Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Gerrymandering

REDISTRICTING/GERRYMANDERING as of 11 May 2022

Florida’s new map has been rejected. See Below. 45 states have completed redistricting, 5 have yet to draw their maps. The 5 states are Florida, Kansas, New York, Missouri and New Hampshire. 367 districts are now completed, leaving 71 districts to be redrawn. There are 39 competitive, switchable, at risk districts. Currently held by 29 Democrats and 10 Republicans. Safe seats as of 11 May 2022, 161 Democratic, 167 Republican.

The importance of safe seats is that they let you know how many seats from the competitive/at risk column and those districts yet to be redrawn a party must win to gain control of the House. As of today, the democrats need 57 more seats to reach the magic number of 218. The Republicans need 51. It remains to be seen how many safe seats each of the 5 remaining states add to each party’s safe seat column along with how many will go into the competitive/at risk column. The 5 remaining states are Florida, Kansas, New York, New Hampshire, and Missouri.

The latest in Florida
MAY 11, 2022

On May 11, a state judge struck down north Florida’s congressional map, which was drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis, as unconstitutional because it “diminishes African Americans’ ability to elect candidates of their choice.” In its place, he imposed a map that restores the old configuration of Florida’s 5th Congressional District, which ran from Tallahassee to Jacksonville and where Black people were the largest racial group, but keeps DeSantis’s new central and South Florida districts in place. However, DeSantis’s office has already said it will appeal the ruling.

For now, plaintiffs were focusing specifically on getting the North Florida part of the map struck down in time for the 2022 elections, but in the longer term, the entire map is under legal challenge over its pro-Republican bias and dilution of Black voting power. The map has an efficiency gap of R+20 and would create four new Republican-leaning seats at the expense of three highly competitive ones. If the map is used in the 2022 election, Republicans would likely flip the Democratic-held 5th, 7th and 13th districts as well as gain a new member in the 15th District, which was added to the state’s tally by the 2020 census.

The map was first enacted in April after a drawn-out standoff between DeSantis and Republicans in the legislature. At first, legislators proposed and passed new congressional maps that had only mild Republican biases and would preserve a predominantly Black 5th District, which they argued was required by the Florida Constitution. But DeSantis insisted on a map that maximized the number of Republican seats and eliminated the predominantly Black 5th, which he said violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The legislature passed a compromise between its and DeSantis’s positions, but DeSantis stood firm and vetoed it. Eventually, the legislature acceded to DeSantis’s demands and passed his proposed map in a special session. The vote came amid a sit-in from Democratic legislators who were protesting the map’s treatment of Black voters and argued that DeSantis had overstepped his authority by proposing his own map.

I look for the Florida maps to remain tied up in the courts and eventually be redrawn more fairly once DeSantis is safely ensconced in the White House.

We have a constitutional amendment that requires districts to be at least somewhat fair.

You may not get a definitive answer on Florida's district cartography for a long time as the maps and their constitutionality will continue to be batted around the courts for a while.

Yeah, Greger. I tend to agree. 13 June 2022 is probably a drop-dead date. That’s the date that candidates begin filing for congressional runs. Probably one of four things will happen by that date. 1 Florida legislature draws a new map and DeSantis signs it into law. 2. The new map will be challenged, but the courts will let Florida use the new map for the 2022 election due to time constraints and filing deadlines. That happened to Alabama. Alabama gets to use the map they drew although the courts struck it down. They ruled that not enough time was left for the filing deadlines and the primaries for Alabama legislature to draw a new map. Alabama will have to draw a new map next year. 3. The courts will force Florida to use their old district maps with new maps to be drawn next year. 4. The courts could just draw the maps themselves.

I haven’t the faintest idea how all of this will play out, but I agree, the lawsuits will continue well into next year and perhaps beyond.

The elephant in the room:

Republicans hate their voters; Republicans have no platform at all except to cause more PAIN to their voters and take away as many rights for women and minorities as humanly possible.

...but, yeah, let's vote them into the majority again.

Let's take Rick Scott for example.

Last month, Senator Rick Scott of Florida unveiled his 11-Point Plan for America. In doing this, he achieved the impossible. He actually came up with a plan so terrible that Mitch McConnell, known lover of terrible ideas, had to agree that it went a bit too far. McConnell criticized the plan this week, saying:
What IS it with the politicians in Florida? Is there no end to their ability to say things that don’t make any sense?

Republicans will regularly say things whether they are true or a good idea or not. Social Security is not going bankrupt, because the majority of benefits are funded by payroll taxes, which will obviously continue to exist well into the future. Medicare is also not going bankrupt.

