President Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder set to lead the fight against gerrymandering

[misterhighwasted]

http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1583498


President Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder set to lead the fight against gerrymandering
Oct 17, 2016 10:09am CDT

Politico reports former Attorney General Eric Holder will chair a new group called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee to fight Republican gerrymandering ahead of the 2020 Census round of redistricting. Even more crucially, President Obama also stated it will be his primary political focus once he leaves office.
This is fantastic news, since Republicans vastly out-organized Democrats during the last round of redistricting, and they consequently controlled the process in state after state following their 2010 midterm wave.

Roughly 55 percent of congressional districts were drawn to favor Republicans and just 10 percent for Democrats. This massive redistricting disparity likely cost Democrats the House in 2012 and could very well do so again in 2016, making Democrats’ path to a majority very difficult. Many state legislatures are even worse, with Republicans in states like Michigan persistently winning gerrymandered majorities despite losing the popular vote. Gerrymandering is quite simply a national crisis that undermines our democracy.

Snip
These efforts could cost over $100 millions of dollars and require unprecedented co-ordination from Democrats at the national level.
That’s where Obama’s involvement could go a long way toward giving Democrats the resources they need to combat Republican efforts to rig the process in state after state.
MORE AT LINK

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Excellent news! . . . nt

[applegrove]

2. Absolutely fantastic.

[Wilms]

3. Good thing bankers weren't accused of gerrymandering.

That could have brought Obama and Holder down really hard on them.

[DemonGoddess]

5. K&R!

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

7. Such an important issue. Representative democracy fails

when representation is skewed. I live in Pennsylvania, and despite a huge number more democratic voters, the Rs rule this state.

[uponit7771]

8. This is VERY VERY VERY important, we do NOT have a representative gov because of gerrymandering

[csziggy]

9. YES! We need a BlueMap Strategy to fight the RedMap strategy that screwed us

In 2010!

This is how the GOP rigged Congress: The secret plan that handcuffed Obama’s presidency, but backfired in Donald Trump
GOP stole the House with old trick in a brilliant modern form. A new book by Salon's editor lays out every detail
Paul Rosenberg
Monday, Jun 13, 2016 05:58 AM EST

The Republican Party is in crisis. It’s an ongoing story played out in multiple episodes a day in recent weeks, and it’s been a growing concern throughout this election cycle.

But the Democratic Party is profoundly broken as well—most notably in the Legislative branch, both in Congress and in state legislatures. After holding the House for four decades, Democrats lost control in the 1994 midterms, and have only held it for four years since then. The 2010 midterm was even more disastrous than 1994, but with an added twist—it was a census year, meaning that the winners that year could gerrymander themselves into power for a full 10 years. And, of course, that also meant a leg up on controlling the next decade of maps. The Republicans did exactly that in an electoral heist both brazen and dangerous–as a new book by Salon’s editor-in-chief David Daley explains.

The power to draw these maps rests largely with state legislatures, and the GOP’s margins there have not been seen since before the Great Depression. There’s a reason why–a plan called REDMAP, as Daley explains in “Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy,” published by W.W.Norton/Liveright this week. But as Daley writes, the Democrats aren’t just badly outnumbered, they are seemingly clueless about the basic nature of the battle they’re involved in, much less what to do about it. Unless that’s fixed—and fast—the Democrats will continue to be at least as broken as the Republicans, for as far as the eye can see.

What will it take for the Democrats to wake up? That’s impossible to say. But Daley lays out everything we need to know about what’s happened to steal our democracy—from the grand plan to the messy on-the-ground reality in districts across the country—as well as pointing to innovative ways of undoing the damage, not by mirroring GOP dirty tricks, but by making our democracy work better than it has in the past.
http://www.salon.com/2016/06/13/this_is_how_the_gop_rigged_congress_the_secret_plan_that_handcuffed_obamas_presidency_but_backfired_in_donald_trump/

The Republicans have already begun their push to INCREASE gerrymandering in 2020 (RSLC Launches REDMAP 2020, Sets $125 Million Investment Goal so I am ecstatic to hear that someone in the Democratic Party will be working to counter that effort!

[AgadorSparticus]

10. We absolutely need to address this. So glad they are on it!

[Nevernose]

11. This should be Democrats' #1 post-election priority

For a fifty state strategy to ever work, we have to begin at the state level.