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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

#61

Post by ouid »

Aloha wrote: post #52
ouid wrote: post #16

Earlier 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?

People are the only ingredients of states. You don't add water or eggs. The state is equal to the formal sum of its people. Giving states with unequal populations equal representation is equivalent to giving its people disproportionate representation, which is a stupid idea.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#62

Post by davidnc »

mburns wrote: post #53
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…

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.

Or, give each representative voting power proportional to the number of voters in their district. That way, no need for the added salary and chaos of 200+ more representatives, and you can get perfectly proportional representation.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#63

Post by donarb »

ccleve wrote: post #27
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.

Although in 2008 the SC upheld Washington state's modified primary system, called the top-two primary. In the top-two primary the two candidates who receive the most votes go head to head in the general election. Candidates no longer are listed on the ballot by party, the candidate states what their party preference is, regardless whether the candidate is the official party candidate or not. The parties are still free to choose a candidate and place them on the ballot, but the ballot does not state that the candidate is the one chosen by the party. The candidate or party can advertise that in campaign literature if they want.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/supreme-court-rules...

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#64

Post by CalChris »

ouid wrote: post #61
Aloha wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

People are the only ingredients of states. You don't add water or eggs. The state is equal to the formal sum of its people. Giving states with unequal populations equal representation is equivalent to giving its people disproportionate representation, which is a stupid idea.

That a Wyoming voter has 66.77 times the Senatorial power of Californian is an extremely stupid idea.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#66

Post by CalChris »

zeckalpha wrote: post #19
baron816 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The entire constitution could be rewritten through amendment.

Or we could just have another Constitution. It wouldn't be our second. It would be our third.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#67

Post by [deleted] »

chongli wrote: post #42
mobilefriendly wrote: post #20

This is hilarious because Delaney was first elected in a gerrymandered district created specifically for him, the state legislature literally looped in his house by two blocks. http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/cct-arc-acca0c6c-9aa4-5159... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Delaney_(Maryland_politic...

Tu quoque . [0] One of the most powerful fallacies in politics. Shuts down countless reform attempts. Loved by the corrupt. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

[deleted]

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#68

Post by baddox »

Aloha wrote: post #52
ouid wrote: post #16

Earlier 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?

The senators used to be elected by the state legislatures.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#69

Post by baddox »

ouid wrote: post #61
Aloha wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

People are the only ingredients of states. You don't add water or eggs. The state is equal to the formal sum of its people. Giving states with unequal populations equal representation is equivalent to giving its people disproportionate representation, which is a stupid idea.

Senators used to be appointed by state legislatures, not the people directly. You can still have valid complaints about that, but it wasn't really an issue of "disproportionate representation" any more than, say, Congress voting to confirm Supreme Court justices or executive cabinet officials.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#70

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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…

California, New Jersey, and Washington state, big demotractic states, don't gerrymander by state law. California is a big state, and when they moved to a non partisan commission, the republicans picked up a few seats.

The only red states to also do this are Arizona and Idaho.

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