Gerrymandering
Jul 19, 2015 16:16:54 #
Thu Jan 17, 2013 at 12:02 PM PST.
Oops! Republicans Brag About Winning 2012 House Through Miracle of Gerrymandering [ACTION UPDATE]
This report released by the Republican State Leadership Committee is a gaffe in its truest form - accidentally revealing a truth.
The RSLC's report is entitled "How a Strategy of Targeting State Legislative Races in 2010 Led to a Republican U.S. House Majority in 2013":
[The RSLC] released a report boasting that the only reason the GOP controls the House of Representatives is because they gerrymandered congressional districts in blue states.
The RSLCs admission came in a shockingly candid report entitled, How a Strategy of Targeting State Legislative Races in 2010 Led to a Republican U.S. House Majority in 2013″.
Their report details how they spent $30 million, a tiny amount in today's post Citizens United election climate, to sweep up state legislatures, which then led to redrawing Congressional districts to favor Republicans.
As the report states:
In turn, the new Republican majorities would be tasked with redrawing congressional districts for the 2012 election. The rationale was straightforward, the report reads. Controlling the redistricting process in these states would have the greatest impact on determining how both state legislative and congressional district boundaries would be drawn.
The report credits gerrymandered maps in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin with allowing Republicans to overcome a 1.1 million popular-vote deficit. In Ohio, for instance, Republicans won 12 out of 16 House races despite voters casting only 52 percent of their vote for Republican congressional candidates. The situation was even more egregious to the north. Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress.
It has been well documented that today's House GOP "majority" was engineered by this redistricting, and in reality Democrats in the House received millions more votes than Republicans, belying John Boehner's and the rest of the House GOP's constant claims to their GOP majority and Americans' preference for a divided government.
Republicans can't win on the issues, so they change the rules. Their latest proposal has electoral votes being awarded according to Congressional district - which would have handed Mitt Romney the win in 2012 while losing the popular vote. Now Pennsylvania legislators are trying to implement this strategy to rig the 2016 election for themselves. The answer is to fight back on the local level, as they have found is a worthwhile strategy. Another tactic is to take redistricting out of the hands of legislators as Howard Dean has suggested and as currently done in CA and FL.
Republicans cheat and fight with dirty tactics and the only solution is to fight fire with fire.
4:52 PM PT: ACTION UPDATE: h/t to Jacoby Jonze for this article describing HR 278 designed to counteract the negative effects of partisan redistricting.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and six other House Democrats have put forward legislation that would prevent state-level politicians from redrawing congressional districts. Instead, they would have be redrawn after each nationwide Census by an independent commission.
Cohen said his bill would help prevent the partisan redistricting of states, which many Democrats and Republicans have said creates districts that favor one party or another and allows hyper-partisan candidates to get elected.
"It's time to take politics out of the redistricting process," Cohen said. "Congress is so polarized today that we're unable to find common ground on the major issues facing our country.
Oops! Republicans Brag About Winning 2012 House Through Miracle of Gerrymandering [ACTION UPDATE]
This report released by the Republican State Leadership Committee is a gaffe in its truest form - accidentally revealing a truth.
The RSLC's report is entitled "How a Strategy of Targeting State Legislative Races in 2010 Led to a Republican U.S. House Majority in 2013":
[The RSLC] released a report boasting that the only reason the GOP controls the House of Representatives is because they gerrymandered congressional districts in blue states.
The RSLCs admission came in a shockingly candid report entitled, How a Strategy of Targeting State Legislative Races in 2010 Led to a Republican U.S. House Majority in 2013″.
Their report details how they spent $30 million, a tiny amount in today's post Citizens United election climate, to sweep up state legislatures, which then led to redrawing Congressional districts to favor Republicans.
As the report states:
In turn, the new Republican majorities would be tasked with redrawing congressional districts for the 2012 election. The rationale was straightforward, the report reads. Controlling the redistricting process in these states would have the greatest impact on determining how both state legislative and congressional district boundaries would be drawn.
The report credits gerrymandered maps in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin with allowing Republicans to overcome a 1.1 million popular-vote deficit. In Ohio, for instance, Republicans won 12 out of 16 House races despite voters casting only 52 percent of their vote for Republican congressional candidates. The situation was even more egregious to the north. Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress.
It has been well documented that today's House GOP "majority" was engineered by this redistricting, and in reality Democrats in the House received millions more votes than Republicans, belying John Boehner's and the rest of the House GOP's constant claims to their GOP majority and Americans' preference for a divided government.
Republicans can't win on the issues, so they change the rules. Their latest proposal has electoral votes being awarded according to Congressional district - which would have handed Mitt Romney the win in 2012 while losing the popular vote. Now Pennsylvania legislators are trying to implement this strategy to rig the 2016 election for themselves. The answer is to fight back on the local level, as they have found is a worthwhile strategy. Another tactic is to take redistricting out of the hands of legislators as Howard Dean has suggested and as currently done in CA and FL.
