Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Gerrymandering

Yeah, I think the difference is in the past you didn’t have has many straight party line votes. Not until Reid and McConnell took over the leadership of the senate. Prior to their take over of the leadership, straight party line votes were rare. You always had 5 or more of the other party voting for legislation across the aisle.

We do have to be careful of what definition we use for a straight party line vote. One definition is when a majority of one-party votes against the majority of the other party. This one I’m not using. Bipartisan vote going by this is when a majority of both parties vote for the same bill or legislation. I not using this one for bipartisanship either.

For me a party line vote is one party all voting one way, the other party voting the other. You can have 1 or 2 senators joining in voting with the other party or 5 or 6 house members, but I still classify that as a party line vote, not bipartisan. We’ve had many of this type of voting over the last 20 years which prior to that was very rare. For something to be considered bipartisan, it doesn’t have to be a majority of both party’s which is the traditional definition. I’d say in a 50-50 senate, a 60-40 edge is enough for me to consider it being bipartisan along with 30 or more house members crossing the aisle to vote with the other party in a 222-213 house. Gaining a couple of senators of the opposing party or less than 20 house members of the opposite party isn’t bipartisan.

Prior to Reid and McConnell, it seems to me the leadership of both parties were more willing and much less heavy handed in allowing their members to vote their conscious or the way they wanted to. Especially if those members came from a swing district that could be lost if they voted the way the leadership wanted them to. Nostalgia? Maybe. I can’t remember censoring folks or trying to kick members of your party out of it if they didn’t vote the way the leadership wanted. Sinema and Manchin comes to mind as do Cheney and Romney along with other GOP house members who voted to impeach Trump and joined the 1-6 committee. The past has never been wine and roses, you’re correct there. But I don’t think the amount of intransigents and hatred was there.

There used to be some ambiguity in the political aims of the parties, various Venn diagrams used to scoop up members of both parties. Not anymore.

I've got two reasons for you.

The culture wars and the 24 hour news cycle.

Divisive tactics that pulled ALL conservatives one way and ALL liberals the other.

It made us define ourselves and sort ourselves out. Brother against brother, friend against friend. Each year there were more wedge issues.

But little things like wars and threats of nuclear annihilation have ways of bringing people together. Just as in Ukraine right now where Jews are likely fighting alongside Nazis.

It's a wonderful world.

I might add to that that at one time both major parties had their conservative and liberal wings. Neither was ideology pure or trying to achieve ideology purity. The Democrats had their solid conservative southern base while the GOP had their liberal or Rockefeller liberal Republican Northeast. Since then both major parties have gotten themselves rid of their unwanted wings. It also seems to me that both are now in the process of getting rid of any moderates left in either party. That each party has its own litmus tests one must pass in order to be considered a Republican or a Democrat.

At least the GOP used to be attempting conservative ideology purity until Trump which didn’t have a political ideology came along. I suppose the Republican Party now is striving for no political ideology. Weird. They seem to be calling worshiping a man with no political philosophy as following the conservative tradition which is hogwash.

I've always thought conservative tradition was hogwash. Whether it was Nixon, Reagan, Bush, or Trump. Hogwash across the board.

But that's just me.

I’ve always found it interesting that so many, especially today always refer to Nixon as a conservative. The man who opened relations with Red China, who gave us détente with the old USSR, the EPA, the Endangered Species Act, OSHA, was all for affirmative action, funds for education, wage and price controls and much more. This was the way Nixon governed although rhetorically, he talked a different ballgame. Outside of FDR, I can’t right off the bat think of another president who governed more liberally. Certainly not Carter nor Bill Clinton nor Obama.

I grew up under Eisenhower, for me IKE set the standard. IKE worked with both sides of the aisle. He had LBJ, then the democratic senate majority leader over to the white house once a week to discuss how to get his agenda through congress. That was something JFK and LBJ continued with Everett Dirksen, then the republican minority leader in the senate. Not once a week, but both JFK and LBJ worked closely with Dirksen. How times has change. I don’t remember Nixon working closely with anyone from congress, Carter had many more battles within his party than from Republicans. Then Tip O’Neal and Reagan, the cooperation, compromising, playing the old political game of give and take with each other are stuff of legends. Too much living in the past I suppose.

If Ike was your standard for conservative tradition you're a little mixed up. he was practically a Democrat.

But as far as conservatism goes there seems to be no common thread that binds the presidents together. Each is his own version of whatever passes for conservatism during their respective eras.

