Why is gerrymandering allowed?

B

BartenderElite

Verified User
I hate it when either side does it, and always have.

It just feels like rigging the system to your party's advantage. And it is indisputably bad for the country - when representatives have seats that are so protected, they can basically be reps for life. How do we benefit from having reps on both sides who are in such safe, protected districts?

Curious to hear any justifications.
 
BartenderElite said:
I hate it when either side does it, and always have.

It just feels like rigging the system to your party's advantage. And it is indisputably bad for the country - when representatives have seats that are so protected, they can basically be reps for life. How do we benefit from having reps on both sides who are in such safe, protected districts?

Curious to hear any justifications.
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Power. It's not complicated.
 
In win for Republicans, North Carolina court says gerrymandering is legal

April 28 (Reuters) - North Carolina's highest court on Friday ruled that state law does not bar lawmakers from drawing congressional and state legislative lines for partisan benefit, boosting Republicans' odds next year of maintaining their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wi...ourt-says-gerrymandering-is-legal-2023-04-28/
 
What strikes me is Republicans are no longer saying they can convince the majority of people to support them, but rather that they can gerrymander, or restrict voting to win with a minority. Why have Republicans given up on convince people of their position?
 
BartenderElite said:
I hate it when either side does it, and always have.

It just feels like rigging the system to your party's advantage. And it is indisputably bad for the country - when representatives have seats that are so protected, they can basically be reps for life. How do we benefit from having reps on both sides who are in such safe, protected districts?

Curious to hear any justifications.
Click to expand...

most state constitutions were ratified before the idea of political parties were participating in huge power grabs, so the people who ratified the state constitutions felt comfortable with giving their legislature the power to divide the districts for their federal representatives. I would have to say that gerrymandering, while not justifiable, is still a constitutional power to the party in power.
 
BartenderElite said:
I hate it when either side does it, and always have.

It just feels like rigging the system to your party's advantage. And it is indisputably bad for the country - when representatives have seats that are so protected, they can basically be reps for life. How do we benefit from having reps on both sides who are in such safe, protected districts?

Curious to hear any justifications.
Click to expand...

I am in no way asking this as a defense of gerrymandering but what is the alternative? Let's say we're talking about California (although it can be any state) and let's say we have 50 districts (just an arbitrary number). By what system can we use to determine those 50 districts that the most people will think is fair?

Usually it's fighting over whether a district leans more Republican or Democratic. But we have districts here that are like 80%+ Democratic so no Republican is going to win but there are still massive fights because we redistrict based on race. Should this area be allowed to have a majority Asian population? Should this district be allowed to have a majority LatinX population? And so forth. In California we passed a ballot measure to take redistricting out of the hands of politicians into an 'independent' body. Great in theory. Yet there are still massive fights and claims of racism etc.

One can argue there is no good way to redistrict but independent bodies are the best of all other options. But simply saying 'no gerrymandering', while sounding very good in theory, needs to have an alternative.
 
SmarterthanYou said:
most state constitutions were ratified before the idea of political parties were participating in huge power grabs, so the people who ratified the state constitutions felt comfortable with giving their legislature the power to divide the districts for their federal representatives. I would have to say that gerrymandering, while not justifiable, is still a constitutional power to the party in power.
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Why do you right wingers have worse grammar than school kids? Did you never learn English grammar?
 
A bigger question is why we allow drawing up voting districts on the basis of race... Why should there be a black, brown, green, whatever, majority voting district created on purpose?
 
BidenPresident said:
Why do you right wingers have worse grammar than school kids? Did you never learn English grammar?
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18eb20.jpg
 
Hello BartenderElite,

BartenderElite said:
I hate it when either side does it, and always have.

It just feels like rigging the system to your party's advantage. And it is indisputably bad for the country - when representatives have seats that are so protected, they can basically be reps for life. How do we benefit from having reps on both sides who are in such safe, protected districts?

Curious to hear any justifications.
Click to expand...

It isn't allowed in Michigan any more. Those districts look far more succinct. No hooked tails purposely missing an area to 'hook in' something beyond it for political stacking.

It depends on the State Constitution. Some allow voter initiatives to change the district map drawing process. That passed in Michigan. They created a bipartisan district mapping commission. And guess what. After the new districts were in place then Democrats won.

Republicans do the gerrymandering thing way more than Democrats generally because they control more states than Democrats.

I agree there should be a federal law preventing it. One that forces States to use a bipartisan method.
 
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Hello cawacko,

cawacko said:
I am in no way asking this as a defense of gerrymandering but what is the alternative? Let's say we're talking about California (although it can be any state) and let's say we have 50 districts (just an arbitrary number). By what system can we use to determine those 50 districts that the most people will think is fair?

Usually it's fighting over whether a district leans more Republican or Democratic. But we have districts here that are like 80%+ Democratic so no Republican is going to win but there are still massive fights because we redistrict based on race. Should this area be allowed to have a majority Asian population? Should this district be allowed to have a majority LatinX population? And so forth. In California we passed a ballot measure to take redistricting out of the hands of politicians into an 'independent' body. Great in theory. Yet there are still massive fights and claims of racism etc.

One can argue there is no good way to redistrict but independent bodies are the best of all other options. But simply saying 'no gerrymandering', while sounding very good in theory, needs to have an alternative.
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It worked in Michigan.
 
PoliTalker said:
Hello BartenderElite,



It isn't allowed in Michigan any more. Those districts look almost like a checkerboard.

It depends on the State Constitution. Some allow voter initiatives to change the district map drawing process. That passed in Michigan. They created a bipartisan district mapping commission. And guess what. After the new districts were in place then Democrats won.

Republicans do the gerrymandering thing way more than Democrats generally because they control more states than Democrats.

I agree there should be a federal law preventing it. One that forces States to use a bipartisan method.
Click to expand...

So more control of the states by the federal govt, all because you don't like gerrymandering huh Veruca Salt?
 
BartenderElite said:
I hate it when either side does it, and always have.

It just feels like rigging the system to your party's advantage. And it is indisputably bad for the country - when representatives have seats that are so protected, they can basically be reps for life. How do we benefit from having reps on both sides who are in such safe, protected districts?

Curious to hear any justifications.
Click to expand...

There is no justification. It has ways been present, but no where near what it is today, and getting worse

Ever since compromise became a dirty word in politics, an angry dichotomy, "us vs them," has existed, and one escalated by cable infotainment and talk radio selling to profit off of the melodrama. As late as the 1980's I can't recall anyone referring to the opposite party as "evil" nor "traitors"

Not ending, eventually, elections will become a sham, a process not to election to representatives, but rather contests of dominate the other
 
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