There are arguments for either large or small legislatures. The arguments for larger include that each legislator represents fewer people, and thus are more accessible and closer to their constituents’ concerns. In smaller houses, each legislator has more prestige and importance by swimming in a smaller pond, and debates and policy-making can be more focused and coherent.
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Agreed, except. The Rs won when they labeled the Ds “extremist”.Giving solid examples of the GOP extremism, without using the term, is IMHO the way to point out how far out of the mainstream NC has become courtesy of the Rs. The state motto is ‘esse quam videri’ - to be rather than to seem. Talking about the definitive ways the R-dominated legislature has injured voters gives the ‘be’.
Didn’t seem to bother Texas before the 1990? 2000? census. Either way, they blew that rule right off the rails, and no one challenged the Repugs on it.
I see @paul beat me to it. I am glad that I wasn’t imagining it, though.,
No constitutional problem here. Reapportionment ≠ redistricting.
Reapportionment is dividing up the seats in the House of Representatives based on the last census. NC would simply be redrawing the boundaries of its apportioned 13 districts.
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There is no evidence of congressional redistricting taking place absent the census reports.
There have been alterations by the federal courts—including this year—because of gerrymandering or for racially-based redistricting—but the state legislature has not violated federal law.
Actually, the two are more or less synonymous when drawing districts. One cannot exist without the other.
Redistricting is a constitutional issue.
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I don’t think the fights have to be mutually exclusive. We can fight voter suppression, court/re-engage the black vote, and try and win back the voters I referenced, all at the same time. If we’re going to a “every seat is in play” mentality, then let’s go after every vote. The last time Dems were in full control, Howard Dean and the DNC went into it with a “50 state strategy”. Why limit our voting base when we can expand it? This is the time to do it. Trump has abandoned them. (WE know he never intended on helping them, but we can frame it as Trump abandoning them.) Let’s use that, is all I’m suggesting.
This is a good discussion to have.
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Let’s go after every vote we have a chance of getting—which is quite a different thing, really.
We will never, ever get the votes of the wheezing Trumpist lumpen proletariat.
They are racist, xenophobic, stupid, and ultra-conservative. Why should we waste time, money, and effort on voters we cannot hope to change?
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But we might get some of their kids.
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Only if they were orphaned at birth and raised by liberals.
I see you have strong feelings about this 
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I’m just a pragmatist.
And you think their particular votes are so important because?..
fucking waste of energy and time and resources for nothing.
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If it’s a constitutional issue, why was it not stopped or reversed when Texas did it in 2003? Because there is no constitutional prohibition on mid-decade redistricting. As a matter of fact, in 2006 the Supreme Court ruled that a state may redistrict as often as it wants. Perhaps you feel that the decision was wrongly decided, but as it now stands, it is constitutional.
Reapportionment and redistricting are NOT synonymous. Your first clue is that they are two different words used within the context of apportionment and district boundary drawing. Again, reapportionment is the distribution of House seats among the states, once every 10 years, according to the latest census, as spelled out in the constitution. That is a federal activity. As for redistricting, a state-level process not mentioned in the constitution, it does follow upon reapportionment, but not necessarily. If the number of seats apportioned to a state does not change, then redistricting may not be necessary at all – that depends on the changes of relative populations of the various districts between the latest census and the census 10 years prior. Again, redistricting is redrawing boundaries of the apportioned districts. It is absolutely and completely different from reapportionment, even through it traditionally follows directly from reapportionment.
Also note that in the last few decades, some states’ districts, including in NC, have been redrawn mid-decade by order of the Federal Courts due to methods used to draw boundaries that were found to be unconstitutional.
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The 2003 redistricting was the delayed work following the 2000 census. Because of Tom Delay, the Texas legislature tried some shenanigans, resulting in all kinds of foofaraw before the redistricting was actually completed.
The 2006 SCOTUS decision was about the fairness of the redistricting—it most certainly did not say that redistricting absent a census was constitutional.
I’m not sure what’s upsetting you. I thought this was a worthy discussion to have. I didn’t mean to upset or offend you.
I’m completely unsure why you posted this. I’m not upset - I told what I think. And why.
Fine. We both have differing opinions on the way forward of dem party. Let’s move on.
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[quote=“thunderclapnewman, post:35, topic:66836, full:true”]
The 2003 redistricting was the delayed work following the 2000 census. Because of Tom Delay, the Texas legislature tried some shenanigans, resulting in all kinds of foofaraw before the redistricting was actually completed.
The 2006 SCOTUS decision was about the fairness of the redistricting—it most certainly did not say that redistricting absent a census was constitutional.[/quote]
It wasn’t delayed work. It was re-worked after the Republicans took control of the entire state legislature in the 2002 elections, and finally had the power draw districts more favorable to themselves (a power which, truth be told, had been abused by Texas Dems).
Here it is in black and white, from League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry:
You can read the whole thing if you want, but I think that’s the relevant part. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/548/399.html
Anyway, there are other things the NC legislature can do:
- Fully reverse the transgender discrimination bill.
- Reverse the other garbage that was slipped in with the transgender discrimination bill, such as limitations on municipalities making minimum wage law and the restrictions on suing for civil rights violations.
- Reverse the laws instituted at the end of the McCrory to strip gubernatorial powers from the incoming governor-elect.
- Reverse the attempted theft of Charlotte-Douglas airport from the city of Charlotte.
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