Guerre a outrance
Two more insights:
1) If Trump is upset and tweeting about it then you know it must be a good thing, and
2) I hope someone (not me, as I don’t do Twitter) responds to him by saying, “Not to worry, it’s just FAKE NEWS!”
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“In fact, the new map still slightly advantages the Republicans with respect to the statewide popular vote.“
Well, no wonder, then, that the GOP is up in arms: “How DARE you try to level the playing field?!”
Mr. Cohn, I’d be very curious to know what the “Efficiency Index” is both for the old map and this new one. While it’s less with the new map, your statement above indicates it still leans Republican. By how much?
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Republicans should be punished for the fraud they perpetrated on the people of Pennsylvania. If I were king, I would have the Democrats enjoy a 13 to 5 advantage for the next 8 years. The GOP lied , cheated and stole for 8 years in PA. Courts are supposed to punish the guilty
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Gerrymandering and unlimited dark money have made it possible for candidates to pick their voters. I am grateful for the Pennsylvania's Supreme Court's well-reasoned and responsive action. Grateful as well for Gov. Wolf's move to require new voting systems that provide a paper trail. Hope the funds will soon follow. Virigina's similar move worked well for the state.
http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/To-Prevent-Hacking-Pennsylvania...
Virginia Board of Elections Scraps Touch-Screen Voting Machines
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-scraps-t...
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How did it happen? Republicans have been denigrating Democrats as "Defeatocrats," and its one of the very few slurs that isn't far off. We almost always apologize for ourselves and our positions right out of the box, and as another commenter saud, we start with a compromise and let it be watered down from there.
I'm grateful that the PA Supreme Court stood up for Democrats even when the party leaders wouldn't. But now the party's leaders in every state, country and municipality must take control before Republicans find mew ways to undermine the majority. The only surprise in redistricting should be honest results favoring the actual majority - the Democratic party.
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The fact that the new map favors Dems more than the ones they proposed is no surprise. The biggest problems Dems have with the more progressive elements of the electorate is that they have the bad habit of proposing a compromise to begin with that only gets further watered down.
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The party in power gerrymanders, whether it is Republican or Democrat, and whichever party does it, betrays the fundamental democratic principle of one person = one vote. We should be trying to identify a neutral rule set (like establishing voting entities of nearly equal population size, favoring shapes with larger area: perimeter ratios, etc) that will be applied in every state regardless of who is in power, with some kind of legally mandated bipartisan committee to make any calls that the rules can't, not figuring this out on a case-by-case, state-by-state basis.
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So you want the politicians to figure this out: not the courts?
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"Not what he said" is making up alternative facts. The party in power does NOT always gerrymander. California, Oregon and New Mexico have successfully eschewed gerrymandering for both Congress and the state legislatures. The only badly gerrymandered Democratic state is Maryland, which is not nearly as bad as several Republican states. In fact, the oddly shaped Maryland district was not just an attempt to keep suburban communities together. It was endorsed by the state GOP, which found it useful.
Please note that the Republican Pennsylvania plan, with its "Goofy (to me it looks more like Bullwinkle) kicking Donald" district, violated several parts of the STATE constitution. So a state court struck it down.
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I would add New Jersey as another state that does not gerrymander. We have an independent commission that draws the districts and the result is a pretty fair map to both sides, even though the Senate and Assembly are dominated by the Democrats.
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As the only commentator from PA so far and one who will have to vote under this new map, I think the whole thing sucks. Courts should not decide these matters; legislatures should. The fact that we have a completely dysfunctional legislature and a nitwit governor should not compel the courts to intervene. Let the moron politicians of all political stripes fight it out so we the voters can decide whether we agree or disagree with their solution. Then come election time vote the idiots out if we disagree. Recalling a judge is more difficult than wrangling cats to a barbecue. Was the previous map reasonable? No! But neither is the solution I have to abide by in this case. The Upshot, Upshot? This wasn't a surprise. Just judicial over reach rearing it's ugly head. Now I await the inevitable lawsuits that will gum up the primaries and make this election cycle unbearable.
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So, I guess that's why Conservatvies are so desperate to stack the courts, right? So they can overreach themselves?
Or is it that the legislature simply cannot be expected to do something that is actually part of a Democratic process, and cheats the voters.
The GOP is a minoroty, and growing more so every day, as it swings further rightward. The rest of the country shouldn't be cheated of their voice to accommodate that, and took th e courts to address it.
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The people you'd prefer to have remake the map had a chance to submit something to the governor. They submitted garbage by choice. Now they get what they get. OR maybe they could have not gerrymandered to the extent they did. I too am from PA and have had enough of this GOP overreach.
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Any gerrymandering is disgusting. Any party that supports it outs themselves as having no good ideas otherwise so they have to CHEAT to gain and/or keep power. I am glad to see the courts straighten it out. (pun intended.)
