The only way a significant number of Republicans will get interested in gerrymandering reforms is if the Dems can get control of more state governments and gerrymander these states to their advantage in the same manner the Republicans have done in the last 10 years. You can’t trust them to do the right thing unless they have no other choices.
To me this is a no brainer. The legislature should match the electorate.
I would have felt better if the headline had said,
“Ex GOPer”
As long as people like McConnell are in positions of control, the GOP is one of the most dangerous organizations in American History.
So by getting the big money out of politics, does he mean putting it in the hands of people who own media outlets that can sway millions of smaller donors?
I am not a genie…so I cannot do a magic trick of pouring years of Civic Education into an American Public which is not interested in it.
Which would make this gentleman irrelevant.
When a Republican gives you a cup of coffee, either quietly dump it out or have the cops test it for poison before drinking.
Just use GPS to draw an evenly divided set of districts… like a grid. No more ridiculously meandering and circuitous mazes. They keep saying that “we should end the practice of drawing our congressional districts so that politicians can pick their voters, and not the other way around”. So, do it. We have the technology.
Republicans are the electoral equivalent of a Dominican Republic mini bar? That works for me!
Ohhhh, good one… Totally stealing it.
“I do think that it’ll be interesting if the Democrats do get a bunch more legislatures how much more mainstream among conservatives our argument will be,” he said.
Ultimately, in Pudner’s view, “It’s about insiders versus outsiders. If we get a system that works, whoever wins at the ballot box, God bless them.”
This is the whole point, from my cynical point of view. He sees the future of the Republican Party in trouble, so now that the damage has been done and Republican judges and laws have managed to pass, it’s time to cry “lets make this fair!” He sees the shoe being on the other foot in the long game, so NOW it’s time to change things.
Look who is whining about the courts messing with gerrymandering… it helps dems!!!
uh nope
is it possible that there are lots of actual progressives doing just as vital and important work on the gerrymandering issue as this guy, or even more so, who aren’t rabid transphobes who work for breitbart and fox news? could tpm possibly give space to someone who doesn’t defend our rapist child-killing president? or have we fallen into the trap of “let’s better find a republican we can praise for something, anything, lest we’re forced to acknowledge the gop is corrupt as a whole”
I eagerly await the day the Republican Party goes the way of the Whigs. Until then, I will count my fingers after shaking hands with a member of the GOP.
Without questioning Pudner’s personal sincerity, an R being for bipartisan commissions or some computer algorithm to set district boundaries is much less a concession to fair play than it might seem. Much of the disadvantage to Ds in any redistricting scheme that aims for compact districts is that Ds tend to clump in cities. Even without the malign intent of Rs drawing district boundaries, Ds wind up with overkill in lots of 90+% districts, allowing the more evenly spread Rs to get smaller majorities in many more districts. Gerrymandering, almost by definition, and definitely by the district map the phenomenon is named after, involves drawing extended and convoluted rather than compact and simple shapes for district boundaries. Yet, that is exactly what you would have to do to produce districts that give Ds an even break, extend them out like snakes from urban centers way out into the countryside. Ending gerrymandered districts would just lock in an R advantage, one only somewhat smaller than the advantage they get from the Ds being overly concentrated plus the Rs drawing lines to cheat them even further
Correct. Proportional representation is the real solution to this.
Doesn’t make him wrong, though.
Dems picked up significant seats in CA after we went through our first redistricting with our voter-mandated redistricting commission.
He seems to realize that this would be bad for Rs if the shoe were on the other foot. And he’s right. So, for whatever reason, good on him.
No argument from me on that, I’m just cynical and believe his motives are for Republican survival, not for the good of the nation, that it is good for the nation is of periphery concern for him.
But, again, I’m cynical.
Oh, me too, and I wouldn’t trust him as far as I can throw him. But he does seem to have enough insight, at least, to realize that maybe things aren’t going to be exactly the way they are now, and an actual fair process might be better.