I don't agree with some big chunks of it ... but I do think it does make good points as well.


Elections:









Congressional Dysfunction

I'd argue for a district + proportional system

==== LEGISLATION ====

1) No closed primaries
2) District borders must follow city/county lines and keep communities of interest whole whenever possible
3) Redistricting must produce representation results within 10% of the last two election votes. In other words if the Dems get 40% of the votes for Congress, then at least 30% of the seats must be Dem majority.

====PROBABLY NEED A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ====
And here is the real kicker that would end about 90 percent of the games

No representative assembly can have a majority from party that doesn't have a plurality of voting support (or if others parties combined to achieve a plurality). In the event that a party wins more seats but another party wins more VOTES...then the party gaining the most votes shall get temporary seats in order to produce a majority percentage equal to the percentage plurality in the election. Those temporary Congressmen/Senators/Reps shall be appointed by the leaders of the party or coalition holding the majority of the votes.

Gerrymandering would be pointless
Every vote would matter
Third parties could gain leverage (and seats if in a coalition to get to a plurality)

(09-28-2015 02:35 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  3) Redistricting must produce representation results within 10% of the last two election votes. In other words if the Dems get 40% of the votes for Congress, then at least 30% of the seats must be Dem majority.

This is not just impossible, but operating with that as a STATED goal is almost certainly highly illegal.

(09-28-2015 02:47 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 02:35 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  3) Redistricting must produce representation results within 10% of the last two election votes. In other words if the Dems get 40% of the votes for Congress, then at least 30% of the seats must be Dem majority.

This is not just impossible, but operating with that as a STATED goal is almost certainly highly illegal.

Ok..change it to 'at least 30% of the seats must have a Demo voting preference, based upon prior voting patterns.

(09-28-2015 02:35 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  2) District borders must follow city/county lines and keep communities of interest whole whenever possible

Consider the number of red counties versus blue counties in the country.

Also, how you combine the more densely-populated counties with surrounding sparsely-populated ones could still make redistricting a contentious issue.

(09-28-2015 03:02 PM)EigenEagle Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 02:35 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  2) District borders must follow city/county lines and keep communities of interest whole whenever possible

Consider the number of red counties versus blue counties in the country.

Also, how you combine the more densely-populated counties with surrounding sparsely-populated ones could still make redistricting a contentious issue.

So yes, there will be splits, but if Austin has 800,000 people, then dividing it into 6 Congressional Districts would be a no-no. At most two.

I would go with redistricting through the shortest-splitline algorithm to eliminate bias as much as possible.

http://rangevoting.org/GerryExamples.html

(09-28-2015 02:56 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 02:47 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 02:35 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  3) Redistricting must produce representation results within 10% of the last two election votes. In other words if the Dems get 40% of the votes for Congress, then at least 30% of the seats must be Dem majority.

This is not just impossible, but operating with that as a STATED goal is almost certainly highly illegal.

Ok..change it to 'at least 30% of the seats must have a Demo voting preference, based upon prior voting patterns.

That produces a mess and a lot of extreme parties every country that does that sort of thing. Classic example is Israel.

(09-28-2015 02:35 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  2) District borders must follow city/county lines and keep communities of interest whole whenever possible

Excellent. South Carolina could finally get rid of the embarrassment that is Jim Clyburn because the only reason he is in office is because of his gerrymandered district that avoids every white majority area between Charleston and Columbia.

Most, if not all, of the gerrymandering, at least in the south, is because of the Voting Rights Act. You must have essentially guaranteed minority districts. It takes a disproportionate number of democrat voters to create a safe minority district, leaving the rest of the state disproportionately republican.

Take a state with 10 congressional districts, and a 50-50 democrat-republican ratio. To create a safe minority district, and most of the really grotesque gerrymanders are the minority districts, the district has to be 80% democrat. So that's 8% of the statewide democrats and 2% of the statewide republicans. The rest of the state is now 9 districts, 48-42 republican. Off that split, 6 or 7 of those 9 districts will go republican. You end up with 6 or 7 republicans, 3 or 4 democrats, in a state that is 50-50.

I figured the congressional dysfunction video would have been, by far, the more provocative of the two videos......

(09-28-2015 09:17 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Most, if not all, of the gerrymandering, at least in the south, is because of the Voting Rights Act. You must have essentially guaranteed minority districts. It takes a disproportionate number of democrat voters to create a safe minority district, leaving the rest of the state disproportionately republican.

