TRUMP "MISSED THE DEADLINE" TO CALL OFF TX GERRYMANDERING; CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE “BEAUTIFUL MAPS”

[rjs330]

No. They pretty much just started doing what the republicans do. And it was the republicans who started screaming about it.


Gov. Abbott of Texas had a conniption over it. All that work he did to disenfranchise democrats, all for nothing.

What scares them, is a level playing field. For good reason.

There never has been a level playing field. Both sides do it and both sides complain about the other side doing it.

Abbott whined, iver Democrats and Democrats whined over Abbott. Tit for tat. I'm done with this whole dumb conversation. Its nothing but a bunch of partisan hypocrisy.

 

[rjs330]

Thats absurd. As much as Im an environmentalist, its people who need representation in congress. Not grass and ants. No people are entitled to more powerful representation than others just because of where they live

Well of course it would have to include people otherwise who would vote to the candidates? Hey look i didnt say my idea was perfect. It would need some tweeks somehow, but it would stop gerry mandering and make things more even. Maybe something along the lines of a gride and the grids would have to have so many people per square mile based on total population. Just brain storming. Some portions of the grid would be bigger while others would be smaller. If you have 20 representatives then you get 20 grids. And each of those grids have to have the same amount of people in them. Squares or rectangles. Like an excel spread sheet.

 

[rjs330]

The key is that each group should have representation proportional to their proportion of the population.

That supports gerrymandering.

 

[The Barbarian]

The key is that each group should have representation proportional to their proportion of the population.

That supports gerrymandering.

No. It's precisely opposed to Gerrymandering. The point of Gerrymandering is to give specific groups more representation than their share of the population.

 

[JSRG]

The key is that each group should have representation proportional to their proportion of the population.

I don't quite agree on that, because that's not what a district-based system is supposed to accomplish. The goal of a district-based system is that each district has their own representative to represent the specific interests and desires of that district. If a state is uniformly 51% Democrat and 49% Republican, the result of this, even if you don't do any gerrymandering at all, will be that Democrats will win 100% of the seats despite winning 51% of the votes.

If someone wants proportional representation, then go with proportional representation where everyone votes for their preferred party and then that party gets that percentage of the seats. (not many countries have fully proportional representation though, more commonly they have a mix of districts and proportional representation) I think proportional representation would be good to have, although I would still want some of them to be elected by districts because I think some representatives should have a real tie to particular areas--this might require an increase in the size of the House of Representatives, but whatever, the US has one of the largest disparities in the world when it comes to size of population versus size of legislature; there's little reason it can't double its size.

This is not to say, of course, that the goal of gerrymandering is to make it less representative of population proportion, but a district based system is not supposed to nor should it inherently provide "proportional" representation. This idea also has the problematic effect of reducing all races to Republican vs. Democrat despite the fact that the candidates themselves do play a real role in the issue (this is one issue with proportional representation: The fact it turns it into only the political party mattering rather than the actual candidates, though again this is mitigated by a mixture of proportional and districts, which I think the United States would be smart to adopt)

 

[The Barbarian]

I don't quite agree on that, because that's not what a district-based system is supposed to accomplish. The goal of a district-based system is that each district has their own representative to represent the specific interests and desires of that district.

Which is why there is Gerrymandering. If politicians can carefully draw districts to break up specific groups so that they never get a representative they want, then the system is corrupt.

 

[A2SG]

As I've said twice now, the analogy is inane. It has no real point.

And yet, it did. Apparently you missed it, and continue to.

-- A2SG, oh well, I tried....

 

[durangodawood]

Well of course it would have to include people otherwise who would vote to the candidates? Hey look i didnt say my idea was perfect. It would need some tweeks somehow, but it would stop gerry mandering and make things more even. Maybe something along the lines of a gride and the grids would have to have so many people per square mile based on total population. Just brain storming. Some portions of the grid would be bigger while others would be smaller. If you have 20 representatives then you get 20 grids. And each of those grids have to have the same amount of people in them. Squares or rectangles. Like an excel spread sheet.

Ah I see. I had thought you were suggesting giving each representative equal square miles regardless of population.

There's a lot to consider in devising fair and meaningful districts, I think. Squares seem to divide communities or regions completely arbitrarily. I'd want to see how the current non partisan commissions do it in places like, recently, CA. before concocting my own notions.