You have to spend money to make money. The programs Democrats push for are things that will allow people to make more money, live well and invest in their futures - which means that they will then be able to pay more money in taxes. No one is being helped out by people having piles of medical debt and student debt, no one is being helped out by absurdly expensive childcare.

Rick, you’re trying to read too much into a midterm election. The out of power party doesn’t have to stand for anything be that out of party is the Republicans or the Democrats. They’re there as an alternative to the party in power. It’s a simple matter whether the voters are angry at, mad at, dissatisfied with the party in power or are they satisfied and happy with them and the way things are going. The midterms aren’t a presidential election where issues are debated along with personality and other things. Midterms is more about one’s quality of life, one’s standard of living. Is it getting better or worse? There’s 435 house election, I would wager more than half of all voters don’t even know the name of their congressman. I would add, the more people you get to the polls, the less informed they are.

I was looking at the preferred outcome of the midterms this bright, beautiful AM. Since I know how Republicans and Democrats will vote, I focused on independents. This is the preferred outcome of the midterms by independents only.

Control of the senate, 29% Democratic control, 35% Republican control, 16% evenly divided, 20% no preference.

Control of the House, 27% Democratic control, 36% Republican control, 16% evenly divided, 21% no preference.

Questions 127 and 129

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/o1zu29c4cp/econTabReport.pdf

This was conducted 8-10 May 2022. 7-10 days after the leaked abortion draft of the SCOTUS. 67% of independents say the economy, inflation is very important to them, 41% state abortion is very important to them in deciding who they’ll vote for in the midterms. The economy, inflation is ranked 1st as the most important issue among independents, abortion or Roe is ranked 8th on their list of most important issues. Go to question 132 and you can see the break down by party. Republicans and democrats vary quite a lot on the most important issues to them.

I have no idea who my congressman might be. Probably a Republican, probably not who I voted for but I don't know what his or her name might have been either. I don't need to know any names, I vote strictly by party and to the best of my knowledge, I have never voted for a Republican.

But even if the guy I voted for won, I wouldn't know it and wouldn't know his name. I'm a big picture guy...I don't sweat the details. And I certainly don't invent details or make up horror stories if the guy in the blue hat doesn't always get elected.

My city and county are Republican-run too. The county does a great job at everything they do and I cannot begin to say enough good about my diverse little town's government, if they have any fault, it's that they try to please too many of us and sometimes stretch themselves a bit thin. I'm thrilled with my state services too, even after all these years under the teabagger Scott and now the Trumpish DeSantis.

Seems like the unhappiest folks on this board are from blue states. I guess they're sad that we don't have all the good things they have.

LOL, that’s good. I know my congressman, David Scott. I've talked to him from time to time. I live in the country but fall in a majority black district. I always like Scott. I can’t think of more than a couple of elections that I didn’t ticket split. I go by candidates not party. But then again, I’m a swing voter who never belonged to either major party. I wanted Trump gone, so I voted for Biden. I disliked both Trump and Clinton in 2016, so I voted for Johnson. Since Trump, I do however find myself moving closer and closer to the Democrats. Whereas prior to Trump, I’d say I was a bit closer to the GOP. There’s no reason why that was so, just my own whims I suppose.

Mama never told me whether I was a Republican or a Democrat. I knew I was a Methodist.

So when I registered to vote I went non-partisan and I've never changed it.

I vote blue but I'm no Democrat. My interest is purely ideological, not partisan. Dems are the party of movement. Reeps are the party of order. My choice is clear.

That I understand. I’m not a partisan either. I’m probably a very weird one here. I really don’t have a political ideology, in the hard left or hard right category anyway. I’m in-between them. Then on some issues, I’m left and other issues, right. I have my druthers, but that never stopped me in voting for someone who didn’t have my druthers if I thought he was the best candidate.

I’ll vote my gut feelings, if I like or dislike a candidate based on who I think will do the best job. Party identification has never been important to me. I voted for Biden mainly because I liked him as a senator, and I wanted Trump gone. Not because he was a Democrat. I vote for Scott, my congressman because I think he does a good job and I like him. There are probably many issues I disagree with him on, but as long as I think he’s doing a good job, I’ll keep right on voting for him. Not because David Scott is a Democrat. I’ll vote for Kemp, the incumbent governor of Georgia in the GOP primary and in the general if he wins the GOP primary, I think he was a good governor. Not because he’s a republican. Being on Trump’s s*** list helps.

I don’t know if I’m one of a kind swing voter or if there are a lot more out there like me. Perhaps there’s more than one would recognize. Looking back on 2020, roughly 7 million ticket splitters voted for Biden, I’d say not necessarily for Biden, more against Trump than for Biden. Then republican down ballot.