The map in the body of the text seems to me to have far less "jutting-out" than a gerrymandered map would. Once of the criteria for drawing fair districts should be to minimise the length of boundaries and this map seems to have created fairly coherent shapes. That can be done and still achieve whatever "balance" is desired. That's exactly why gerrymandered maps are the way they are - they are designed to be unbalanced. Whether this map favours democrats or republicans - and I don't see such a great advantage for democrats, if any - is immaterial. It's all supposed to balance out in the end, and depend on the quality of the candidate.
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So... "How did it happen?"
The article explains what happened but I'd really like to find out how it did happen. It seems the judges drew the map but how did they decide? Who drew the final map? Who advised on it? What criteria did they use? What resources did they use?
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The map was drawn by the majority of justices on the state Supreme Court, who are Democrats, based on a proposed map previously proposed by Democrats.
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Care to show any proof of that?
How many tries did the Republicans get to correctly draw the maps?
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That is inaccurate. I believe that the court outsourced the map production to a university. I cannot remember which one. But an algorithm was used to redraw the lines.
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Ban gerrymandering and eliminate the electoral college.
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Amen to both. Then go after campaign finance reform and term limits.
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Wouldn't that be a strange thing to actually not have Republican nor Democratic districts in America and just vote for people. No outside money allowed would me nice too.
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Surprise, surprise. Our election system is broken. Shamefully and cowardly rigged to support right wing Republican agenda and the super-rich. Now that districts are drawn to municipal boundaries of populated areas, the tide will change. No more fake Republican wins.
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@Dave Don't be so sure about that. The Republicans never give up, as they proved in VA with a one-vote win on the third count *after* the Republican candidate had conceded. They are focused. The Democrats are not.
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The new map looks as simple as possible, compact as possible and keeps neighbors together. Isn't that the idea? As to complaints, complain to Republicans that they repeatedly failed to do their job and the court was forced to do it for you.
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Judicial activism is great until you come up against a court that doesn't agree with you. Courts are not supposed to be making political choices, they're supposed to interpret law. Both sides are guilty of gerrymandering, the 4th District in Massachusetts (Barney Frank's old one) runs from the RI border up to Brookline and ran to Fall River when Barney was running. Be careful what you wish for.
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It seems clear the Republicans were favored when they received less votes overall yet still won more seats. Can you dispute that?
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As for identifying districts which Democrats could flip in a wave election - I think there are far more possibilities lurking that show up in a simple analysis. Here in Co-3rd, we are generally considered a safe Republican hold because Trump carried comfortably and the Republican congressman was also reelected easily.
Though, just about a third of the district register as Independents and the Republicans have a modest registration advantage over Democrats. Summing the Democrats plus Trump's disapproval ratings and half the undecided among Independents according to national polls results with a Democratic candidate in the lead.
Thus, what experts a thousand miles away say is a safe Republican hold is also a seat that a Democrat could win. If a wave election means that Independents voters prefer one party over the other then there are many more "safe" Republican seats that are vulnerable.
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@Scott Well maybe so (more Republican seats vulnerable than one would think) but,well, such talk reminds me of Hillary's "firewall."
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I think if the State Supreme Court did concern itself with a map that favored Democrats then that would be a huge legal controversy within the court.
It looks to me that it minimized splitting counties and being as compact as possible. It is remarkably compact for a map minimizing splitting counties and having similar populations in every county. I don't see any places were counties could be swapped (even assuming they are similar population) that would make the map more compact.
The court's decision also emphasizes minimal splitting of counties and compactness so the map quite likely is the best possible meeting those qualities. Compactness has a definition and a claculated number was given.
Seems to me that if Republicans had a map that split fewer counties and was more compact that was also more favorable to Republicans then they would produce it. If that map existed then it would demonstrate that the State Supreme Court had approved an inferior map that was a partisan advantage to Democrats.
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Actually, the new map shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. The evidence at trial was that the Republican gerrymander cost the Dems between 3 and 5 seats. Of course, a neutral and non-gerrymandered map should shift several seat to the Dems. So, no surprise, I just think most people, Dems, Republicans and Nate Cohen weren’t paying attention.
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So "Nathaniel Persily, the Stanford professor who helped draw the map, has been barred by the court from discussing it."
Understandable, but please assure us that Prof. Persily has a consulting side biz, so he can redraw Texas's districts to achieve such balance - please, please.
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And, redraw Florida too. With greater Democrats than Republicans registered to vote, it was recently redrawn to reflect that. However, the Republican Legislature still got by redrawing and re- gerrymandering to benefit themselves.
11
It seems as if the chances are pretty good that courts will continue to crack down on the kind of reckless GOP partisan gerrymandering so starkly displayed in Pennsylvania. There ought to be a constitutional amendment establishing the formula the PA Supreme Court used to draw their new map. Of course there never will be with a GOP congress. Their only motive in anything is hanging on to their strangling power as long as they can.
Consistently for many cycles across the country there have been more people voting for Democratic than Republican House candidates yet we have a lopsidedly GOP House. Gerrymandering is why.
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