Got your attention…
Todays newspaper had an article about the reapportionment of congressional representatives. It seems that the south and the west will gain seats and the north will lose seats. I think the will help the Republicans gain a stronger hold on the House of Reps and the White House. Anyone disagree? Is this good or bad? Does anyboy even give a damn?
NPR gave a breakdown state by state last night on these changes, who will be effected and most likely how. Can I remember them all, no way. California will most likely pick up a couple of Dems…Georgia a Repub…and so on and so on. Might be able to find the projections somewhere this morning if you look hard enough. Does NPR have a website? Damn I never thought to look! What a goober.
Needs2know
Oh yeah and hun…the South has risen in case you haven’t noticed. Without the South GW wouldn’t be grinning and acting presidental.
Needs2know
It depends on the legislatures of the states concerned. Georgia, for example, has a Democratic state legislature. The new Census information will lead to re-districting. You can be certain that the Georgia legislature will do its best to draw the districts in such a way as to create as many Democratic seats as possible.
In states with Republican-dominated legislatures, the same thing will be going on, but with the opposite goal of creating Republican seats.
I don’t know enough about the makeup of the state legislatures concerned to predict the outcome.
Well, all states are going to go through re-districting, regardless of whether they gained or lost seats. So really, it all comes down to which party controls more state legislatures in states which will have more than a single congressperson.
That’s right I forgot about the redistricting thing. The NPR guy mentioned something about how California had these redistricting whizkid guys with computers who would jumblel things up quite a bit.
Needs2know…my radio sucks in my car and I have to constantly tune it in every time I hit a bump. Makes listening to the reports a little difficult. But I get the jist of things.
There is an article in today’s Atlanta Constitution crediting Georgia’s jump in population in part to greater focus by the Census Bureau on accurately counting the minority population. I would expect more accurate minority counts would add to all of the Southern states’ population figures.
To the extent the increased (reported) population in the South reflects newly-counted minority voters, I don’t think you can expect resulting new districts to be Republican.
Don’t get too excited. We still have to file our lawsuits. :rolleyes:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/census_sampling001228.html
http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/tab01.txt
Redistricting: http://www.census.gov/clo/www/redistricting.html
The state can draw the districts however it wants. A new district won’t necessarily contain all the newly discovered residents. As a matter of fact, given the opportunity to redistrict, the legislature could draw the lines to purposely keep each district laregely white.
South Postpones Rising Again For Yet Another Year:
http://www.theonion.com/onion3613/south_postpones.html
I could say something really nasty about this remark, but I’ll pass.
Okay, that last statement is bullshit. Pure and simple. Ever heard of Civil Rights Laws? They prevent BS like that.
We have them because some people do make it a practice to prevent people from having their civil freedoms, and base those same inane laws inhibiting Civil Right on outdated or clearly false “science” or misquoted religious works.
Got that? I hope so.
“Faction may rave & party spirit slander … but an honester man he has not left behind.” --Abigail Adams, upon the “Gerrymanderer’s” death.
Touching, isn’t it? Like touching a snake for the first time.
Has there ever been a case where gerrymandering has ever been undone by the courts? I believe that the Constitution prevents federal involvement in redistricting, and that federal civil rights laws could not be used in that case.
Looking into Supreme Court opinions, I’ve discovered that racial gerrymanders are considered to be in violation of the Fourteenth Ammendment. On the other hand, the cases I saw generally seemed to allow them anyways.
I didn’t know the thread would head into racial gerrymandering but heres a link…
Under Supreme Court precedent, race can be a factor, but cannot be the primary factor. In practical effect, you can’t create a district to explicitly make it majority black or majority white.
Sua
Ya know, unless I spent the last year in a hallucinatory daze (a distinct possibility), I think this issue has already made it to the Supremes. IIRC, the Supremes said that statistical sampling numbers cannot be used for Congressional apportionment (on the grounds that the Constitution explictly requires actual enumeration), but that it is up to the Executive and Congress (i.e., a political decision) as to whether to use sampling numbers for funding issues, etc.
Does anyone else recall this, or do I need to cut back on the 'shrooms again?
Sua
In The West Wing Congress approved the use of statistical sampling, I believe. I think the situation in the real world was different, however.
You got it right. Look here or here.
Note this occurred in 1999. I don’t know if by ‘last year’ you meant ‘the nearly 12 months preceding today’ or ‘one less than the number of the current year’ but in either case I think it wise you continue your 'room regimen.
DeKalb County, GA, might get either an exclusive congressperson or another one, since that population has become larger. Cynthia McKinney is the representative from the county, and parts of another now. If it gets another, it is likely to be a Democrat – the Democratically controlled legislature, plus the heavily Democratic southern part of the county.