I'm reading a lot of resignation, and I feel it too. Why is it than when SOPA came out or when health care is on the line, people rally super hard, but when election reform is out, there's almost no effort? Why can't we get passionate about this too?
Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
51–60 of 180 posts
Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's exactly the point of the Senate. The House is supposed to be the proportional one.
You're misunderstanding, I think. It's not that it isn't by design. It's that the design principle is stupid.
Why is the design flawed?
We have house that is proportional representation, another that is fixed representation - theoretically the Senate is supposed to represent the interests of each state (which is why they used to be appointed by the Governor of that state) and the House is supposed to represent the people of the nation. Is this a bad idea?
Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
#53We 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…
A better question is why we have artificially capped our House of Representatives at 435 members. It has skewed the proportion of representation (and by extension, the electoral college) for decades.
Even the UK has 650 members in their lower house.
Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
#54While 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 party is power is whichever party happens to have more votes at any given time. Whoever is in power won't change it because it got them elected so why would they risk doing something that might take them out of power?
Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more likely the other way around, showing very little character by using the rules of the game to his advantage to get into office and changing the rules of the game to stay in office.
But surely if he's in a gerrymandered district, passing these rules would make it harder for him to be re-elected? He's shooting himself in the foot to do the right thing. I can respect that.
This bill, if it becomes law, moves the gerrymandering from one commission to another. It doesn't stop gerrymandering. How does the new commission get formed? How long do people serve on it? Who appoints them? Do they get elected?
I'm not saying the system doesn't need to be reformed. It does. However, trusting people who say things that sound good, without evidence, is just following more politicians.
Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more likely the other way around, showing very little character by using the rules of the game to his advantage to get into office and changing the rules of the game to stay in office.
But surely if he's in a gerrymandered district, passing these rules would make it harder for him to be re-elected? He's shooting himself in the foot to do the right thing. I can respect that.
No the top-two open primary system would protect him, he's a wealthy white male Democrat in a formerly Republican district, his biggest threat is from the left in a closed primary.
Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
#57How about something sensible -- take a census of which party each person supports and then you get proportionate representatives from each party above .15% of the population. Elections then just determine who gets the seats allocated to each party. That's roughly how it works in Germany. Poof -- suddenly there is no such thing as gerrymandering.
Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
#58Surely guaranteed to go nowhere.
Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're misunderstanding, I think. It's not that it isn't by design. It's that the design principle is stupid.
Why is the design flawed? We have house that is proportional representation, another that is fixed representation - theoretically the Senate is supposed to represent the interests of each state (which is why they used to be appointed by the Governor of that state) and the House is supposed to represent the people of the nation. Is this a bad idea?
> Is this a bad idea?
It is a bad idea if you reject federalism (which grandparent might?). If instead of a union we are a mostly homogeneous country with a single identity, a single logical state -- then perhaps it doesn't make sense for the States to exist as independently as they do today.
Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more likely the other way around, showing very little character by using the rules of the game to his advantage to get into office and changing the rules of the game to stay in office.
But surely if he's in a gerrymandered district, passing these rules would make it harder for him to be re-elected? He's shooting himself in the foot to do the right thing. I can respect that.
Whichever party is in charge of "reforming" or "eliminating" gerrymandering is simply looking to redraw districts in a "fairer" manner which oh by the way happens to benefit the party in question. This is how it always goes.