Ike opposed McCarthyism, which is something more akin to what we consider conservatism today.

No one knew which party IKE belonged to until he announced his intention to run for the presidency as a Republican. Truman had previously tried to get IKE to run as a Democrat. For me, IKE was an American president, not a Republican nor a Democratic president. He governed as such. He usually had the support of those from both parties.

I didn’t mean IKE was a conservative, just he set my ideal and standards of what a president should be and how they should govern. Not one beholding to a political party, but to all of America. IKE had the stature and appeal that he didn’t have to rely on a party apparatus or kowtow or bend to either party. IKE averaged 70% overall job approval for his first term and 61% for his second. He averaged 90% from Republicans, 53% from Democrats, 70% from Independents for his entire presidency.

Since Gallup began keeping track of presidential approval rating in 1945, there’s never been another president who had an above 50% job approval from the opposite party than Eisenhower. None came close. It’s like that old political TV ad, everyone likes IKE.

New Lawsuits filed against the new maps in North Carolina, Louisiana and Maryland

NORTH CAROLINA March 17 - The North Carolina General Assembly is once again petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to block the congressional redistricting plan promulgated by the North Carolina Supreme Court.

LOUISIANA March 15 - The NAACP filed a state court lawsuit to enjoin the use of Louisiana's 2011 congressional redistricting plan in upcoming elections following Gov. Edwards' veto of the new congressional plan recently advanced by the legislature. Louisiana hasn’t been able to come up with a new map. They’re one of four states remaining that hasn’t drawn and approved their new redistricting congressional maps. The other 3 are New Hampshire, Florida and Missouri.

MARYLAND March 15 - Maryland's highest court decided to delay Maryland's primary by three weeks in light of ongoing legal redistricting challenges.

My thoughts, North Carolina’s supreme court’s drawn map is probably the fairest and least partisan. If the NAACP is successful in Louisiana, their lawsuit would guarantee a 5-1 Republican edge in Louisiana’s congressional delegation. All 6 seats fall into the safe category for the respective parties. Not sure why Maryland’s new map is being challenged. It has the same 7-1 Democratic congressional advantage as the old map. The only reason I can see is the Republican district isn’t whole or continuous. The district jumps over 3 Democratic districts and then continues. There’s not even a one foot wide line going down the middle of a road to connect the two parts of that district.

I just checked for a status update on the Republican NM lawsuit and found nothing since it was filed in January. I did read the actual lawsuit and to my semi-legal-literate mind it looks pretty weak. The arguments are just the sort of thing that the whole process had to wrangle with, which could just as easily been made by the other side if the tables were turned… “But I want to be in a district where my candidates win most of the time!”

Just like all of America, libs and cons are mostly jumbled together, and you can’t really think of states, or counties, or districts as red or blue without stepping on a lot of toes.

Fairness is a messy game when the teams are all mixed together.

Fairness is at times in the minds of the beholder. So much depends on the makeup of the state’s population. Their party affiliation and voting habits. It’s impossible to make every district competitive. In New Mexico, Democrats out number Republicans by 10 points since 2008. Say 55-45. The new map increased competitive district to two. The old map had two sold Democratic districts and 1 solid Republican. Although the Democrats have the advantage in both competitive districts of D plus 5 and D plus 4. Which in my terms means they both lean Democratic or have more Democratic voters in them than Republican voters, but not by a huge amount as in CD 1 where the Democrats are D plus 11 or solid or safe.

The thing is that you can’t make each district competitive. Massachusetts, democrats outnumber Republicans there by 30 points. Make it a 65-35 Democratic advantage. All 9 districts of Mass are solid Democratic or safe Democratic. You couldn’t draw a single competitive district there no matter how hard one tried. It all depends on the partisan make up of each state.

I think New Mexico’s new map is fair and has as many competitive districts as possible in 2. The old map guaranteed a 2-1 Democratic advantage. The new map guarantees a single Democratic with 2 competitive which gives the GOP a chance of gaining 2 seats instead of one. Although it probably would take a mini red wave election for the Republicans to accomplish that. Nonetheless, it is a possibility, not out of the realm of happening.

In an average election, not counting wave elections, there are on average 35 competitive districts with 400 safe districts. Due to redistricting we’re already up to 40 this year. 1992, 2006, 2010, 2018 were wave election where there were more than 50 competitive districts which 2010 at 70 competitive was the high going back to FDR. 2002 was the low in competitive districts with just 14.