(06-29-2015 11:04 AM)EverRespect Wrote:  Gerrymandering works both ways. Mitt Romney recieved over 35% of the vote in New York in 2012

I think Karl Rove still hasn't conceded New York to Obama.

When I read Scalia, I read in a Lewis Black voice.

(06-29-2015 11:01 AM)blunderbuss Wrote:  Link for the entire text?

Found here.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14p...6_3204.pdf

(06-29-2015 10:56 AM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(06-28-2015 12:10 AM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(06-27-2015 10:00 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(06-27-2015 09:50 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(06-27-2015 09:08 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  Even with a popular vote, we'd still face those that would never see us as legitimate human beings with actual rights. All kicking it down the road would do would simply be to delay justice. And the reality of it is that Gay Americans are robbed of voting power by deliberate and targeted gerrymandering in many places, including in Texas.

How? What is Houston City Council District C? Who is mayor of Houston?

Ever hear of the 1990 Democratic redistricting in Texas where the number of precincts in Harris County tripled and Democrats still had the majority of US Rep seats in Texas despite not having a single statewide elected representative and just over 40% of both the state house and state senate? When Democrats complain of gerrymandering, it just really makes them look ridiculous.

Gay men are divided up, on purpose, in the Texas House and Senate in every jurisdiction they live in. Its ridiculous. I can drive 2 miles through the hood and cross state rep lines 4 times. The City of Houston is not gerrymandered badly for CITY COUNCIL seats. And we got Gay civil rights passed in Houston because of that. District C in Houston is the only voting area where the Gay community isn't broken up. Everywhere else we're gerrymandered out of a vote in a Texas.

And Dallas' Gay neighborhood is even worse. So is the situation in Fort Worth.

No point of bothering with the illegitimate process with the Texas legislature. 50% + 1 to win? We'd need somewhere north of 75% of the votes to impact an election in the Texas legislature.

So we went to the courts. And we'll run back to them every time a Texas legislature where Gay voices and Gay supportive voices are restricted not by voters, but by gerrymandering does anything we disagree with. Want us to take part in the legislative process? Then stop gerrymandering our voices out of that chamber.

So Justice Roberts is talking out his a** when he tells us to go through the legislative process. That process is rigged, badly, against us.

And in Alabama? Mississippi? Please. Same thing all over again. And Michigan too.

I can come very close to the same in Richland County South Carolina just to protect leftist Jim Clyburn. How else can you explain a congressional district that encompasses territory from Charleston to Columbia to the Georgia border yet excludes the areas where there are a lot of conservatives like Hilton Head, western Orangeburg County, the large subdivisions and coastal islands in Charleston, Berkley, and Dorchester Counties, and Fort Jackson in Columbia.

Without protective gerrymandering Jim Clyburn would be extinct as a political entity, yet he was pretty high up in the leftist party a few years back. Pretty sure if we played this game out on the macro you'll lose.

So whats the net voting percentage for Democrats in South Carolina in Congressional elections? Whats the percentage of seats held by Democrats in South Carolina? You'll find that any gerrymandering, on the whole, probably favors the GOP in that case.

In Texas, whats the percentage of people that support Gay marriage? Whats the percentage of Gay marriage supporters in the legislature? Again, gerrymandering favoring the conservatives.

Not sure about the voting percentage but there are no leftist statewide officers, the last elected one was Jim Hodges who left office in 2003 after one term. The South Carolina House is a 77-24 Republican majority, and the SC Senate is a 28-17 Republican majority.

Fritz Hollings was the last leftist US Senator.

(06-29-2015 11:50 AM)fsquid Wrote:  When I read Scalia, I read in a Lewis Black voice.

(06-29-2015 10:53 AM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(06-28-2015 10:26 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(06-27-2015 10:00 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(06-27-2015 09:50 PM)bullet Wrote:  

(06-27-2015 09:08 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  Even with a popular vote, we'd still face those that would never see us as legitimate human beings with actual rights. All kicking it down the road would do would simply be to delay justice. And the reality of it is that Gay Americans are robbed of voting power by deliberate and targeted gerrymandering in many places, including in Texas.

