The part I agree with is the conclusion: “This is something that should be stopped no matter which party is doing it.”
But here’s the deal: while it’s possible for Congress to regulate U.S. House of Represeentatives districts through legislation (Article I, Section 4), they have no authority to tell the states how to draw their state legislature districts, which is the real issue in NJ, now that the NJ House delegation is almost entirely Dem under the existing districts.
There are only two ways to ensure that this practice is stopped with respect to state legislatures, no matter which party is doing it:
Constitutional amendment limiting gerrymandering
U.S. Supreme Court ruling limiting gerrymandering
Given that it’s been nearly 50 years since Congress has passed an amendment that’s subsequently been approved by 3/4 of the states, we can hope for #1, but it’s a faint hope.
And given that we’ve got a Supreme Court that is, shall we say, ideologically slanted, I have little hope that they will take gerrymandering seriously as long as it’s largely practiced by Republicans.
Maybe if the legislatures of Dem-controlled states say, “we don’t think this should be legal anywhere, but as long as it is, and the GOP is gerrymandering states that they control, then fuck yeah, we’ll do the same here,” maybe then the Supreme Court will respond more favorably to suits to rein in gerrymandering.
This has actually been a “both sides do it” thing for quite a while. Democrats have gerrymandered districts for decades. The big difference is that Republicans are more blatant about it, and they took the reins of redistricting at a time when computer sampling and modeling allowed them to do it much more precisely and scientifically.
I agree with your last sentence though. To the extent it’s possible, we need non-partisan commissions to draw district boundaries, preferably for all levels of government.
I believe each state should be divided into four equal pieces, and each subdivided and those subdivided until there is a reasonable population and area to be defined as a district.
But I digress.
Why was this Gerrymandering allowed in the first place?
I understand why; each party wants to control as many districts as possible. I just don’t understand why the first gerrymander was allowed.
Because there isn’t an underlying single definition of a fair electoral district that one can compare a gerrymandered district to, with the idea of “not allowing” the gerrymandered district. And except in extreme cases, the judge of whether districts are gerrymandered is the majority of the legislature that is drawing the district in the first place.
I’m not defending the practice, but just explaining that the people who draw gerrymandered districts are in the vast majority of cases the judges of whether the districts are fair.
Somebody painted a swastika over a “Happy Hannukah” sign at the University of Massachusetts, so student Nicole Parsons put up a sign in her dorm window that read, “Fuck Nazis. You are not welcome here.”
The University told her to take it down because the sign had created “mixed emotions in the community on how to proceed, issues of inclusion, and the ability to be active members of their community.”
To be fair, the school came back and conceded the wording of the email was terrible, that they only took issue with the profanity and also that they could not and would not force the student to take the sign down, only reminding her that the profanity might offend someone. Which is a lot different than welcoming Nazis for diversity.
Surprise, surprise. Some PC horror story turned out to be a misunderstanding and not what it seemed. That’s literally never happened before.
I actually had wondered when I heard this if the problem was the “Fuck” part not the “Nazi” part. If that’s PC, then it’s right-wing PC, since that’s where the anti-profanity people hang out.
I don’t get it. You organize a march for purposes of showing unity and strength for women, then you fragment your cause because you don’t think you have enough minorities? Nobody thought you were advocating empowerment for white women only.
Doesn’t this just add more fodder for conservatives who think you’re so self-destructive with bleeding heart guilt you can’t even fight for what you believe in? Now all the oppressive white man majority has to do is wait for you to melt down and go cry somewhere, so they won’t ever take you seriously again. Next time, just say there was a scheduling conflict!
But all it takes is one photograph of the march to WorldNutDaily (or one of that — crowd) to start the whispering that it actually IS.
Unfortunately, the potential exists for this type of thing to be turned into a “win-win” for the Forces of Evil, and the cancellation (along with the overly candid discussion of its reason) is an ideal illustration of that.
The scheduling conflict suggestion is pretty good.
Although I have no real cite, I suspect that the cancellation may have been due more to politics going on at the upper levels of the organization instead of just the lack of women of color signing up.
This may have led to some fracturing of leadership along racial lines, and possibly some parties privately threatening a boycott. Rather than fight the whole thing out in public they may have decided that it was best to cancel the event, until they can privately work out their differences.
I’m not, but going by the articles that I read (and the one I posted), apparently some are. But I see your point, I suspect it’ll blow over in a day or so.
On the one hand I’m wary of single phrases removed from context. On the other hand, I’m struggling to imagine any non-joking context for that statement that wouldn’t be weird and wrong. And if he was joking, then he’s being grossly misrepresented.
How I read this (and how a number of other election junkies I read on Twitter have read it) is that in a 50-50 election, you’d have (c) an equal number of districts leaning D and leaning R, and (d) also in that hypothetical 50-50 election, you’d have at least 25% of your districts with no more than a 55-45 lean either way, with half of that 25% leaning D, and the other half leaning R.
So if NJ elections were actually competitive statewide, control of the state legislature would be up for grabs as well.
Now if NJ tilts 60-40 Dem (that’s hypothetical, not actual) in statewide races, half the districts will have a >60% Dem lean, and half will have less than a 60% lean. And 1/8 of the districts will have between a 55% and a 60% Dem lean, and another 1/8 will have between a 60% and a 65% Dem lean.
Yes, this would make it extremely hard for Republicans to win control of the state legislature, as long as they don’t come close to getting half the vote. But that’s how it should work.
How it shouldn’t work is the way it’s working in WI and MI, where a party can have an overwhelming majority of the state legislature, despite having won less than half the vote. This NJ law would prevent outcomes like that: a 50-50 election vote-wise would result in an election where control of the state legislature was totally up for grabs. Which is also how it should work.
ETA: JFTR, the Slate piece that Strassia linked to, has links in it to the text of the law here; that’s where I got this. Very misleading reporting by Slate, IMHO.
So in the latest election my Wisconsin ditched the corporate-tax-cutting-public-teacher-union-destroying fuck stick Scott Walker. When he was booted I looked forward to removing the ‘Open for Business’ addition to all our ‘Welcome to Wisconsin’ signs. I live on the border so it was a daily reminder of our States executive branches priorities over it citizens. So Tony Evers won, and replaced that addition to ‘Tony Evers Governor’
Look, I like the guy, I voted for him, I think he’ll do a great job. But don’t add schmuckery on top of schmuckery. It could have said ‘Welcome to Wisconsin, Open to The People’ or something. Or just remove the bullshit silly addition and be done with it.
