Jimmy Higgins
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Stone Cold Stunner from SCOTUS to PA Republicans
- Thread starter Jimmy Higgins
- Start date
Malintent
Veteran Member
ever since I learned more about Gerrymandering in general recently (over the past year or so), and saw a documentary on how software is used to min/max (game) the system, I recognized that these lines need to be drawn in an automated way, based on census data fed into the same software, configured for "geographically fair", rather than set for "max repugs".
hurtinbuckaroo
Contributor
A majority Democrat state, currently represented by 13 R's out of 18 Congressional seats. The 2018 election gets even more interesting.
James Brown
Suspended by Member Request
How are any of those even potentially valid solutions? While districts certainly shouldn't be drawn to favor a partisan result, they additionally shouldn't be drawn to favor a competitive result or a racially proportioned result or anything else. They should be set by geographic boundaries which (as much as possible) don't take any of those considerations into account.
J842P
Veteran Member
Racist spotted!
To be fair, I'm only racist against non-whites. I judge white people by the content of their character, not the colour of their skin, so it's not fair to call me a racist.
Elixir
Made in America
I judge all people by the color of their character. I only judge chickens by the content of their skin.
Jimmy Higgins
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To make matters worse, apparently it was Alito who put the ‘Fuck off’ stamp print on the request from PA Republicans.
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Derec
Contributor
To get back on topic and away from silliness ...
My solution would be much more radical than any of these, but it would have a great many advantages.
I propose we get rid of districts altogether. I think they are an anachronism to the time where people voted for the person, not a party, because their lives were pretty much limited to a dozen miles around their house or so. Today, people primarily vote for the party. So, why not adapt to that reality?
So each state would still get their allocation of representatives, but each party on the ballot would have a party list and number of representatives sent to DC from each state would correspond to the percentage of votes each party received. That is the key. It can still include a candidate component, for example voters could vote for a list candidate and promote them on the list (increasing their chance of getting in) but the overall composition of the House should reflect the percentage of votes gotten.
That would be the biggest advantage in that the votes would no longer be distorted by victory margins (votes in strongholds are pretty much valueless) and there will be no opportunity for gerrymandering. Also, now smaller parties would no longer be tilting at windmills. With this system Libertarians or Greens would have significant minorities in the House. That would also mean that it would be unlikely any party will have an outright majority in the House. The party holding the presidency would not be able to pass legislation as easily when in majority but the other party would also not be able to obstruct either.
Of course, this will never happen, but it would solve so many problems plaguing US politics and government.
My solution would be much more radical than any of these, but it would have a great many advantages.
I propose we get rid of districts altogether. I think they are an anachronism to the time where people voted for the person, not a party, because their lives were pretty much limited to a dozen miles around their house or so. Today, people primarily vote for the party. So, why not adapt to that reality?
So each state would still get their allocation of representatives, but each party on the ballot would have a party list and number of representatives sent to DC from each state would correspond to the percentage of votes each party received. That is the key. It can still include a candidate component, for example voters could vote for a list candidate and promote them on the list (increasing their chance of getting in) but the overall composition of the House should reflect the percentage of votes gotten.
That would be the biggest advantage in that the votes would no longer be distorted by victory margins (votes in strongholds are pretty much valueless) and there will be no opportunity for gerrymandering. Also, now smaller parties would no longer be tilting at windmills. With this system Libertarians or Greens would have significant minorities in the House. That would also mean that it would be unlikely any party will have an outright majority in the House. The party holding the presidency would not be able to pass legislation as easily when in majority but the other party would also not be able to obstruct either.
Of course, this will never happen, but it would solve so many problems plaguing US politics and government.
repoman
Contributor
This is a good thing, should be a competition of ideas not tactics.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
The problem, is some ideas are in fact racist. Such as gerrymandering a system to dilute minority votes to ensure far right Republican ideas get passed and other ideas get killed in the legislature. Then there is the entire related issue of caging. Another GOP specialty.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
I'm rather astounded. Perhaps there is hope after all. But it's those liberal justices again, legislating from the bench. Next they'll be telling us that democrats and republicans have to drink from the same water fountain.
ronburgundy
Contributor
What if there were no districts, and everyone voted for a single candidate out of all the candidates running in their state. Any candidate that could get X signatures gets on a single statewide ballot. Each voter picks one. If there are 18 districts, then the top 18 candidates who get the most votes win.
A natural feature of this is that candidates from the same party or who are highly similar to each other would be competing more directly with each other for votes. It would give an advantage to independents and those who stand out as unique yet still have appeal to a significant portion of the population. It would likely reduce attack ads, because its harder to attack 20 other candidates.
Candidates that appeal to 20% of the States population should get a seat in state with more than 5 districts, yet have no chance under any system with districts, unless that 20% happens to all live in the same place. Under my proposed system such a candidate could easily win.
Alternatively, if we are to have districts they should be drawn at random with the only criteria being to maximize the ratio of the area within them relative to the length of their borders. And they should be randomly redrawn every 4 years, so that any incumbent only gets 2 terms before they must re-win with support from a whole different segment of the state's population.
