Still waiting on the cite.
Answered in #66. Let us know which part confuses you.
#66 is entirely your opinion. Your opinion is not a cite.
This is ridiculous. You’re setting up a straw man to defeat that has absolutely nothing to do with the main point. OK, you want it, you got it. It’s not what I said, but you win. Legislators can’t know exactly how many voters for each party there will be in each district that they draw up.
So what is your claim to be taken from this? That because legislators can’t know absolutely exact numbers, gerrymandering is impossible? A figment of the imagination? Earlier it was apparently that it was too small a problem to be significant. Now the problem doesn’t exist at all?
I am left to draw my own conclusions because, as usual, you state no position whatsoever, simply arguing against those stated by others. All evidence points to your being a Republican who has no problem with gerrymandering because it overwhelmingly favors Republicans. But let the shoe be on the other foot, with 6 or 8 Republican congressional seats going Democratic because of gerrymandering, and I can pretty much guarantee you’d be screaming to high heaven.
Anyway, I’m done with this little waste of time. There’s no point in chasing a moving target, and clearly no convincing you. One final thing you might consider is how you’re making yourself look to others. You won’t, but what the hell, it was worth a try.
That’s EXACTLY what you said in post #60.
As for this:
I thought it was 12 -16? There go the goalposts. And no, given the makeup of the House, I wouldn’t be “screaming to high heaven”, since that number of seats would not affect the vast majority of House votes.
You need look no farther than today’s House vote on healthcare to see how every seat matters. The Republicans are struggling to get enough votes to pass the bill, despite their large majority advantage. I think those gerrymandered 6-8 seats are looking pretty important to both sides right now! (I think it’s way higher than 6-8 btw, Michigan alone has 4)
This article shows which states have the biggest disparity between vote % and the way the seats in the house are distributed. Note that there are states listed that do the same thing for the Democrats: Illinois and Maryland.
No, really, it isn’t. You’re the only one who took it in that literalist fashion, because somehow you think it advances whatever point you’re (not very clearly) trying to make. In no way did I say that legislators select the exact number of voters in each district.
…
6-8 seats = a turnaround of (6-8) x 2 votes = 12-16 votes.
The only goalpost-moving is being done by you.
This is a text based medium. We can only go by what you wrote.
My point is simply that you are wrong about the effects of redistricting, gerrymandering, and even how House votes usually occur.
Yet you’re the only one who seems to have had a problem understanding what I wrote. Odd, that. Must be my fault that I didn’t express it in terms that were legalistic enough for you.
No, your point seems to be denying reality. You still have made no affirmative statement; your implications so far seem to be that gerrymandering isn’t a real problem, either because it doesn’t exist or because it has a negligible effect. What is clear is that it serves some purpose of yours, likely to aid in maintaining the current status quo.
I know what redistricting is, how it’s done, how it can be, has been and is being abused, and, since you’re getting into it, how House votes actually work. You can cherrypick votes until the cows come home, but none of your anecdotal evidence precludes there being close votes, which have happened. (And are currently happening; if AHCA went to a vote right now it would most likely be voted down, hence the full-court press by the Trump administration.) A difference of 12-16 votes would be a very significant one in this case.
Move along, that obfuscation isn’t convincing except to those who either don’t believe the problem exists or want it to appear that way to maintain an unfair political advantage.
I don’t think you do know how House votes work.
Here are the House votes, just this week:
#187 406-6
#186 236-175
#185 179-233
#184 416-7
#183 189-233
#182 230-189
#181 415-0
#180 233-186
#179 233-186
#178 414-2
#177 234-182
#176 231-185
#175 407-1
#174 409-0
#173 408-0
I am not “cherry picking” anything. All of those votes are either along party lines, or with overwhelming support. You’re simply wrong on this.
Give it a rest. You’ve been exposed, and your only options are either to attack the messenger or double down on claims that are evidently false. As it happens, you’ve done both.
Just to be sure it’s clear for anyone else reading this (all three of them), your extraordinary claim (to use your terminology) is that there are no close House votes. To attempt to support that, you use individual votes that cannot possibly prove your point. The AHCA is a perfect example; if votes went along party lines, it would be on its way to the Senate right now. As it happens, Trump is having to use what political capital he has in an all-or-nothing play to get it passed, because it most assuredly does not have overwhelming support; quite the contrary. And if he’s having this much trouble with it now, imagine how much tougher it would be with 12-16 fewer votes for it.
I’m not ‘simply wrong,’ I’m dead right. But you have to say that to introduce doubt. Gerrymandering is a problem, and not even close to as insignificant as you want to portray it. You can pull out past votes until you’re blue in the face, and it won’t change that. We have an immediate example that the claim that there are no close votes is false.
Nonsense. There have been nearly 200 votes so far in the 115th Congress. Which have been close? None?
Funny how you don’t deal with the example given. I know, the evidence doesn’t fit your theory, so you have to ignore it. Sorry about that.