How? What is Houston City Council District C? Who is mayor of Houston?

Ever hear of the 1990 Democratic redistricting in Texas where the number of precincts in Harris County tripled and Democrats still had the majority of US Rep seats in Texas despite not having a single statewide elected representative and just over 40% of both the state house and state senate? When Democrats complain of gerrymandering, it just really makes them look ridiculous.

Gay men are divided up, on purpose, in the Texas House and Senate in every jurisdiction they live in. Its ridiculous. I can drive 2 miles through the hood and cross state rep lines 4 times. The City of Houston is not gerrymandered badly for CITY COUNCIL seats. And we got Gay civil rights passed in Houston because of that. District C in Houston is the only voting area where the Gay community isn't broken up. Everywhere else we're gerrymandered out of a vote in a Texas.

And Dallas' Gay neighborhood is even worse. So is the situation in Fort Worth.

No point of bothering with the illegitimate process with the Texas legislature. 50% + 1 to win? We'd need somewhere north of 75% of the votes to impact an election in the Texas legislature.

So we went to the courts. And we'll run back to them every time a Texas legislature where Gay voices and Gay supportive voices are restricted not by voters, but by gerrymandering does anything we disagree with. Want us to take part in the legislative process? Then stop gerrymandering our voices out of that chamber.

So Justice Roberts is talking out his a** when he tells us to go through the legislative process. That process is rigged, badly, against us.

And in Alabama? Mississippi? Please. Same thing all over again. And Michigan too.

Some of that is still the residue from the 1990 Democratic gerrymandering in their desperate attempt to save white liberal Democrats (Mike Andrews, Martin Frost were a couple). It was always based on neighborhoods before.

BTW, I was in Montrose the other day. Y'all need to get on that District C councilman to pave some potholes. That was awful.

They're trying to play catch up.

The Mayor announced in 2009...We have a choice...we can either fire police, raise taxes, or defer maintenance on the roads. So, I'm making the decision that the solvency of the city is more important than perfect roads at this time. Because there's no will to raise taxes. So the roads are bad and they're gonna get worse. Agree or disagree with Mayor Parker, at least she was clear about what she was doing, why she was doing it, and what the implications were going to be.

And boy did they ever get worse. They're working on them now that the city has some money to repair them.

Why not just cut out a couple layers of government, no on e will miss? There you find you money for roads. Why do democrats always have to play the safety/children card any time cuts need to be made? SMH

(06-29-2015 01:28 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(06-29-2015 11:50 AM)fsquid Wrote:  When I read Scalia, I read in a Lewis Black voice.

Agreed. So much rage.

(06-29-2015 01:14 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(06-29-2015 10:56 AM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(06-28-2015 12:10 AM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(06-27-2015 10:00 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  

(06-27-2015 09:50 PM)bullet Wrote:  How? What is Houston City Council District C? Who is mayor of Houston?

Ever hear of the 1990 Democratic redistricting in Texas where the number of precincts in Harris County tripled and Democrats still had the majority of US Rep seats in Texas despite not having a single statewide elected representative and just over 40% of both the state house and state senate? When Democrats complain of gerrymandering, it just really makes them look ridiculous.

Gay men are divided up, on purpose, in the Texas House and Senate in every jurisdiction they live in. Its ridiculous. I can drive 2 miles through the hood and cross state rep lines 4 times. The City of Houston is not gerrymandered badly for CITY COUNCIL seats. And we got Gay civil rights passed in Houston because of that. District C in Houston is the only voting area where the Gay community isn't broken up. Everywhere else we're gerrymandered out of a vote in a Texas.

And Dallas' Gay neighborhood is even worse. So is the situation in Fort Worth.

No point of bothering with the illegitimate process with the Texas legislature. 50% + 1 to win? We'd need somewhere north of 75% of the votes to impact an election in the Texas legislature.

