20 Ridiculously Gerrymandered Congressional Districts
What the hell did everyone think those race based questions on their Census forms were for?
Posted on 06/05/2010 10:40:54 PM PDT by neverdem
But black politics has come of age, and black politicians can protect their turf, fight for their interests, and successfully compete — even for the presidency. America should celebrate, and move on.
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I agree! It has served the intended purpose and it’s time to move on.
To continue doing this is like forever painting by numbers, never graduating to full imagination and artistic expression.
It will only keep us in a holding pattern and breed contempt...perhaps even pulling us backwards.
Without majority black districts taking in large numbers of Dem leaning voters you wouldn’t have a single Republican controlled state legislature in the South.
Like it or not, to build the Republican majority in the South we have to increase not decrease the number of majority black districts because the more the majority black districts become the sole representation of the Democrats the more white Democratic voters will come over to us.
Like it or not, to build the Republican majority in the South we have to increase not decrease the number of majority black districts because the more the majority black districts become the sole representation of the Democrats the more white Democratic voters will come over to us.
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That sounds like stacking the deck for an outcome.
That’s what I’m against...even if it means more asses than elephants.
I’m for real, honest and fair—let the cards fall where they may.
20 Ridiculously Gerrymandered Congressional Districts
What the hell did everyone think those race based questions on their Census forms were for?
How do you think Delay gave us the majority in Texas?
Democrats controlled the Texas congressional delegation because there were a large number of districts with fairly even racial proportions and as such these districts elected Democrats, even if they were Democrats that were moderate and not influenced by the socialism of the national party they were still Democrats in the end.
Delay put them down because he realized if you created more Mexican and black congressional districts that would draw them out of white districts and that would make the white districts whiter theb they were before and that this would increase the chances of more white districts electing Republicans and that’s what happened.
We don’t need less majority-minority districts in the South we need more and if we can get some crazy gerrymanders to do it all the better. We’ll have the region for generations.
Good read.
MD-3 & IL-17 aren’t racially (minority) gerrymandered districts, they’re heavily White, but drawn to ensure Democrats win both (although we have a decent shot at IL-17 this year because of the unpopularity of the Dem incumbent, Phil Hare).
Illinois’ 4th District, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D) that I pictured certainly is.
bookmark
Yeah, some districts fall under the Civil Rights Act, the IL-4th is one. I’m in a State Senate district in Nashville that is drawn to elect a Black member under the act. I’m one of those White “Filler People” mentioned in the article. I have absolutely no say whatsoever in my district since no Whites and no Republicans bother to run (hey, I’d vote for a Black Republican if there was one to vote for).
I’m disenfranchised for State House and School Board unless there’s a special election.
They actually shifted us into the black city council district for the last elections. Those elections are non-partisan so my vote mattered for one. I voted for the long time incumbent (and former city council president) assuming he’d be able to get more done for us but as it turns out, the extra white voters are what helped toss him out.
Then again. I didn’t move here because of who I wanted to vote for. I moved here because I wanted a boat launch in my back yard while still being no more than 15 minutes from down town. I got my wish.
My State Senate district used to be one that extended out towards Wilson County (at a time it was shifting from the old “Courthouse Democrat” types you’re familiar with in AL, to rapidly changing new suburb Republican — right when the election was to come in which I’d finally get to vote out our jackass liberal (White) Dem State Senator, our area was removed from it and placed into an urban Black district centered on Downtown Nashville). In the time my parents & I lived in this house, it went from rural (represented by the old time country Democrats), to White lower/middle class suburban, to Black lower/middle class (as the Whites fled), to Hispanic lower class (illegal) AKA “Bordertown.”
The irony is that there is no truly principled way to draw voting districts. It is arbitrary. That is the advantage of the "voting districts" of the senate - the states. Many of those "districts" are what the British would call "rotten boroughs" with relatively few voters electing a "representative" - but at least the politicians don't get to draw the lines to suit their own convenience as they can for congressional districts and state districts.Since there's no principled approach, I guess I'm about as happy that identifiably leftist "black" and "hispanic" districts gerrymanders the districts so that the rest of the people can elect sensible representatives.It is of course a shame that those "black" districts - and corresponding "white" ones - do tend toward polarization, tho . . .
There can be little doubt that self interest is making the Republican politicians go along happily with the "black" districts, tho.
New York City, New York
POLITICAL AFFILIATION: REPUBLICAN
Abigail Thernstrom is the vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. She was a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute in New York from 1993 to 2009, and a member of the Massachusetts state Board of Education for more than a decade until her third term ended in November 2006. She also serves on the board of advisors of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. She received her Ph.D. in 1975 from the Department of Government, Harvard University.
http://www.usccr.gov/cos/bio/thernstr.htm
Bookmarked.
I will confess that I am no expert on this at all...zip
but I think in Mississippi whites vote around 88% GOP...the highest in the country...and whites are 62% of the population there...the lowest white pop/percentage in the country
hence then the GOP gets 55-56% of the general election vote as a rule
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#MSP00p1
can you explain it a little better..
I don't care though, if it was a "fairly" drawn district it'd still be safe democrat. I don't care if I get a white one or a brown one or a black one. They're all red on the inside.
As AzaleaCity5691 said racial gerrymandering (specifically packing of black voters into a majority black seat) is helpful to us in the South. If they spread the black vote out there would be more white democrats elected and fewer Republicans.
It is “stacking the deck”. But so what? Our enemy the rat party stacks the deck whenever they can and twice on Sunday. The districts need to be drawn some way. They may as well be drawn to hurt the rat party’s overall numbers as much as possible.
The shape of the 70%-Hispanic IL-04 and of the black-majority IL-01, IL-02 and IL-07 do not help the GOP elect more Congressmen, since white Anglo Chicagoans are also Democrats, but it does help the IL-03 elect a socially conservative Democrat (and the IL-05 would as well if they didn’t include part of the Lakefront in it).
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