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Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

delaney.house.gov

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Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#21

Post by thatswrong0 »

baron816 wrote: post #12
zeckalpha wrote: post #3

I feel like most of these changes would require a constitutional amendment.

We don't just need a Constitutional amendment, we need a new Constitution. People act like the Constitution we have came down from the heavens in a beam of light. But it was written by a bunch of guys who had never lived in a real democracy before. In fact it was written at a time when there pretty much hadn't been ANY democracies in the whole world for two thousand years. We've had two hundred years of experience an…

> We don't just need a Constitutional amendment, we need a new Constitution.

Uh you can achieve that via amendments. And just who is going to write this new Constitution?

> Washington is entirely a function of the rules that are set by the Constitution.

And all of the Supreme Court precedents that have bent the hell out of the document such that it's hardly the same document that it was 200 years ago.

States could, if they wanted to, implement proportional representation themselves without having to amend the Constitution. It obviously wouldn't mean that the entirety of Congress is proportional, but it'd be a start.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#22

Post by kerkeslager »

I'm not sure how this would end gerrymandering. Setting up a committee to handle districting doesn't solve anything.

If I remember correctly, didn't someone finally come up with an algorithm which evenly divides populations such that average distance from the average location of the district residents is minimized? A law which mandated use of that or a similar algorithm for district boundaries would actually help. Just moving the problem into committee obfuscates the problem.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#23

Post by dvt »

thephyber wrote: post #11

While it doesn't sound like a bad proposal and could probably get a strong majority of votes in some alternate dimension, the party in power will never allow this to make it to the floor of the House for a vote.[1] The more cynical I become, the more I think the party in power doesn't actually want to solve any problems, they only want to focus on wedge issues to ensure they can use {rage, fear, some other emotion} t…

> the party in power will never allow this to make it to the floor of the House for a vote

The implication here is that the Democrats don't gerrymander. This is patently false. The Democrats are just pissed that the Republicans did a massively better job at it in the past decade.

In many ways, it was an arms race, and the Democrats chose not to focus on small and local districts and elections (instead, worrying about the "big picture"). As it turns out, politics trickles up, and small wins for Republicans eventually turned into big wins. To see a perfect exemplar of this, just look at Jon Ossoff's crushing loss last week.

There's an excellent NPR podcast about this very issue I listened to a few years ago.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#24

Post by CalChris »

jschwartzi wrote: post #17
CalChris wrote: post #10

We have gerrymandering at every level, but first with the States. Why does Wyoming have two Senators and California have two Senators? We have 12% of the population of the US. Wyoming has 0.18%, smaller than DC. Of course, this continues with the House and the Electoral College. Et cetera. However, there is no incentive for Wyoming and ND and Alaska and ... to fix this. No Taxation Without Representation? Sure, but t…

The Senate was originally meant to ensure that smaller states such as Wyoming had an equal part of the vote, so that a simple majority wasn't enough for a bill to pass and become law.

No, the original purpose of the Senate (and the 3/5ths clause) was to make sure the South had enough representation so they wouldn't get steamrolled by the more populous and anti-slave North.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#25

Post by mozumder »

baron816 wrote: post #12
zeckalpha wrote: post #3

I feel like most of these changes would require a constitutional amendment.

We don't just need a Constitutional amendment, we need a new Constitution. People act like the Constitution we have came down from the heavens in a beam of light. But it was written by a bunch of guys who had never lived in a real democracy before. In fact it was written at a time when there pretty much hadn't been ANY democracies in the whole world for two thousand years. We've had two hundred years of experience an…

Works for me, we absolutely need a new constitution. The current one obviously is completely failed (an entire industrial-scale Civil War? REALLY?!)

Too bad we need 3/4 states to nullify the current constitution before we can establish a new one via another constitutional convention.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#26

Post by devwastaken »

dvt wrote: post #23
thephyber wrote: post #11

While it doesn't sound like a bad proposal and could probably get a strong majority of votes in some alternate dimension, the party in power will never allow this to make it to the floor of the House for a vote.[1] The more cynical I become, the more I think the party in power doesn't actually want to solve any problems, they only want to focus on wedge issues to ensure they can use {rage, fear, some other emotion} t…

> the party in power will never allow this to make it to the floor of the House for a vote The implication here is that the Democrats don't gerrymander. This is patently false. The Democrats are just pissed that the Republicans did a massively better job at it in the past decade. In many ways, it was an arms race, and the Democrats chose not to focus on small and local districts and elections (instead, worrying about…

I think they meant any party in power won't allow it, because partly how they get in power, is gerrymandering.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#27

Post by ccleve »

zeckalpha wrote: post #3

I feel like most of these changes would require a constitutional amendment.

Why was this downvoted? Yes, it's likely you would need at least one amendment. The Supreme Court has ruled that the government cannot impose open primaries on the political parties. See California Democratic Party vs. Jones: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1999/99-401

This decision has been affirmed more than once, and it makes sense.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#28

Post by CalChris »

nerdponx wrote: post #13
CalChris wrote: post #10

We have gerrymandering at every level, but first with the States. Why does Wyoming have two Senators and California have two Senators? We have 12% of the population of the US. Wyoming has 0.18%, smaller than DC. Of course, this continues with the House and the Electoral College. Et cetera. However, there is no incentive for Wyoming and ND and Alaska and ... to fix this. No Taxation Without Representation? Sure, but t…

This is by design. The whole point of the House is proportional representation. Recall that senators originally weren't even directly elected.

Gerrymandering is always by design.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#29

Post by noobermin »

CalChris wrote: post #18
jghn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the point of the Senate. The House is supposed to be the proportional one.

No, the House isn't proportional. There is a minimum of one House member per State: each State shall have at Least one Representative . At 321.4 million / 435 = 738850. Wyoming wouldn't even get a House member. Vermont wouldn't either.

I suppose the principle of charity would lead us to believe they meant the House is more proportional compared to the Senate.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#30

Post by jghn »

CalChris wrote: post #18
jghn wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the point of the Senate. The House is supposed to be the proportional one.

No, the House isn't proportional. There is a minimum of one House member per State: each State shall have at Least one Representative . At 321.4 million / 435 = 738850. Wyoming wouldn't even get a House member. Vermont wouldn't either.

Thus the "supposed to be". A better way to have phrased it would be quasi-proportional. I was suggesting that your beef really should be with the House.
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