He is an interesting suggestion I saw recently. Many of us are in states where the party in power (in my case the GOP) has stacked the deck to the point that there are many state house and senate races where one party or the other has absolutely no chance of winning the district. As a result sometimes there is no opposition as no one wishes to be the sacrificial lamb. The suggestion is that if you are in one of those districts you write in Gerry McGerrymander. The elections board would have to record those write in votes and in turn the media would possibly report this and bring attention to the practice of politicians picking their voters as opposed to voters picking their politicians. This could be a bipartisan effort.

1. Elections have consequences.

2. Before a party (ie liberals) imposes stupid sh*t on the people to the point where it could cause a wave election against them (such as 2010 and 2014), remember #1

There's only one gerrymandered congressional district in SC and it's the 6th.

I like Tom Foolery's platform better. But I can get behind Gerry McGerrymander as well.

(07-12-2016 03:23 PM)UofMstateU Wrote:  1. Elections have consequences.

2. Before a party (ie liberals) imposes stupid sh*t on the people to the point where it could cause a wave election against them (such as 2010 and 2014), remember #1

Absolutely. Gerrymandering is one of the least defend-able consequences of elections. It is a bipartisan problem, even for the voters that support the party that does the gerrymandering. When extreme levels of gerrymandering take place some districts are "sacrificed" by the party in power to make larger majorities in the others. It results in voters in both types of stacked districts basically powerless.

(07-12-2016 03:34 PM)muffinman Wrote:  I like Tom Foolery's platform better. But I can get behind Gerry McGerrymander as well.

Maybe I'll vote for Tom in the state senate race and Gerry in the state house race.

I can never see Gerrymandering going away. They even do it within parties to get districts that are a majority of a specific minority so that the representative from that district is elected as a member of that minority so the party can go OOOOOOOOOO WOW GUYS LOOK AT US WE'RE SO DIVERSE ISN'T THAT AWESOME YAY US WE'RE LIKE AN ORGANIC RAINBOW OF UNICORN FARTS YAYYYYYY.

They all do it.

(07-12-2016 03:29 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  There's only one gerrymandered congressional district in SC and it's the 6th.

Safe to assume a crat wins the 6th consistently?

(07-12-2016 04:07 PM)geosnooker2000 Wrote:  

(07-12-2016 03:29 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  There's only one gerrymandered congressional district in SC and it's the 6th.

Safe to assume a crat wins the 6th consistently?

Yes and the other six go to the GOP. Think how the Republicans in the 6th feel about having no chance of fielding a viable candidate in that congressional district. Probably like the Democrats feel about some of the other six districts.

(07-12-2016 04:07 PM)geosnooker2000 Wrote:  

(07-12-2016 03:29 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  There's only one gerrymandered congressional district in SC and it's the 6th.

Safe to assume a crat wins the 6th consistently?

That is Jim Clyburn's CD.

(07-12-2016 04:07 PM)geosnooker2000 Wrote:  

(07-12-2016 03:29 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  There's only one gerrymandered congressional district in SC and it's the 6th.

Safe to assume a crat wins the 6th consistently?

It's the only reason Jim Clyburn has a job.

That district was drawn specifically to exclude Shaw AFB, Ft Jackson, MCAS Beaufort, MCRD Parris Island, the white neighborhoods in Columbia, and the predominantly white sections of Orangeburg, Calhoun, Berkley, Beaufort, and Sumter Counties. The only sea island it has in Charleston County is Wadmalaw Island because it's predominantly black and doesn't have any large upper class developments.

At one point in Columbia the district narrows at a point that is two miles wide to avoid the predominantly middle to upper class Shandon neighborhood before it quickly expands to catch the ghettos on North Main and in Denny Terrace and out through the low income areas off Broad River Rd before abruptly stopping at the middle class Harbison neighborhood.

(07-12-2016 03:13 PM)dawgitall Wrote:  He is an interesting suggestion I saw recently. Many of us are in states where the party in power (in my case the GOP) has stacked the deck to the point that there are many state house and senate races where one party or the other has absolutely no chance of winning the district. As a result sometimes there is no opposition as no one wishes to be the sacrificial lamb. The suggestion is that if you are in one of those districts you write in Gerry McGerrymander. The elections board would have to record those write in votes and in turn the media would possibly report this and bring attention to the practice of politicians picking their voters as opposed to voters picking their politicians. This could be a bipartisan effort.

Keep in mind that the major reason for gerrymandering is to create "safe" and "sure" minority districts to comply with the voting rights act. IIRC, the one really badly gerrymandered district in SC and the two really badly gerrymandered districts in NC are all minority districts. Once you gerrymander one or two, the rest have to be gerrymandered to some extent as well.

