Former President Barack Obama put his name on yet another redistricting reform effort ahead of the 2021 map-drawing cycle.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1245032
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1245032
Fuck you, Scott Walker, and all your anti-democracy Koch sucking brethren.
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Walker is channeling Trump…just make it up as you go along. The GOP love alternative truths.
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Rather than seek equivalent Democratic gerrymanders (which, to be fair, do exist in states like Maryland), the National Democratic Redistricting Committee says it’s supporting candidates who have pledged to make map-drawing fairer.
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Thank you, Maryland. If more blue states did likewise, we’d have a chance of fair national representation in the House, not to mention gerrymandering reform. As matters stand, only a Blue Wave produces a Democratic majority.
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Maryland is pretty much the only blue state where Democrats benefit significantly from gerrymandered House districts. The word “equivalent” in this context is very misleading. In 2016, the GOP’s overall House representation was 6% higher than its popular vote. The Democrats’ was 4% lower.
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The GOP poses an existential threat to the nation and to the planet. It is ethically untenable, now that the GOP Supreme Court has ruled that gerrymandering is fine, for Democrats to prioritize gerrymandering idealism over the exercise of power.
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If Scott Walker was a movie, I’d have left during the opening credits.
He’s one of those flicks where you figure out the plot while you’re getting your popcorn…
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Welcome back Bamz! Let’s get 'er done!
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“He’s the only President in the past 40 years to gerrymander his way to the Presidency,” Walker said. “
Wait, is Walker actually saying the entire US - ALL districts - were gerrymandered to favor Pres Obama???
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I miss having a President…
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The ProPublica story about Obama reads more like an old school manipulator Rush (Obama’s opponent) gerrymandering Obama and other opponents out of his district so Rush could maintain power.
And then Obama striking back by getting a more diverse (economically and otherwise) that favored him over Rush. Sounds like undoing someone else’s gerrymander and that favored Obama.
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training sessions to mobilize grassroots activists around the issue.
Great idea, but when did Obama become an activist? Just sayin’.
Huh? He started out his political stuff as a community organizer in Chicago.
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Just so we can understand how this is being mischaracterized and the disinformation that’s being frantically disseminated to malign and counter it…
Yes, that’s right…Obama is urging a “Dem power grab” by saying redistricting should be fair and more representative of the population subject to the districting. Because, you know, undoing the GOP power grab that redistricting has become in the first place is totally unfair and partisan and let’s not even talk about what the GOP is planning with citizenship data.
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No just Obama’s old State Senate District in Chicago in 2001. He’s saying if that didn’t happen, Obama wouldn’t have risen to where he could run for President. Quite a stretch.
ETA ProPublica Link and fix what Obama was running for. I promoted him to running for Congress intead of State Senator 
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I know, and that’s wonderful, but ‘activist’?
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“He’s the only President in the past 40 years to gerrymander his way to the Presidency,” Walker said. “America’s only modern gerrymanderer-in-chief is now trying to convince the American people that he’s against his own redistricting practices.”
The article failed to mention that Walker mumbled this with only one Koch in his mouth.
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OK, Snotty Walker needs to explain how you can GERRYMANDER a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION?!?!?!
It’s not possible.
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Just can’t be said enough.
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“He’s the only President in the past 40 years to gerrymander his way to the Presidency,” Walker said. “America’s only modern gerrymanderer-in-chief is now trying to convince the American people that he’s against his own redistricting practices.”
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k, but in bringing it up, Walker ignores that this current battleground is due to the high court saying that the citizens need to decide their fate.
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I thought the high court said the Legislators need to decide the voters fate.
“We conclude that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority. “Federal judges have no license to reallocate political power between the two major political parties, with no plausible grant of authority in the Constitution, and no legal standards to limit and direct their decisions.”
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