But if you add an amendment that says there have to be equal numbers of Dems and Repubs, that will be it. There will be a need to add a new amendment to change the parties listed if the major parties change. As for just leaving the amendment to have non-partisan committees, how would you enforce this? By what standard will we judge the committees to be truly non-partisan?
I agree, actually. All I was trying to say is that all the frothing-at-the-mouth types from both parties are being a bit absurd- gerrymandering has been done for a long time. Now if it’s getting out of hand, then something ought to be done about it, but blaming the “evil Pubbies” is a bit simplistic - the Democrats would and have done that in a second if they got the chance.
And ** ElvisL1ves** Yes, they did control the legislature for a long time- and according to .this article they tried to do the exact same thing back then. Thing was, there were only 3 Republican congressmen back then, so it wasn’t nearly as big of a deal.
But those stunts pulled by the present-day Democrats are hardly a good way to go about things either- neither party looks too good at the moment- Republicans are being a bit too ruthless and the Democrats are being kind of silly and babyish about the whole thing by leaving the state.
Elvis, firstly, bump, and others, are contending that the Democrats DID gerrymander Texas along political lines. I’ve asked for proof multiple times and it has not been forthcoming, but there you have it. Also I’m interested in what you think I’m suggesting about the way lines should be drawn. I mentioned a proposed ammendment to the Texas Constitution, but I didn’t advocate it. The previous districts (used for the 2002 election) were one of many plans submitted by members of the Texas legislature(individual members or small groups, not a consensus-approved body) to the court who ordered redistricting after the legislature didn’t agree on a plan following the 2000 census.
Pepsi Classic, the bipartisan committee approach is exactly what the Texas Constitutional ammendment proposed would enshrine in the Texas Constitution. The Federal constitution doesn’t mention political parties, but state constitutions often do. The proposed ammendment reads
I mentioned in a previous thread that this seems like the very definition of gridlock(equal number of each party) and gives, by definition, no voice to third parties, independents/libertarian/green, etc. Any of these parties would have to become either the majority or the second largest majority in the legislature to get representation on the committee. It further ingrains the “two-party” system. I don’t necessarially think the two-party system is a bad thing, but I don’t think it should be enshrined in the constitutions.
Enjoy,
Steven
Elvis, firstly, bump, and others, are contending that the Democrats DID gerrymander Texas along political lines. I’ve asked for proof multiple times and it has not been forthcoming, but there you have it. Also I’m interested in what you think I’m suggesting about the way lines should be drawn. I mentioned a proposed ammendment to the Texas Constitution, but I didn’t advocate it. The previous districts (used for the 2002 election) were one of many plans submitted by members of the Texas legislature(individual members or small groups, not a consensus-approved body) to the court who ordered redistricting after the legislature didn’t agree on a plan following the 2000 census.
Pepsi Classic, the bipartisan committee approach is exactly what the Texas Constitutional ammendment proposed would enshrine in the Texas Constitution. The Federal constitution doesn’t mention political parties, but state constitutions often do. The proposed ammendment reads
I mentioned in a previous thread that this seems like the very definition of gridlock(equal number of each party) and gives, by definition, no voice to third parties, independents/libertarian/green, etc. Any of these parties would have to become either the majority or the second largest majority in the legislature to get representation on the committee. It further ingrains the “two-party” system. I don’t necessarially think the two-party system is a bad thing, but I don’t think it should be enshrined in the constitutions.
Enjoy,
Steven
I never gave an exact wording for the amendment I would want. I would specifically not want the amendment to specify either the GOP or the Democrats.
“Drawing of the districts for members of the United States Congress shall be done in each of the several states by a panel appointed by the governor and approved by legislature of each state. Said panel shall be comprised of an equal number of representatives, not to exceed eight, from the two parties to have received the most vote in that state in the previous presidential election.”
That’s the best I could come up with in five minutes.
spectrum, so to serve on this panel you have to be a registered member of one of the parties? What happens if a member changes parties, is he fired? What if a member is a registered Republican but everyone knows he is really a Democrat, can he be removed?
Pepsi, the people picked would, of course, be the hard core party loyalists, just like with the Federal Election Commission.
If the Governor and the legislature is picking and approving the panel meembers, what is to stop a state controlled by one party from putting in the hard core party loyalists for their side and people of questionable loyalty from the other side?
Pepsi, that could possibly happen. When you’re dealing with human beings, the best you can do is set some decent rules and try to encourage everyone to be as fair as they can.
Also, politically speaking, any state that dominated by one party would probably not have many Congressfolk, and they’d all likely be of the same party in any case.