Take a state with 10 congressional districts, and a 50-50 democrat-republican ratio. To create a safe minority district, and most of the really grotesque gerrymanders are the minority districts, the district has to be 80% democrat. So that's 8% of the statewide democrats and 2% of the statewide republicans. The rest of the state is now 9 districts, 48-42 republican. Off that split, 6 or 7 of those 9 districts will go republican. You end up with 6 or 7 republicans, 3 or 4 democrats, in a state that is 50-50.

Not in Texas. Here the gerrymandering is real. Look at Travis County, and Anglo Dem areas of Harris, Dallas, Tarrent, etc.

And they even gerrymander in Texas to reduce minority voting rights. 85% of Texas' population growth has been minority since 1990. Zero new Congressional seats are minority.

(09-29-2015 10:55 AM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 09:17 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Most, if not all, of the gerrymandering, at least in the south, is because of the Voting Rights Act. You must have essentially guaranteed minority districts. It takes a disproportionate number of democrat voters to create a safe minority district, leaving the rest of the state disproportionately republican.

Take a state with 10 congressional districts, and a 50-50 democrat-republican ratio. To create a safe minority district, and most of the really grotesque gerrymanders are the minority districts, the district has to be 80% democrat. So that's 8% of the statewide democrats and 2% of the statewide republicans. The rest of the state is now 9 districts, 48-42 republican. Off that split, 6 or 7 of those 9 districts will go republican. You end up with 6 or 7 republicans, 3 or 4 democrats, in a state that is 50-50.

Not in Texas. Here the gerrymandering is real. Look at Travis County, and Anglo Dem areas of Harris, Dallas, Tarrent, etc.

And they even gerrymander in Texas to reduce minority voting rights. 85% of Texas' population growth has been minority since 1990. Zero new Congressional seats are minority.

Probably the worst gerrymander in history was the Democrats gerrymander in Texas in 1990. They had to triple the number of voting precincts in Harris County (Houston) from around 600 to around 1700 to accommodate it. Hearing Democrats whine about gerrymandering is just unbelievably hypocritical.

If the Democrats weren't so afraid of diversity and were willing to live around people who don't think like them instead of barricading themselves up in crowded cities, they might not get such a low % relative to their numbers. Democrats tend to pack themselves into small areas with lots of other Democrats.

(09-29-2015 11:04 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(09-29-2015 10:55 AM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(09-28-2015 09:17 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Most, if not all, of the gerrymandering, at least in the south, is because of the Voting Rights Act. You must have essentially guaranteed minority districts. It takes a disproportionate number of democrat voters to create a safe minority district, leaving the rest of the state disproportionately republican.

Take a state with 10 congressional districts, and a 50-50 democrat-republican ratio. To create a safe minority district, and most of the really grotesque gerrymanders are the minority districts, the district has to be 80% democrat. So that's 8% of the statewide democrats and 2% of the statewide republicans. The rest of the state is now 9 districts, 48-42 republican. Off that split, 6 or 7 of those 9 districts will go republican. You end up with 6 or 7 republicans, 3 or 4 democrats, in a state that is 50-50.

Not in Texas. Here the gerrymandering is real. Look at Travis County, and Anglo Dem areas of Harris, Dallas, Tarrent, etc.

And they even gerrymander in Texas to reduce minority voting rights. 85% of Texas' population growth has been minority since 1990. Zero new Congressional seats are minority.

Probably the worst gerrymander in history was the Democrats gerrymander in Texas in 1990. They had to triple the number of voting precincts in Harris County (Houston) from around 600 to around 1700 to accommodate it. Hearing Democrats whine about gerrymandering is just unbelievably hypocritical.

If the Democrats weren't so afraid of diversity and were willing to live around people who don't think like them instead of barricading themselves up in crowded cities, they might not get such a low % relative to their numbers. Democrats tend to pack themselves into small areas with lots of other Democrats.

Afraid of diversity? No. Afraid of a white Southerner who hates Gay people carrying a gun around? Yep.

The first video fails to mention that California had a more independent redistricting process after 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California...Commission

Louisiana has had the open primary for years, with the top 2 moving on. However other than statewide elections, gerrymandering still impacts most districts. Although I like the idea of open primaries.

(09-29-2015 12:37 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  I figured the congressional dysfunction video would have been, by far, the more provocative of the two videos......

The first video was 9 minutes. Never watched the second. Try it In a new thread.