So we went to the courts. And we'll run back to them every time a Texas legislature where Gay voices and Gay supportive voices are restricted not by voters, but by gerrymandering does anything we disagree with. Want us to take part in the legislative process? Then stop gerrymandering our voices out of that chamber.

So Justice Roberts is talking out his a** when he tells us to go through the legislative process. That process is rigged, badly, against us.

And in Alabama? Mississippi? Please. Same thing all over again. And Michigan too.

I can come very close to the same in Richland County South Carolina just to protect leftist Jim Clyburn. How else can you explain a congressional district that encompasses territory from Charleston to Columbia to the Georgia border yet excludes the areas where there are a lot of conservatives like Hilton Head, western Orangeburg County, the large subdivisions and coastal islands in Charleston, Berkley, and Dorchester Counties, and Fort Jackson in Columbia.

Without protective gerrymandering Jim Clyburn would be extinct as a political entity, yet he was pretty high up in the leftist party a few years back. Pretty sure if we played this game out on the macro you'll lose.

So whats the net voting percentage for Democrats in South Carolina in Congressional elections? Whats the percentage of seats held by Democrats in South Carolina? You'll find that any gerrymandering, on the whole, probably favors the GOP in that case.

In Texas, whats the percentage of people that support Gay marriage? Whats the percentage of Gay marriage supporters in the legislature? Again, gerrymandering favoring the conservatives.

Not sure about the voting percentage but there are no leftist statewide officers, the last elected one was Jim Hodges who left office in 2003 after one term. The South Carolina House is a 77-24 Republican majority, and the SC Senate is a 28-17 Republican majority.

Fritz Hollings was the last leftist US Senator.

I'd be willing to bet that the Dems got more than 25% of the vote for the SC House....

And more than 18% for the US House.

That's gerrymandering in practice.

(06-29-2015 02:08 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  I'd be willing to bet that the Dems got more than 25% of the vote for the SC House....
And more than 18% for the US House.
That's gerrymandering in practice.

No, that's a "first past the post" system in practice. If republicans got 51% for every one of the 77 seats they won, and democrats got 51% for every one of the 24 seats they won, you'd have pretty close to a 50/50 vote split in total but the individual district results would stand.

The only way to get anything close to the result you seem to think is fair is proportional representation.

How the F do you gerrymander 1.7% of the population? You can't be serious Tom.

(06-28-2015 10:39 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Most of the gerrymandering comes from trying to create minority-safe districts to comply with various voting rights requirements.

Here's how the math works. Let's say a state is split 50/50 D/R and has 10 house seats. Formula says they have to create one minority district. So they create this funky thing that has 3 inner-city areas connected by strands that are 100 miles long and 100 yards wide. It's reliably going to elect a minority candidate, but it's also going to go 80% D. So this one district has created 1 D seat but has also taken up 8% of your statewide electorate who are D's and 2% who are R's. Now the rest of the state is 48/42 in favor of the R's. So you can easily get R's winning 8 of the other 9 seats and a state that was 50/50 sends 8 R's and 2 D's to Washington. Same at all levels--federal, state, local.

Other than proportional representation, I don't see a way to solve it.

Other than voters not voting so heavily along racial lines . . .

(06-29-2015 01:35 PM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(06-29-2015 01:28 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(06-29-2015 11:50 AM)fsquid Wrote:  When I read Scalia, I read in a Lewis Black voice.

Agreed. So much rage.

He just wants people to follow the Constitution instead of making stuff up.

That's obviously expecting too much from leftists.

(06-29-2015 05:53 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote:  

(06-29-2015 01:35 PM)vandiver49 Wrote:  

(06-29-2015 01:28 PM)UofMemphis Wrote:  

(06-29-2015 11:50 AM)fsquid Wrote:  When I read Scalia, I read in a Lewis Black voice.

Agreed. So much rage.

He just wants people to follow the Constitution instead of making stuff up.

That's obviously expecting too much from leftists.

I concur and I'm not saying Scalia should be mealy mouth in his dissent. Just that reading them is like getting a lecture from an old school fire and brimstone preacher.