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Nevilledog

(51,286 posts)
Mon Feb 1, 2021, 01:39 PM Feb 2021

Republicans just handed Biden a good reason to go big -- without them



Tweet text:
Greg Sargent
@ThePlumLineGS
Republicans are now openly boasting of their plot to win the House through extreme gerrymanders. This alone should dissuade Biden and Dems from negotiating down the stimulus to secure bipartisanship. Dems may have only 2 years. Make them count. My latest:

Opinion | Republicans just handed Biden a good reason to go big — without them
Republicans are vowing extreme gerrymanders. Here's how Democrats should fight back.
washingtonpost.com
8:46 AM · Feb 1, 2021


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/01/gop-gerrymandering-biden-agenda-stimulus/

Ten Senate Republicans are unveiling their own scaled-down economic rescue plan — with the transparent aim of getting President Biden to negotiate away his own ambitions. The game they’re playing runs as follows: If Biden doesn’t make all kinds of concessions in their direction, they suggest, he’ll be reneging on his promise to pursue “unity.”

But this argument has now been badly undercut by none other than Republicans themselves.
In an important new piece, the New York Times reports that Republican operatives are openly boasting of their intention to ramp up efforts to gerrymander House districts during this year’s decennial redistricting.

The upshot of that report: It’s plausible that Democrats could lose the House in 2022 largely on the strength of GOP partisan gerrymandering.

If so, then it seems obvious that Biden and Democrats cannot seriously trim their agenda for the sake of achieving bipartisanship for its own sake. If Democrats do lose the House, Biden’s agenda screeches to a halt.

It would be the ultimate perversity if this were to happen due to GOP gerrymandering after Biden significantly downscaled his agenda in search of bipartisan comity. If Republicans are threatening to take back the House through a nakedly partisan exercise of counter-majoritarian tactics — and if there’s a decent chance they’ll succeed — it furnishes a good reason for Biden and Democrats to do as much as they can right now, with or without Republicans.

*snip*



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BComplex

(8,087 posts)
3. The first piece of legislation that the democrats should pass is to STOP gerrymandering
Mon Feb 1, 2021, 02:13 PM
Feb 2021

in any form. All states should be required to have bipartisan committees in charge of setting district boundaries, and there should be legal parameters to meet.

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