If need be you throw a Clause 2 into that amendment saying “Congress shall have the power to pass such laws as is necessary to ensure the equanimity of this process,” and then pass a Congressional law requiring the approval of candidates from each party by the state leadership of that party.
Like I said, I haven’t thought much about the specifics, so trying to nail me on them is pretty weak.
bump, forget about it, there’s no equivalence here. Democrats responding to gross gerrymandering by the Pubbies with any tools at hand does not make them AS BAD AS or anywhere CLOSE to as bad as the Pubbies who did the outrageous redistricting in the first place.
Yes, Dems have done Bad Things in the past, but not nearly as bad as this, and at the moment, what we are talking about is THIS. What next, outrage against the Plantagenets in the War of the Roses to create an equivalence between the Pubbies and the Tudors?
Right now, the thing is
Pubbies = BAD GUY
Dems = VICTIM
There is no equivalence, got it?
Wrong. The previous redistricting done by the legislature (in the 1990s) was considered a Democratic gerrymander.
After the 2000 census, that map should have gone out of effect. The legislature failed to approve a map in the next session. Texas tried to continue using the old maps from the 1990s, but they were sued under the Voting Rights Act, and were ordered by the Courts to redraw their maps. Still, the legislature refused.
Despite ElvisL1ves’s contention that the maps were eventually drawn by some non- or bipartisan panel, the maps were actually drawn by a three-judge federal court panel. The Court-drawn maps were not based on the previous Democratic gerrymander, and thus are probably entitled to some presumption of fairness. From the Texas Attorney General’s Opinion (the Texas AG is a Republican):
Irony, thy name is 'luci.
Can you seriously ask everyone to keep this discussion foucsed only on the Pubs when you hijack every thread concerning the Dems into a discussion about Bush and WMDs?
As to the OP, we really do need some sort of consitutional amendment to define an objective (or at least as objective as possible) method for redistricting. And the chance of that hapenning is precisely Zero. Which means we’ll see this over and over again being tossed back and forth between the legislatures and the courts. I honestly see no way this will ever end.
I hadn’t looked into this much before, but since you asked again, I Googled for about thirty seconds to find you some “proof.” Now redistricting is always a highly political process, with the incumbent majority imposing its ideas on the other party, and certainly “fair” is in the eye of the beholder.
The Texas 1991 district map was challenged in court multiple times, with the challenges succeeding in the late 1990s, requiring several districts to be redone for the 1998 elections. As for gerrymandering in particular, here are three of the districts from the Democrat’s original map:
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/departments/scr/GRAPHICS/txcd30.gif
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/departments/scr/graphics/Txcd18.gif
http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/departments/scr/graphics/Txcd29.gif
Compact they ain’t.
Curt:
You obviously don’t understand. The Dems were only trying to prove the value of Fractal Mathematics when drawing up those districts.
Nice cites!
Didn’t ask anybody to do anything. First person to mention WMD was you, best I can tell. Yep, sure looks that way. If you imagine that berating your own humble e. somehow advances the intelligence of your argument, hell, have at it.
There’s an odd sort of flattery to that. In a bass-ackward sort of way.
You want to criticize Texas Dems, be my guest. Without doubt they are the second most corrupt political entity in Texas. But there are some genuine, pure-D, Democratic liberals in Texas. They’ve been fighting the good fight forever, and only winning often enough to keep them from taking up a heroin habit out of sheer despair. If you like cheerful courage in the face of overwhelming odds, these are the people you want to drink some beer with. True grit. I admire them immensely. I also admire them from afar.
But the average, run of the mill Texas Democrat is only marginally less corrupt than his Pubbie counterpart. So what? Doesn’t change the situation on the ground, which is that a particular bunch of folks are tampering with the machinery of politics to thier own advantage.
I say thats wrong. Do you disagree, or are you more comfortable discussing how obnoxious I am?
Christ on a pogo stick, how the hell did you twist my words like that? I was not saying you were hijacking this thread to discuss WMDs. I said it was ironic (although hypocritical would have probably been more accurate) that you were chiding folks who tried to hijack this thread about Pubs into a discussion about the Dems, considering your hijacking of every other Dem thread into a discussion about Bush/WMDs.
If you want to take that as flattery, go ahead.
Anyway, hijack away, mi amigo. It was wrong for me to get all riled up about in the first place.
I personally like the redistricting…the way things are going, it means that there will more than likely be a representative from the Rio Grande Valley up there…possibly 2 reps from the Valley. (Viva El Valle!!!)
Not by a long shot, companero! If you think you’re right about something important, but can’t get riled up about it, then what damn good are you?
I don’t come here to be loved, I got love. Come here to argue!
No, you didn’t.
Awww. Another night of crying myself to sleep clutching my banky? Damn.