Let's say you have a state with 10 districts and 50/50 republican/democrat breakdown. In theory, you should get 5 R's and 5 D's. But you create a minority district that will probably go 80% D. That means that the other 90% of the population in the other districts is 48 republican, 42 democrat. With those ratios, R's are going to win 7-8 of those 9 districts. That's how it happens.

My own preferred way to avoid the problem is proportional representation.

Gerry Man der Ring rolls off the tongue better IMO

(07-12-2016 05:20 PM)CameramanJ Wrote:  Gerry Man der Ring rolls off the tongue better IMO

(07-12-2016 05:17 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-12-2016 03:13 PM)dawgitall Wrote:  He is an interesting suggestion I saw recently. Many of us are in states where the party in power (in my case the GOP) has stacked the deck to the point that there are many state house and senate races where one party or the other has absolutely no chance of winning the district. As a result sometimes there is no opposition as no one wishes to be the sacrificial lamb. The suggestion is that if you are in one of those districts you write in Gerry McGerrymander. The elections board would have to record those write in votes and in turn the media would possibly report this and bring attention to the practice of politicians picking their voters as opposed to voters picking their politicians. This could be a bipartisan effort.

Keep in mind that the major reason for gerrymandering is to create "safe" and "sure" minority districts to comply with the voting rights act. IIRC, the one really badly gerrymandered district in SC and the two really badly gerrymandered districts in NC are all minority districts. Once you gerrymander one or two, the rest have to be gerrymandered to some extent as well.

Let's say you have a state with 10 districts and 50/50 republican/democrat breakdown. In theory, you should get 5 R's and 5 D's. But you create a minority district that will probably go 80% D. That means that the other 90% of the population in the other districts is 48 republican, 42 democrat. With those ratios, R's are going to win 7-8 of those 9 districts. That's how it happens.

My own preferred way to avoid the problem is proportional representation.

While minority - majority districts are one aspect of drawing districts it isn't the only factor. Gerrymandering occurs when minority's are "packed" into that district. A minority/majority district that gets 80% of the vote is gerrymandering.

(07-12-2016 03:34 PM)muffinman Wrote:  I like Tom Foolery's platform better. But I can get behind Gerry McGerrymander as well.

Hilarity and Hijinks 2016 have my vote, for sure. Donkey Kong is making a strong case for my vote though.

(07-12-2016 04:05 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  I can never see Gerrymandering going away. They even do it within parties to get districts that are a majority of a specific minority so that the representative from that district is elected as a member of that minority so the party can go OOOOOOOOOO WOW GUYS LOOK AT US WE'RE SO DIVERSE ISN'T THAT AWESOME YAY US WE'RE LIKE AN ORGANIC RAINBOW OF UNICORN FARTS YAYYYYYY.

The way to limit it is to do it state by state. Have Democratic states team up with Republican states of similar size and agree to have commissions.

(07-12-2016 06:26 PM)dawgitall Wrote:  

(07-12-2016 05:17 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(07-12-2016 03:13 PM)dawgitall Wrote:  He is an interesting suggestion I saw recently. Many of us are in states where the party in power (in my case the GOP) has stacked the deck to the point that there are many state house and senate races where one party or the other has absolutely no chance of winning the district. As a result sometimes there is no opposition as no one wishes to be the sacrificial lamb. The suggestion is that if you are in one of those districts you write in Gerry McGerrymander. The elections board would have to record those write in votes and in turn the media would possibly report this and bring attention to the practice of politicians picking their voters as opposed to voters picking their politicians. This could be a bipartisan effort.

Keep in mind that the major reason for gerrymandering is to create "safe" and "sure" minority districts to comply with the voting rights act. IIRC, the one really badly gerrymandered district in SC and the two really badly gerrymandered districts in NC are all minority districts. Once you gerrymander one or two, the rest have to be gerrymandered to some extent as well.

Let's say you have a state with 10 districts and 50/50 republican/democrat breakdown. In theory, you should get 5 R's and 5 D's. But you create a minority district that will probably go 80% D. That means that the other 90% of the population in the other districts is 48 republican, 42 democrat. With those ratios, R's are going to win 7-8 of those 9 districts. That's how it happens.

My own preferred way to avoid the problem is proportional representation.

While minority - majority districts are one aspect of drawing districts it isn't the only factor. Gerrymandering occurs when minority's are "packed" into that district. A minority/majority district that gets 80% of the vote is gerrymandering.

Because of voting patterns, those districts have to be at least 2/3 to generate minority candidates. So you have to pack it a good bit. And housing patterns tend to make them pretty high when you keep neighborhoods intact. There aren't a lot of 2/3 minority neighborhoods.

State legislature gerrymandering isn't dictated by creation of minority/majority districts. Of 170 seats in NC about 1/3 of this years races have no challenger. They are so overwhelmingly Republican or Democrat that the other party doesn't even run anyone. Remember NC is about as evenly split as it gets.