Only not sorry.
Among the votes you list, no outcome would have been altered by 20 switches.
Is that your key point? That unless the pro-fairness side can demonstrate that at least 21 Congressional districts were gerrymandered, that gerrymandering is not a problem?
If not, I advise you to summarize your contribution to this thread in a short clear paragraph. Don’t argue your point in detail, just tell us what it is. I think I speak for many when I say I am quite baffled about what you’re arguing.
According to Mr. Ace, there is a 6 or 8 Republican advantage due to gerrymandering.
Even if that were true, it would not have changed a single vote outcome.
Congratulations, you actually made me do what I didn’t want to waste the time on.
A list of House votes with a margin of less than or equal to 16 votes going back to Jan. 1, 2016:
House Vote (numbers refer to votes done in that particular year)
#190 Mar 23, 2017 9:01 p.m. Passed 202/197
#476 Jul 14, 2016 1:31 p.m. Failed 213/214
#226 May 19, 2016 11:32 a.m. Failed 212/213
#317 June 16, 2016 12:37 p.m. Failed 210/211
#202 May 18, 2016 3:12 p.m. Failed 211/213
#225 May 19, 2016 11:24 a.m. Failed 209/216
#318 June 16, 2016 12:40 p.m. Failed 207/214
#257 May 25, 2016 10:49 p.m. Failed 206/213
#264 May 25, 2016 11:16 p.m. Failed 205/212
#425 July 12, 2016 10:55 p.m. Failed 208/217
#306 June 16, 2016 11:58 a.m. Failed 205/216
#314 June 16, 2016 12:27 p.m. Passed 216/205
#427 July 12, 2016 11:02 p.m. Passed 219/207
#327 June 16, 2016 1:08 p.m. Failed 204/216
#379 July 7, 2016 5:18 p.m. Passed 217/203
#39 Jan. 12, 2016 4:33 p.m. Failed 203/219
#454 July 13, 2016 9:44 p.m. Passed 219/203
I could go back further, but I won’t. This is more than enough to disprove your contention.
What, no snappy comeback?
You usually have your response served up by the time I log in in the morning.
This thread contains a lot of information, so I’ve bumped it rather than start a new one. The Supreme Court will soon decide if it prefers democracy over chicanery.
First, let’s dispose of the “if at all” in thread title. In the 2012 House of Reps election Pennsylvania voted 50.3 - 48.8 for the Democratic Party … and yet the GOP won the most seats, 13 to 5.
Let me repeat this astounding fact in a larger() font. A majority of PA voters voted for (D) Congressmen, yet the (R)'s won the seats 13 to 5.
(- The Board’s new software allows users to pick their default font size yet doesn’t allow any relative sizing command. )
Second let’s dispose of OP’s question about “serious.” Look at the following district shapes and tell us, if you can, that gerrymandering is not serious. Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District. (Yes Virginia, Democrats do it too.) Florida’s 5th Congressional District. Or look at North Carolina’s 1st and 12th Districts — does it look like compactness was a goal here?
Now let’s consider the Nine Justices who will make a decision. The present Supreme Court includes four liberals or moderates appointed by Bill Clinton or Barack Obama; four detestable fiends who hate democracy and equality, all appointed by Bushes or Trump; and Anthony Kennedy, appointed by Ronald Reagan.
The Four Deplorables would be whining like castrated pigs if it were gerrymandering Democrats who controlled state legislatures today, but instead there’s no doubt they will vote in whatever way leads to GOP partisan advantage. The four moderates will vote to make America more democratic. All eyes turn to Anthony Kennedy. (Those in favor of streamlining the government may want to just fire the other eight Justices. Many or most of the important decisions are left to Kennedy, with the Four Deplorable votes cancelling those of the moderates.) Although he is a conservative, Anthony Kennedy is a man of integrity.
Some other Republicans also demonstrated integrity:
Bob Dole, John Kasich, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and nearly a dozen other GOP officials said in a brief submitted to the court. “Politicians now select their voters, instead of voters electing politicians.” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), along with a bipartisan group of 36 current or former members of the House of Representatives, also asked the Court to rule against gerrymandering.
Although only Kennedy’s opinion matters, the opinions of the Deplorables might be amusing, but the only intelligible comment I could find from them was
Chief Justice John Roberts … dismissed the plaintiffs’ arguments against partisan gerrymandering as “sociological gobbledygook.”
I’m frankly surprised you guys let elected officials set the rules for elections. It’s like letting your employees write their own employee evaluations and contracts.
(post shortened)
Interesting math, except for the fact that the Democrat Party wasn’t the person who was actually running for a seat. Individual candidates were running for those seats. The individuals lost in their respective districts. The party received more votes, not the individual, and it’s the vote totals of the individual districts which actually decides who the winner is. The statewide vote total wins nothing but your admiration.