A natural feature of this is that candidates from the same party or who are highly similar to each other would be competing more directly with each other for votes. It would give an advantage to independents and those who stand out as unique yet still have appeal to a significant portion of the population. It would likely reduce attack ads, because its harder to attack 20 other candidates.
Candidates that appeal to 20% of the States population should get a seat in state with more than 5 districts, yet have no chance under any system with districts, unless that 20% happens to all live in the same place. Under my proposed system such a candidate could easily win.
Alternatively, if we are to have districts they should be drawn at random with the only criteria being to maximize the ratio of the area within them relative to the length of their borders. And they should be randomly redrawn every 4 years, so that any incumbent only gets 2 terms before they must re-win with support from a whole different segment of the state's population.
Toni
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I live in a state with one single significant metropolitan area. The rest of the state is mostly rural, a lot of it is farm land, and a significant portion is wilderness with some small towns. An overwhelming portion of the state's population now lives in the central urban metropolitan area. However, the state does depend quite significantly on the outlying areas for a number of things and a not insignificant portion of the state's economy is outstate.
Add in that the state is very broadly divided into 3 to 5 distinct areas which each have their own concerns and needs. If the entire state voted with no district representation, the people in the cities would be vastly over-represented and their interests would dominate. Ultimately, this would lead to harm even to the majority as they would ultimately lose or spoil what they rely on from the outstate areas by voting for their short term needs. Easy example: the large metropolitan area has obviously more significant need for road and highway maintenance and construction. It could easily end up that only the metropolitan area got any significant funds for improvement/maintenance projects and the outlying areas would seriously decline. Actually, I've seen something like this happen under a previous governor. It is important that everybody's needs are taken into consideration and addressed, not merely the majority living in a single region/metropolitan area. Without attending to the needs of the entire population, ultimately, everybody would lose.
But people most often think short term and about as far as the end of their noses. Not intentionally to harm another person, but no one else's needs seem quite so important as our own immediate needs. This is why it is important that representation is structured to actually be representative of all of the people, not just urban dwellers.
Jimmy Higgins
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That is just bad idea. The best way to do it is use the computers and programs that already exist and develop districts that ensure that, in general, everyone is represented in Congress. We pay taxes, we get representation.
Elixir
Made in America
Why don't Republicans cut to the chase, and propose that votes cost $1 and you can vote as many times as you can afford? That's obviously the model they'd like instituted - they should just say so.
Jimmy Higgins
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You misspelled "they want one party rule".
ronburgundy
Contributor
My proposal (referring to the random and frequently recalculated districts) does not lead to any less representation, but in fact much more accurate representation. The programs you are talking about that do (or could even plausibly) exist are incapable of creating representation on most of the countless ways that individuals actually differ. Those programs do nothing but account for a couple of variables that fail to capture most of the variance in people's interest, goals, beliefs, etc. that are relevant to who would best represent them. For example, the rely on highly imprecise indirect variables like party registration, which is almost as useless as using gender as a measure of math ability. The fact that a majority Dem area is represented by a Dem is the absolute minimum level of representation and leaves most people very poorly represented. Because most Dems have little in common with any particular Dem candidate other than sharing that broad label. Plus, your approach completely screws the large % of the population that isn't represented by either major party and thus has almost no chance that any candidate representing them could win in any district, even if 20%-30% of the state's population feel as they do.
As any intro stats book will tell you, the #1 way to get a representativeness is via randomness. It allows every single value on every single variable a chance to be represented that is equal to its prevalence in the population. Plus, the small handful of variable (like party affiliation) that any non-random system would use is itself and ideological/political choice that will be inherently dictated by whatever majorities have the power when those choices are made.
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ronburgundy
Contributor
Districts are always based on population size, so any district system will always give much more power to densely populated regions than sparse urban areas. If each person has only 1 vote in a 10 district State, then the urban areas will not win all 10 seats. The rural people can still unify behind particular candidates and give them enough votes to win. If there are 10 seats, they only need enough votes to beat the 11th place candidate who isn't likely to get much support from the Urbanites.
The only solution to the problem you are raising is to give more political power rural people over Urbanites, which is precisely what the GOP is already doing and how they are winning a higher % seats than their actual % of the state's population.
And the problem in NOT actually just gerrymandering by the GOP. The GOP will have an inherent advantage in any system that creates districts based on geography, unless it goes to great lengths to create just the kinds of complicated shaped districts we have now but with a pro-Dem bias.
Part of the problem is that major cities are more extremely "blue" while lots of rural areas are only slightly "red".
If we simply do regional districts, this means that most the "blue" votes in urban areas get wasted electing 1 candidate by 70% when they only needed 51%. But "red" votes in rural areas are able to win more seats because they win by small majorities.
IOW, if 60% of Illinois residents are Dem, but 80% of Dems live in Chicago, then the GOP will win most of the seats in Illinois.
BTW, I am not convinced of the no-district idea, but I don't think other approaches will solve the problem you are talking about or the problem that the Dems are under-represented in Congress.