Posted on 09/29/2017 5:19:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
More sniveling and whining from the left who can’t win in the arena of ideas.
Doesnt the left need gerrymandering for some of their own districts?
They must, how else do you explain Rep. Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee?
A big red herring. Districts have always been apportioned by population.
Slightly off topic, but does anyone remember that years ago, blacks were complaining that house districts were too “equal”, meaning they (minorities) didn’t have enough numbers in any one district to elect minority representatives?
So some districts were created to pack them with minorities and the expected result came to pass. But this process also left quite a few “majority-majority” districts that went more Republican than they otherwise would have.
Now there are complaints about that from some quarters. You just can’t please some people, it seems.
I was thinking of Crazy Maxine, but those are good examples as well.
Of course, Democrats complain when this strategy is used, too. Texas already uses a form of this. Several Congressional districts are anchored in the densely populated Rio Grande Valley. These so-called "bacon strip districts" extend hundreds of miles north into the GOP countryside in order to get sufficient population. The reason the GOP-dominated legislature created these districts was to create majority-minority (Hispanic) opportunity districts.
Democrats filed a lawsuit claiming the bacon strip districts were unconstitutional. I sincerely believe that to be a Democrat you must be perpetually upset about something.
The Dems are packed into cities like rats in a corn crib.
I’m going to have to comment on this one:
Yes, during the 1960s, the Courts tightened up allowed variance in population. This resulted in carving up of counties and municipalities. Basically, we shifted out of compact districts and communities of interest, into gerrymandered districts.
Then, the Congress in the VRA put a racial twist to this. Because of disparities in voting rates, minorities could be clumped into grotesquely gerrymandered districts so they would constitute a large majority within those districts and gain representation.
So far, I’m affirming Michael Barone, which is a good thing because he is a walking encyclopedia of American politics.
Now I’m going to diverge: The Courts are drifting away from the VRA district and grotesque gerrymanders because voting rates of blacks and whites have converged.
In this case, state laws requiring compact districts and communities of interest (in practice, counties and municipalities) must be more heavily considered by state legislatures and amalgamating minorities by crossing communities of interest less considered, or at least not considered as a means of diminishing minority representation.
In the Alabama cases, there was some evidence that the state legislature concentrated minorities into districts in order to gain a partisan advantage. The evidence, in my opinion, was kind of weak, but we’re not talking about a criminal proceeding where you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
As for this Wisconsin case, I think the state will prevail. The Democrats are trying to float a whole new theory of “equal protection,” namely, that parties (not individuals) should have equal protection. I think this argument will be rejected by the Supreme Court.
What is suffering and should be considered is not the race or grouping type of people living in a given area. It is their acesses to a minimum of representation for services or specific needs offered by a specifix government agency.
Montana is disadvantaged in the House with a single District containing ~ 1,000,000 peeps.
There is a set of rings for districts around ChIraq.
One for the brilliant Mr. Goo-tee-air-is.
There is a set of rings for districts around ChIraq.
One for the brilliant Mr. Goo-tee-air-is.
Only US citizens should be counted, no one else!
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