SCOTUS and whatnot

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

All gerrymandering should be outlawed.  the extreme examples in many states - such as illinois, which is one of the most extreme - dilute people's votes no matter their race.  trump has turned gerrymandering into an even worse and more bitter process, just like he does with everything.

the vra and other such laws that attempt to "level the playing field" for racial minorities run up against the interpretation of the 14th amendment that any preferences on the basis of race are unconstitutional.  there are different interpretations of the 14th that may come into fashion in the future that would reverse these current lines of cases.

I think one day it will be, but a lot of terrible ****, and then defeat and truth and reconciliation, is going to have to happen first, because we are nowhere near the level of peak fascism the country has to experience to finally wake the **** up. You and I won't live to see that entire cycle, probably, but if I were a bettor, I would bet that sometime in the next 25 to 75 years, the outlawing of gerrymandering will happen.

Edited 4 hours ago by chasfh

[buddha]

1 minute ago, Motown Bombers said:

Cry me a ****ing river. Look across the border into Wisconsin. Republicans have a super majority in the legislature in a state Democrats won statewide. 

The last republican to get 45% in Illinois was Bruce Rauner in 2014 and that was because of the whole corruption thing with Blagojevich. Don’t overstate republican support in Illinois. 

not sure why youre arguing with me.  

republicans received 47% of the vote in the House of representative races in 2024.

[buddha]

2 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I think one day it will be, but a lot of terrible ****, and then defeat and truth and reconciliation, is going to have to happen first, because we are nowhere near the level of peak fascism the country has to experience to finally wake the **** up. You and I won't live to see that entire cycle, probably, but if I were a bettor, I would bet that sometime in the next 25 to 75 years, the outlawing of gerrymandering will happen.

i hope so.  its killing democracy.

[Motown Bombers]

4 minutes ago, buddha said:

not sure why youre arguing with me.  

republicans received 47% of the vote in the House of representative races in 2024.

So? That doesn’t make Illinois the most gerrymandered. That 47% isn’t just in one part of the state. Shouldn’t all of the districts be 47% Republican? 47% is not typical. There shouldn’t be a single Republican district in Illinois. 

[CMRivdogs]

I've just about come around to accept the idea of multi member congressional districts, Or some sort of proportional voting and representation. cut the number of districts in half or thirds, then vote for multi members. Or something close to that. 

The current system is wrecked,

 

 

[buddha]

3 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

So? That doesn’t make Illinois the most gerrymandered. That 47% isn’t just in one part of the state. Shouldn’t all of the districts be 47% Republican? 47% is not typical. There shouldn’t be a single Republican district in Illinois. 

illinois received an F grade for its congressional map from the princeton gerrymander project.  

this site has it as the 4th worst in the country.

https://ivn.us/posts/10-worst-gerrymandered-states-country-2025-08-18

 

there are lots of bad gerrymanders out there and illinois is one of the worst.  and it wasnt prompted by republicans, it was prompted by illinois democrats and their attempts to exercise power.

[Edman85]

I want as many purple and competitive districts as possible. Safe seats beget corruption, extremism, and lack of accountability.

As long as states have odd shapes and unequal population density distribution, maps are going to be weird and gerrymandered in some way. Extreme partisan gerrymandering is no good, but gerrymandering itself is a necessity.

[chasfh]

18 minutes ago, buddha said:

i hope so.  its killing democracy.

If you believe in the Better Angels societal evolutionary and/or the Arc of the Moral Universe theories, it should happen eventually, because as long as there is an active, collective effort to do so, we will get there. The only way that can be reversed is to exterminate the intelligentsia and their educated acolytes, outlaw free education altogether, and remake society into a replication of the serfdom era.

Edited 4 hours ago by chasfh

[Motown Bombers]

Just now, buddha said:

illinois received an F grade for its congressional map from the princeton gerrymander project.  

this site has it as the 4th worst in the country.

https://ivn.us/posts/10-worst-gerrymandered-states-country-2025-08-18

 

there are lots of bad gerrymanders out there and illinois is one of the worst.  and it wasnt prompted by republicans, it was prompted by illinois democrats and their attempts to exercise power.

Because republicans across the country have been gerrymandering while blue states like California have unilaterally disarmed themselves. Good for Illinois. Keep going. Maybe Republicans will finally agree with Illinois Democratic senators and end gerrymandering. Until then, I’m not interested in both sides bull****. Illinois has been playing by the same rules as republicans. 

[Motown Bombers]

BTW how is Iowa not on the list? It’s worse than Illinois. It has four congressional districts and all are republican despite Harris winning 42% of the vote and congressional Dems winning 43%.

[buddha]

12 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Because republicans across the country have been gerrymandering while blue states like California have unilaterally disarmed themselves. Good for Illinois. Keep going. Maybe Republicans will finally agree with Illinois Democratic senators and end gerrymandering. Until then, I’m not interested in both sides bull****. Illinois has been playing by the same rules as republicans. 

we dont disagree on the basic argument: republicans ratcheted up the gerrymandering game and the democrats responded in kind.  before the republicans did that, many of the democratic run states (but not all, iowa also has anti-gerrymandering in place) acted in good faith in trying to get rid of political gerrymandering.

illinois is just a different animal because illinois is horrible.

[buddha]

2 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

BTW how is Iowa not on the list? It’s worse than Illinois. It has four congressional districts and all are republican despite Harris winning 42% of the vote and congressional Dems winning 43%.

iowa has a non-partisan commission that creates their map.  theyve had that in place for 40 years.

