Congress gets most of the national attention in the redistricting wars, but state legislatures are key battlegrounds that deserve some scrutiny.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1398989
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1398989
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Mike DeWine, apologist extraordinare.
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These assholes couldn’t make the tea steep in time, much less put the trains on time. The only things they’re in any way good at is enriching themselves at our expense and immiserating the rest of us.
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The Texas state legislative map prioritized incumbent protection on both sides of the aisle because locking down the current, reasonably close numbers was vastly preferable to Republican interests than making any attempt to expand them. Their play is to try and run out the clock until 2031, at which point they will have to start ceding territory, albeit in ways that will still attempt to preserve a GOP majority. The entire thing could collapse at almost anytime.
ETA: They will have to start ceding territory in 2031 if, and only if, they continue to hold their trifecta. That’s far from certain, possibly bordering on unlikely. If they have to compromise with another chamber or a governor, it’s pretty much game over.
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Seen from this vantage point, the headwinds are surely against us. The singular thing that jumps out at me is that whether or not the efforts of the GOP are fair, they do not care even to the point of making appearances of “fairness”.
They want Power and they want everyone to know and understand that.
This is a marked shift from the decades leading up to the Millennium.
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Here in Arizona, the supposedly independent electoral commission came out with a map that gives 4 congressional districts to the fascists with 3 to the Democrats and two “swing” districts. Party registration numbers are approximately 35% fascist, 32% Democrat and 32% Independent. So the map isn’t as egregious as the fascists would like, but it’s still tilted to help them.
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In the GOP voting lexicon “fair” is the four letter F-word that you never utter in polite company. As a counter point to Matt’s five most dramatic examples of state-level gerrymandering, the GOP did not gerrymander Wyoming.
We had our first experience with an independent commission. The commission was evenly split between Republicans, Democrats and independents, which virtually guaranteed there would be no significant change in party control over the existing districts. The only district that will be competitive is our new 8th district.
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This is what the American version of apartheid looks like.
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She’s so strange looking it’s hard to look at her.
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Helmet hair.
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She looks like an ad for their embalming services.
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Demographics says otherwise. They are fighting a rear-guard action to hold what they can until their essential voters are literally dead.
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Rachel Maddow has referred to Wisconsin as the epicenter of this. Obviously Gabelman’s “investigation” has gone nowhere and is now extended with no end in sight for timeline or cost. With the Supreme Court ruling, the non-partisan drawn map could not even be considered and all Evers has been left with is submitting his own " a little less tightly drawn" redistricting.
There is a republican, Van Wangaard, whose 21st District map jogs over 1 block to pull him in from the City of Racine,(urban, Dem) while the majority of his district is rural and Republican. There’s a lot like that.
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Why does it only say “Ambassador and Speaker Gingrich”? Does she not exist? Is she a ghost, a phantom, or a wraith?
And he really looks like he just wolved down a little baby right before the picture was taken. I’m tempted to throw some luminol on that photo to be sure.
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I thought honorifics like that were passe. Or is that only if you have earned a Doctorate in Education?
The stench of hypocrisy is strong in those two. (But we have known that for 30 years.)
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Where’s the DOJ on this? Repubes are fucking with Federal Elections and once again M.G. is MIA.
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She was the ambassador.
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Close, she’s a woman in R world.
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