Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Gerrymandering

Back to Gerrymandering. The latest.

Connecticut is state number 40 to have complete their redistricting, 10 more remaining. The democrats maintain their gerrymandering advantage of 14 seats, 11 new Democratic districts, minus 3 Republican districts. We now have 327 newly drawn districts; 108 districts remain to be redrawn. Florida is the only big state remaining. Several medium sized states have yet to redraw their district maps, North Carolina, Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Missouri. The remaining are the smaller states which have less than 10 electoral votes.

Out of the 327 newly drawn districts, there are 31 competitive, switchable districts. Currently held by 20 Democrats and 11 Republicans. Safe seats as of 11 Feb 2022, 158 Democratic, 138 Republican.

The below listed states are in litigation over their new maps. These states in litigation will probably change the above listed safe and competitive seats depending on the outcome of the lawsuits. Listed also is which state legislature drew the maps being challenged by lawsuits.

Georgia – Republican legislature
Idaho – Republican legislature
Maryland – Democratic legislature
Nevada – Democratic legislature
New Mexico – Democratic legislature
Texas – Republican legislature

I don't understand the urge to declare equivalency of evilness, it seems like a dodge to me of serious evaluation of the issues.

This subject of gerrymandering is a case in point. Where is the line between 'redistricting' and 'gerrymandering'? Is un-gerrymandering just another evil form of gerrymandering?

I know that New Mexico is one of the states where the recent redistricting is being challenged and I don't disagree that the Dems have a strategy, but does it rise to the level of evil gerrymandering? Here's the play in NM (which is pretty blue): there are 3 Congressional districts, they have been steadily 2 safe blue, and 1 safe red for some time. The redistricting under protest has changed one of the blues to 'tossup - leans blue, and the red one to 'tossup - leans red'. Doing the 30,000' math, this appears to me to be a net change of zero. In fact, as the major evil of gerrymandering is the safe seat syndrome, where the need to compromise to stay elected is removed and Congress is gridlocked, creating two competitive districts out of two safe ones is a good thing.

There are serious repercussions for my business involved that you might be interested in hearing about. My Congresswoman (I'm in the safe red district, which is dominated by oil and gas interests), a Marjorie Taylor Greene-lite type, co-sponsored a bill with an Oklahoma Republican earlier last year, to federally fund biochar R&D and manufacturing, specifically related to forest thinning and ag residuals utilization. WOW! My company is the only one in the state doing that sort of thing, in fact one of only a handful in the country. So I tried to contact her office to see how I could get involved - many of my friends said that that was a bad idea - consorting with the enemy, and all. Somewhat to my surprise, Rep. Herrell didn't respond. The next time the monthly "meet with the staff" visit happened in my town (which is across the state from the oil & gas activity is, and where Herrell lives), I dropped in. I introduced myself to the nice young man and described my company and expressed my interest in the legislation, and offered to be of service in any way that might be helpful. Brandon seemed somewhat at a loss to provide me with any immediate feedback, partly because he was unaware of the bill, partly because he sensed I was of the the enemy camp of Greenies, and partly because the only folks who ever came to the monthly visits were people needing help with their veteran's benefits. But he was genuinely interested personally and he said they would be getting back to me.

They never did (I made half a dozen attempts from my end).

Just one more bit... the last Rep for my district was a Dem, a woman who I know and had worked with 15 years ago when she was a staffer for Sen. Bingaman. She came from a ranching background and actually did some campaign ads showing her shooting a shotgun! (the things a person has to do to get elected...) As a staffer for a supportive Senator, she was great. As a Congresswoman from a usually red district, she did nothing for me (couldn't be known to associate with enviros, even ones operating small businesses who log forests).

My hope is that if my district becomes serially competitive, that I might actually be represented by someone.

Okay, I'm ready to continue this discussion with anyone who wants to make the case that 'gerrymandering' (including un-gerrymandering) is evil and "BOTH SIDES!" do it.

Time to change focus from gerrymandering to safe districts. From now one when a new state completes its redistricting, I'll post the information in two parts. The new focus.

With 40 states redistricting in the books, it’s time to switch focus from gerrymandering to safe seats. As of 11 Feb, the Democrats have 154 safe seats to 134 safe Republican seats. A 20-seat Democratic advantage. With but 31 competitive/switchable districts, held by 20 Democrats and 11 Republicans. It impossible for the GOP to gain a majority as redistricting stands today, 40 states. There are however 10 states remaining who haven’t completed their redistricting which will change the above.

The importance of safe states is that they let you know how many seats in the competitive column a party must win to gain control of the House. Today with 154, the democrats need 64 more seats to reach the magic number of 218. The Republicans need 84. It remains to be seen how many safe seats each of the 10 remaining states add to each party’s safe seat column. The 10 remaining states are New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The numbers I’m watching today, much more important than the gerrymandering numbers. They are the number of seats each party needs above their safe seats, 64 for the Democrats, 84 for the Republicans to reach 218 and a majority in the house. Plus, the number of competitive, switchable seats which stands at 31, 20 Democrats, 11 Republicans. These numbers alone will lead to a reliable forecast for the midterms in November.