[Motown Bombers]

1 minute ago, buddha said:

iowa has a non-partisan commission that creates their map.  theyve had that in place for 40 years.

Wild, so just because a state has 40% of one party doesn’t mean that 40% of the districts will be that party? To get to 8 red districts in Illinois, you’re probably going to have to do a little gerrymandering. Probably have to cut up the Chicago exurbs and pack Dems in Chicago. 

[Motown Bombers]

4 minutes ago, buddha said:

we dont disagree on the basic argument: republicans ratcheted up the gerrymandering game and the democrats responded in kind.  before the republicans did that, many of the democratic run states (but not all, iowa also has anti-gerrymandering in place) acted in good faith in trying to get rid of political gerrymandering.

illinois is just a different animal because illinois is horrible.

Illinois didn’t disarm themselves like California. Good for them. 

[gehringer_2]

42 minutes ago, buddha said:

i hope so.  its killing democracy.

we've argued about whether this SCOTUS is sane or not before, but there is such and easy straightforward one man/one vote argument to be made to outlawing any attempt to draw districts to favor outcomes of any kind that I don't see how SCOTUS can be defended on this issue at all. They made an ideological decision for bad government when there were easy good government options available to them that would not have required any objectionable legal gymnastics to have arrived at at all. These are terrible people and there is no way around it.

Edited 4 hours ago by gehringer_2

[CMRivdogs]

1 minute ago, Motown Bombers said:

Wild, so just because a state has 40% of one party doesn’t mean that 40% of the districts will be that party? To get to 8 red districts in Illinois, you’re probably going to have to do a little gerrymandering. Probably have to cut up the Chicago exurbs and pack Dems in Chicago. 

Hence my argument for multi member ditricts, proportional voting...

[Motown Bombers]

1 minute ago, CMRivdogs said:

Hence my argument for multi member ditricts, proportional voting...

That still exposes it to gerrymandering. 

[romad1]

apropos of nothing I call the space to the left of the pitcher and in front of 3rd base "Iowa" when doing infield drills for my softball teams.  It was because I was trying to stop my pitchers from making wild throws to 1B when running in the opposite direction (i.e., toward 3B side foul territory).  Basically, you might be better off if your momentum is taking you in that direction allowing the 3B to run in and make a throw.   I drew a "box" to describe the place where I wanted the 3B to take over the ball and i did such a bad job drawing the box that it looked like the State of Iowa.  So, my kids have called it Iowa ever since. 

[buddha]

1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

we've argued about whether this SCOTUS is sane or not before, but there is such and easy straightforward one man/one vote argument to be made to outlawing any attempt to draw districts to favor outcomes of any kind that I don't see how SCOTUS can be defended on this issue at all. The made an ideological decision for bad government when there were easy good government options available to them that would not have required any objectionable legal gymnastics to have arrived at at all. These are terrible people and there there is no way around it.

we can agree to disagree on that one, but there are plenty of folks who would make a similar argument to yours.

the constitution gives the states the right to determine how their elections happen, which includes how their congressional reps get elected.  this may come as a surprise to you, but politicians acted in bad faith in order to draw those districts!  lol.

what do you mean by "one man/one vote" argument?

[Motown Bombers]

What needs to happen is the house needs to be expanded. It hasn’t been expanded in over 100 years. The average district in California is 760k. Wyoming is 580k. The Wyoming rule would make sure all districts are the size of the smallest district. That would add 16 districts to California.

[romad1]

Just now, Motown Bombers said:

What needs to happen is the house needs to be expanded. It hasn’t been expanded in over 100 years. The average district in California is 760k. Wyoming is 580k. The Wyoming rule would make sure all districts are the size of the smallest district. That would add 16 districts to California.

Proportional representation would be nice. 

[buddha]

2 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Proportional representation would be nice. 

be careful what you wish for considering you'd need to increase florida and texas too.

[romad1]

5 minutes ago, buddha said:

be careful what you wish for considering you'd need to increase florida and texas too.

Land has always outvoted people.  We get it.  Rule by the rich.  We can toil in their underground sugar mines and have half a day off to worship their deity.  

[Motown Bombers]

4 minutes ago, buddha said:

be careful what you wish for considering you'd need to increase florida and texas too.

Yeah but at some point you run out of places to gerrymander. I think Texas gerrymander could backfire since they are relying on a realignment from Hispanics. I’m not sure how many more republican districts you squeeze from the Texas suburbs. Same with California, you’re likely to get more districts in the Central Valley. 

[CMRivdogs]

2 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

That still exposes it to gerrymandering. 

Just about any district drawing can be construed as gerrymandering to some people.

We also can argue that "independent commissions" can be guilty as well.

Let's for example divide Michigan into regions with multiple members, giving candidates x number of seats proportionally.

1) Metro Detroit..5 seats. It's usually a 70/30 split Democrats to Republicans...it would come to a 4-1 Dem/Rep House spit

2) West Michigan (Grand Rapids area) 3 seats,  55-45 Republican/Democrat 2/1 Republican House Advantage...

3)Mid Michigan..(Lansing, Flint, Saginaw). 3 seats..usually a 50-50 Split depending on year. Winning party gets 2 seats

Upper Michigan  (Everything else) 2 seats. usually a 60/40 split. Depending on margin of victory winning party would get two seats (or split one seat each)

Include third parties in the process if they receive a certain percentage of votes...everyone usually gets some representation.

Tell me where the gerrymandering is here?