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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

#91

Post by maxerickson »

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.

It's not so bad, states can just tell the parties to go eat dirt and have the same requirements for anyone to get on the ballot.

In such a system private groups would still be free to endorse a particular candidate.

Won't happen, but the problem isn't that primaries are closed, it's that they impact the names that end up on the ballot.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#92

Post by m-j-fox »

kerkeslager wrote: post #22

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. Ju…

I know this one! It's the k-means algorithm.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-means_clustering

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#93

Post by thescriptkiddie »

arthur_trudeau wrote: post #65

Current US law requires racial gerrymandering to ensure blacks are able to elect black congressmen. This bill does not obviate that requirement. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/how-a...

Your article it out of date. Racial gerrymandering is the one kind of gerrymandering that is not allowed according to the supreme court[0]. Representatives will go out of their way to argue that their gerrymandering is purely partisan because that's totally legal – for now.

[0] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/supreme-court-no...

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#94

Post by NortySpock »

nindalf wrote: post #79
blurbleblurble wrote: post #51

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?

I think because there are relatively simple solutions to both the problems you mentioned * SOPA - don't pass the bill. * Health care - spend more, if necessary increase the deficit and we'll figure out the problem later through increased taxes or reduced spending elsewhere. With electoral reform, it's hard to know what the right thing to do is. Everyone wants to stop gerrymandering but what's the alternative? An algo…

I'd prefer the algorithm if it was public and neutral (or at least consistent). See for example the Shortest Splitline Algorithm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#95

Post by rayiner »

maxerickson wrote: post #89
rayiner wrote: post #75

This is my election district: http://imgur.com/a/C1UmB . It's in the dictionary next to "illegal gerrymandering." The southwest lobe near D.C. is predominantly African American, while the northeast lobe near Annapolis is predominantly Caucasian. Though I can't figure out who is being disenfranchised.

Apparently Republicans. http://www.fairdistrictspa.com/updates/efficiency-gap-votes-...

I wouldn't be surprised if that were the intent. The Annapolis area has a lot of rural places, and the district would be a Republican district if a big chunk of urban PG County weren't glommed on.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#96

Post by nindalf »

mozumder wrote: post #87
nindalf wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> oversight branch And who watches these watchmen?

is that something people haven't figured out?

The problem of watching the watchmen is an old one. Ideally you want to have watchmen who watch each other, like how the judiciary acts as a check on the executive and the legislature. However, the person I replied to was unhappy with the current state of affairs and proposed adding another watchman. So I wondered what their solution was.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#97

Post by JumpCrisscross »

elihu wrote: post #44
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. The last Constitutional Convention was convened to amend the Articles of Confederation. It wrote a new system of government. If you don't like our elected leaders, understand that a constitutional convention means giving them, as a convention, absolute power to do anything.

Not really; if the convention proposes an amendment that isn't ratified by 3/4ths of states, things stay as they are. Even a constitutional convention has checks and balances. (Historically, states have used the threat of a convention to force congress to act on issues where they were dragging their feet.)

> Even a constitutional convention has checks and balances

Any checks passed before the convention are null and void when it starts. The checks find force in the constitution being nullified by the convention. Constitutional conventions are temporary autocracies. Established when needed, but never to be lightly considered.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#98

Post by rayiner »

nindalf wrote: post #83
breatheoften wrote: post #57

How 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.

Does each voter have a particular representative they can express their opinion to? As I see it, calls from constituents is an influence on politicians because they know these are the people who they depend on. I don't know how it works in Germany so maybe there's a provision for this. Also, the unintended consequence of such an electoral system is that it encourages extreme views, rather than moving towards the cent…

> You can see how proportional representation would help parties like the UKIP do far better than they otherwise would have, which is not necessarily in the best interests of the nation.

In the long run, what's in the best interests of the nation is for the government to fairly represent as much of the electorate as possible, not a fictional "middle ground."

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#99

Post by afpx »

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…

Assuming the parent post hasn't been edited, it doesn't seem to say what you suggest it does (at least not by my reading).

So, before we succumb to knee-jerk reactions that continue the political dysfunction, can we all just put our energy and minds toward solutions? Revenge politics (they did it, so we will to! get them back!) hurts.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#100

Post by IncRnd »

uncletaco wrote: post #90
IncRnd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Why does Wyoming have two Senators and California have two Senators? The answer is that the US is not a Democracy, and the Senate was created to limit the short term vacillations of the people. When you think of representation in the House, think of representation of the States. The United States of America not the United People of America.

The US is a democracy, albeit a flawed one. The only criteria for being a democracy is having the ability to elect your rulers. Also, despite what the Senate was created to do, all Senators are now elected by citizens of their states. With the janky exception of the president you vote directly for rulers at every level of government.

>> The only criteria for being a democracy is having the ability to elect your rulers

That's incorrect just looking at the definition of the word Democracy. Don't look at Google's definition of the word. Google almost always gets their definitions imprecise or incorrect. Look in a dictionary, either online or one that you have.

You may also want to consider that you posted your comment on a page about gerrymandered elections.

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