Gerrymandering is done for only one reason, to give the political party an advantage they wouldn’t have without the gerrymandering. It’s basically taking the vote away from the voters for a pre-determined result whichever political party who controlled the redistricting wants. Which leads to polarization and super, mega, ultra-high partisanship.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/taking-voters-equation-parties-killing-155700496.html

New Mexico as for gerrymandering is basically irrelevant. Now New York and Illinois which did away, totally eliminated 3 Republican districts and added 3 Democratic districts in each state rate right up there as the worst. The sole reason was to give the Democratic Party as big as an advantage in the upcoming midterms as they could. Ohio and North Carolina were done by Republicans for the same reason although not as bad as Illinois and New York. Ohio and North Carolina’s maps were overturned by each state’s supreme court.

I don’t see how one can look at one’s party gerrymandering as being good while the other party’s gerrymandering as evil. They are done for the same purpose, to gain as many representatives as possible while each take the decision out of the voter’s hands and placed it in the state legislatures. Gerrymandering lets each state legislature decide how many R’s and how many D’s their state congressional delegation will have before a single vote is cast.

New Mexico threw the dice. They could have let it 2-1 D over R or they could try to get all 3. New Mexico went for the later which could backfire. New Mexico went from 2 solid Democratic, 1 solid Republican district, to only 1 Democratic and 2 competitive. The 2 competitive have a PVI of D +4 for the formally Republican District, the 2nd. The 3rd of D +5. Final ratings, 1 district, the first safe/solid Democrat, 2 districts lean Democratic. Eliminated, 1 Republican district. But depending on how independents vote, independents could change the two lean Democratic districts into 2 Republican winners. A throw of the dice for New Mexico’s Democratic legislature. Time will tell how that works out.

The line is if Dems were drawing the districts, and the results "suprisingly" favor the Dems and visa-versa.

I support non-partisan commissions to draw the lines.

Sorry I offended. I was just pointing out that we have two sides and they are doing, exactly, what the other side things is a bad thing. This is a "who's ox is being gored" sort of thing. The thing is that one would think, since they are in kindofa agreement, whether they know it or not, they might be able to actually talk to one another without all the rest of it (name calling, yelling, etc). If they considered the entire thing they just might figure out that all the hate, name calling, etc. is a complete waste of time and actually harmful to the very system that both sides claim to be saving.

Its just a bit frustrating watching damned fools rail at each other about, in the end, silly.

Now, for the biochar thing. We have folks doing that thing up here (probably be more I am not aware of):
https://www.olympicbiochar.com/
https://www.olympiccarbonfund.info/

California, Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan and Virginia all have non-partisan commissions to draw their new district lines. New York used to until New York’s state legislature overruled or over road the independent non-partisan commission map in order to draw their own map.

The main problem is the non-partisan redistricting commissions map still must pass those state legislatures and be signed into law by the governor. If the state legislature fails to pass the commission’s map, then the commission must draw a new map. Which happened in New York 3 different times, finally the New York state legislature just drew up their own map. Far as I know, all other states which employ a non-partisan redistricting commission, their state legislature passed the non-partisan redistricting commission’s map the first time.

As I stated before, I favor a law whether the drawing of the maps is by a redistricting commission or by a state legislature, a law that simply states as many counties must remain whole and be as compact as possible. If a state has 3-4 representatives, only one county could be divided, 5 & 6, then 2 counties and so on. I’d like to see these districts that run down the middle line of a highway, 2 foot wide be done away with.

Was NM02 pretty solid red because of gerrymandering before? It sure feels like it to me since the Republicans who have held that seat during my 25 years here had no interest in bipartisanship or compromise, even in the case of supporting small business.

Isn't the theory that gerrymandering causes gridlock?

New Mexico wasn’t on my radar screen in 2010. But a check revealed both chambers of New Mexico state legislature was controlled by the Democrats with Bill Richardson, democrat governor. The results of 2010 redistricting came in as one solid Democratic, one likely democratic and one competitive leaned Democrat. Somewhere along the line a Republican won the competitive leaned Democratic district. Really not much difference with the new map. 1 solid Democrat, 2 competitive lean Democrat.

My guess since the makeup of districts change over time is the 2nd district drawn as a competitive lean Democrat became a competitive lean Republican district as people moved, died and new voters added to the rolls. Now over time, Hispanics have slowly become more Republican voting in the border states, but not nationally. Trump won 32% of the Hispanic vote Nationally, but 41% in Texas, 38% in Arizona and 37% in New Mexico. Comparted to just 22% in New York. Harrell is a Hispanic Republican from the 2nd district elected in 2021. New Mexico also had an Hispanic Governor in Susan Martinez a while back.

It's broadbrushing that gets my hackles up. The "both sides do it" thing is useless in understanding and solving any problems.

Biochar is trying to become a big deal. Big enough that the oil & gas industry is starting to meddle with it defensively.