Republicans cheat and fight with dirty tactics and the only solution is to fight fire with fire.
4:52 PM PT: ACTION UPDATE: h/t to Jacoby Jonze for this article describing HR 278 designed to counteract the negative effects of partisan redistricting.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and six other House Democrats have put forward legislation that would prevent state-level politicians from redrawing congressional districts. Instead, they would have be redrawn after each nationwide Census by an independent commission.
Cohen said his bill would help prevent the partisan redistricting of states, which many Democrats and Republicans have said creates districts that favor one party or another and allows hyper-partisan candidates to get elected.
"It's time to take politics out of the redistricting process," Cohen said. "Congress is so polarized today that we're unable to find common ground on the major issues facing our country.
Jul 19, 2015 17:26:48 #
Jul 19, 2015 17:38:30 #
Humility wrote:
Someone has to save the country....
The majority of the people, have a different opinion.
Jul 19, 2015 17:54:00 #
Jul 19, 2015 18:04:27 #
Jul 20, 2015 06:03:49 #
Coos Bay Tom
Loc: coos bay oregon
Gerry mandering is just one of the many dirty tricks besides voter ID and hours long waits at polling stations. Any thing to stack the deck. Elections will be won now by who ever is the most corrupt.
Jul 20, 2015 13:43:25 #
mouset783
Loc: Oklahoma
Coos Bay Tom wrote:
Gerry mandering is just one of the many dirty tricks besides voter ID and hours long waits at polling stations. Any thing to stack the deck. Elections will be won now by who ever is the most corrupt.
Exactly .Especially when dead and over 105 voters don't have to stand in line.
Jul 20, 2015 13:49:08 #
mouset783 wrote:
Exactly .Especially when dead and over 105 voters don't have to stand in line.
The typical lies that get regurgitated, but never proven. Some people do not need proof to believe.
Jul 20, 2015 14:01:36 #
mouset783
Loc: Oklahoma
moldyoldy wrote:
The typical lies that get regurgitated, but never proven. Some people do not need proof to believe.
They have been proved many times. Are you planning to learn how to read or do you just read what agrees with your bias opinion?. Are you really dumb enough to think the moron would be elected without voter fraud the same way Franken did?
Jul 20, 2015 14:13:35 #
mouset783 wrote:
They have been proved many times. Are you planning to learn how to read or do you just read what agrees with your bias opinion?. Are you really dumb enough to think the moron would be elected without voter fraud the same way Franken did?
Mouset,
Franken won the last election by a wide margin. If you think you claims of voter fraud have any truth at all, provide a link to the original report, not some single page blog making a false claim...
Jul 20, 2015 14:28:18 #
mouset783 wrote:
They have been proved many times. Are you planning to learn how to read or do you just read what agrees with your bias opinion?. Are you really dumb enough to think the moron would be elected without voter fraud the same way Franken did?
Right wing blogs repeat this crap ad nauseum without a shread of evidence, because they know ignoramuses like you will spread this nonense to other brainless idiots.
Jul 20, 2015 14:57:51 #
mouset783
Loc: Oklahoma
permafrost wrote:
Mouset,
Franken won the last election by a wide margin. If you think you claims of voter fraud have any truth at all, provide a link to the original report, not some single page blog making a false claim...
Franken won the last election by a wide margin. If you think you claims of voter fraud have any truth at all, provide a link to the original report, not some single page blog making a false claim...
The alternative is then the USA is made up of sub human idiots. Do you accept that?
Jul 20, 2015 17:53:42 #
moldyoldy wrote:
Right wing blogs repeat this crap ad nauseum without a shread of evidence, because they know ignoramuses like you will spread this nonense to other brainless idiots.
Truer words have never been spoken. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
Jul 20, 2015 18:00:20 #
working class stiff
Loc: N. Carolina
moldyoldy wrote:
Right wing blogs repeat this crap ad nauseum without a shread of evidence, because they know ignoramuses like you will spread this nonense to other brainless idiots.
Add N. Carolina to your list of gerrymandered Republican 'victories'. In the last election more votes were cast for Democrats in the House races, yet our representatives are 9-4 for the Rs.
That's the true voter fraud.
Jul 20, 2015 18:09:57 #
working class stiff wrote:
Add N. Carolina to your list of gerrymandered Republican 'victories'. In the last election more votes were cast for Democrats in the House races, yet our representathierives are 9-4 for the Rs.
That's the true voter fraud.
That's the true voter fraud.
They are good at deflection. While we fight their accusations, they are cleaning up with their tactics. Voter intimidation, fake voter fraud, and gerrymandering.
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