Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

delaney.house.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 180 posts

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#121

Post by kem »

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…

There are pretty low-hanging fruit out there, though.

Approval voting or ranking are almost universally agreed to be better than what we have (in most places--some places do have that). That alone would make a huge change.

Independent districting commissions would be a big step forward.

Election day holidays would help.

Actually, a lot of the stuff in this proposed bill would help.

You're right that there's open questions out there, but it's not like there aren't solutions that are obvious first steps.

Re: healthcare, I think that's probably even more complicated than electoral reform. For example, missing from your example are cost-cutting measures, like requiring more transparency in pricing and charging, and deregulating certain things to increase competition.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#122

Post by jack9 »

cjensen wrote: post #9
jack9 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Federal holiday? Nope. Top-two primaries? Nope. The us constitution doesnt address political parties, currently. Redistricting rules? Nope. Take a look at Article 1, Section 4 of the us constitution and/or https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedu...

Not sure, but under the US Constitution, I'm pretty sure that the states get to decide this particular matter for themselves. So this bill is unenforceable. Both parties like to pass symbolic gestures like this on occasion even though they know it cannot be law. The only restrictions on the states is that they may not do obviously unconstitutional stuff when drawing districts like attempting to disenfranchise a race.…

> I'm pretty sure that the states get to decide this particular matter for themselves

Please participate in the discussion by checking on the relevant sources you're citing.

From the US Constitution:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but /the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations/, except as to the Places of chusing Senators

The bill is legal by this provision.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#123

Post by aptwebapps »

ouid wrote: post #49
baddox wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean that you don't like the goal this design principle is intended to achieve.

No, I said precisely what I meant.

So you like the goal but not the means used to achieve it?

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#124

Post by jfabre »

roywiggins wrote: post #106
nostrademons wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's that effective these days. The American electorate just seems to expect that its leaders will be hypocrites and rewards them for it.

The world wouldn't run without at least a little hypocrisy. I don't think hypocrisy is inherently immoral. Some immoral actions are hypocritical, but some hypocritical actions are the right thing to do.

Can you give a concrete example where being an hypocrite would be the right thing to do?

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#125

Post by detaro »

breatheoften wrote: post #110
nindalf wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had to look up the details -- Germany actually uses a mixed proportional system. Each person votes for their preferred candidate in a local race and for their preferred party. Half the total seats are filled by the winner of the local races -- and the remaining half are allocated in proportion to the party votes in order of a pre-determined list of candidates produced by each party. For some parties -- the order of…

> Half the total seats are filled by the winner of the local races

That's not quite true. The seats are distributed by party votes, but if a party wins more local races than it would get seats from the party votes, the size of parliament is scaled up, preserving the ratios until the party has seats for all their local winners. (Which is why the current Bundestag has 631 seats, despite the "base size" being indeed 598, twice the number of districts. And yes, that growth could go pretty high if things go badly, which is why I wouldn't be surprised if the algorithm was changed again). There is also a distribution between states, which makes the entire thing even more complicated.

An older model did not scale up with preserved ratios, but just added the "overhang" of local winners on top, which could cause bad effects where votes had negative value. But the base number of seats also was distributed according to the ratio of the second votes.

Who gets the seats for a party from that state prefers the local winners, and then follows the local candidate list.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#126

Post by dllthomas »

jfabre wrote: post #124
roywiggins wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world wouldn't run without at least a little hypocrisy. I don't think hypocrisy is inherently immoral. Some immoral actions are hypocritical, but some hypocritical actions are the right thing to do.

Can you give a concrete example where being an hypocrite would be the right thing to do?

Well, let's say I'm a doctor, I'm well convinced that smoking is quite harmful, but I find myself too addicted to manage to quit. Certainly, my nonetheless quitting is the best outcome. But telling people to quit despite not doing so myself is preferable to telling people not to quit, isn't it?

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#127

Post by dvt »

anarazel wrote: post #101
dvt wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 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. I don't think that's really the implication. At the moment it is pretty clear that the GOP currently overall benefits more from gerrymandering [1]. And they are in power, despite having lost the popular vote [2]. The GOP has control over…

> Are you really arguing that to be able to be against the concept of gerrymandering, you've to give up any chance of ever actually being able to do anything about it?

Not really. I'm arguing that most (in all honesty, probably all) gerrymandering complaints by Democrats are sour grapes because they got outplayed. In fact, Delaney himself was "first elected in a gerrymandered district created specifically for him," according to @mobilefriendly's linked sources.

Gerrymandering is generally not that big of a deal and cracking down on it doesn't solve much, as populations are naturally segmented[1]. I will say that sometimes, gerrymandering is racially- or religiously-motivated (SCOTUS heard a case on this a few months ago IIRC), so it can be very problematic in a few edge cases.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/ca...

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#128

Post by shitlord »

dvt wrote: post #127
anarazel wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > > 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. I don't think that's really the implication. At the moment it is pretty clear that the GOP currently overall benefits more from gerrymandering [1]. And they are in power, despite having lost the popular vote [2]. The GOP has control over…

> Are you really arguing that to be able to be against the concept of gerrymandering, you've to give up any chance of ever actually being able to do anything about it? Not really. I'm arguing that most (in all honesty, probably all) gerrymandering complaints by Democrats are sour grapes because they got outplayed. In fact, Delaney himself was "first elected in a gerrymandered district created specifically for him," a…

> Gerrymandering is honestly not that big of a deal and cracking down on it doesn't solve much, as populations are naturally segmented[1].

Please provide more evidence for this claim. Just because it's true in CA doesn't necessarily mean it's true for the rest of the country.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#129

Post by arthur_trudeau »

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #93
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...

That is incorrect. The Supreme Court's decision is with respect to "overconcentration" of blacks, in a context where, when divided, they were able to elect their preferred candidates. Their guiding principle is still that blacks must be neither diluted enough to make their votes irrelevant in "their own" areas, nor concentrated enough to make their votes irrelevant outside - as the dissent notes, this itself amounts to a racial gerrymander (you don't get to club yourself in the head when drawing district lines and "forget" that certain areas are heavy in both blacks and democrats). They did not overrule Gingles, they cite the state's action as contravening it.

Unsurprisingly their jurisprudence on this is a shitshow as they try to square this circle while pretending like it is some sort of neutral antidiscrimination provision while also attempting to secure a minimum threshold of black political power.

Re: Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

#130

Post by Clubber »

nostrademons wrote: post #78
chongli wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not sure it's that effective these days. The American electorate just seems to expect that its leaders will be hypocrites and rewards them for it.

It absolutely is. One of the biggest arguments today about global warming is that since Al Gore lives in a mansion and rides in a personal jet, it's not real, because he personally isn't doing anything about it by moving(?) or flying commercial.

You should read some right winger stuff now and again. It's another world.

Post reply on HN