratic voting by more than that. In Ohio we willhave 3 times as many republican member of the US House of Representatives as democrats even though more democrats voted. Talk about voter suppression, we need to talk much much more about voter devaluation and lack of representation. I thought the courts said one man , one vote. Did they say 1 man if a democrat only counts as a third?
This is the real new civil right fight - deniial of representation to your opponents to maintain your illegitimate power. Republicans did not win the House legitimately and Boehner is the illegitimate speaker. Why do we let them call thre President Illegitimate when they so clearly are? Again more republican projection.