I want to see congressional districts determined in every single state by a neutral non partisan process, period. The result should be percentage representation by party reflecting percentage of vote by party, period.
Represent people by their income levels. Give the parties something to work for.
Haha! That would be great.
What if people want to change the parties?
Same.
So which federal judge are the republicans relying on not to strike the âwhere practicableâ line out of hand?
So theyâre going to âreformâ gerrymandering with all kinds of line items but leave this one in - âBan on partisan gerrymanderingâ - well doesnât that defeat the whole purposeâŚ
This all needs to be left to a computer run by the Federal Elections Board. There are no stateâs rights when it comes to elections for federal office.
There is just no perfect way to do this, but avoiding extreme gerrymandering of the kind visited on Virginia after 2010 is essential if we are ever going to have a functional government that represents the will of the majority. To the extent that minorities make up a majority of a community (e.g., city of Richmond or Norfolk), not dividing those cities should help to preserve the likelihood that minority candidates will be elected. Dividing urban areas (or packing voters from disparate areas into a single district) is how Republicans have neutralized not just minority voters, but urban voters of all races and colors.
In many areas, the cost of one safe, urban, nonwhite Democrat, is at best one suburban tossup and one safe, rural Republican. In other words, race packing is the best gerrymander Republicans have going. It does them the dual service of helping them feel validated in their totally-not-racism, while electing fewer Democrats and more Republicans in total.
I certainly get that incumbents want to stay that way, but Iâd rather have more Democrats, period. It would be far better to let a computer draw a fair, competitive, minimally biased map, and better still to replace single-winner elections with proportional representation.
George H.W. Bush drove the Reagan Justice Department to do just this, and crowed about it as if he had done African Americans a favor. North Carolina is even worse than Virginia.
So did Gingrich when he and his contract on America took over.
what a shock. Governor Northam, despite all his protests, is doing nothing to protect the rights of Virginia;s black citizens
Sounds like a major improvement over what theyâve been doing. Not perfect, but fair.
How will the citizen members be chosen? What safe guards prevent hyper partisans from being selected?
I think weâre all imagining statisticians and retired geography professors, but Roger Stone and his ilk are âordinary citizensâ too and far,far more likely to be interested in serving than the truly independent
No, the outcome would come from who programmed the computer and how the data were used, ignored, or abused.
How will the citizen members be chosen? What safe guards prevent hyper partisans from being selected?
I think weâre all imagining statisticians and retired geography professors, but Roger Stone and his ilk are âordinary citizensâ too and far,far more likely to be interested in serving than the truly independent
Yes. Our politicians are too hyperpartisan to draw boundaries, but somehow we are going to create a new process that will be able select non hyperpartisans do-gooders that will be willing to compromise and put fairness above partisan interests.
How?
How?
I donât know. My comment was a bit sarcastic.