Getty Images
Earlier this year, Josh Gerstein noted, "In a political system where even the most trivial issues trigger partisan rancor, the Voting Rights Act has stood for several decades as a rare point of bipartisan consensus. Until now."
That's true. On Capitol Hill, Republican hostility towards the Voting Rights Act has reached levels unseen in decades, and an even more serious threat to the law's future now looms at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Acting three days after the nation's minority voters showed that they have increased and still growing power in U.S. elections, the Supreme Court agreed on Friday to rule on a challenge to Congress's power to protect those groups' rights at the polls. The Court said it would hear claims that Congress went beyond its authority when it extended for another twenty-five years the nation's most important civil rights law, the Voting Rights Act, originally passed in 1965 and renewed four times since then.
Specially at issue is the constitutionality of the law's Section 5, the most important provision, under which nine states and parts of seven others with a past history of racial bias in voting must get official clearance in Washington before they may put into effect any change in election laws or procedures, no matter how small.
Given the current makeup of the high court, it's not unreasonable to think there are five conservative votes for weakening the landmark civil rights law.
Keep in mind, the Voting Rights Act remains a critically important statute, and was used just this year to block odious voter-ID proposals in Texas and South Carolina.
Leave a Comment:
One of the most under-reported stories of this election is that more Americans voted for Democrats for the House of Representatives than voted for Republicans. However, gerrymandering after the 2010 census--carving up Democratic districts such that a small percentages of Democrats were realigned into surrounding Republican districts--protected Republican House seats.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/07/1159631/americans-voted-for-a-democratic-house-gerrymandering-the-supreme-court-gave-them-speaker-boehner/
This article states that the Supreme Court "abdicated its responsibility" to end gerrymandering with its 5-4 decision in Vieth v. Jubelirer, where the conservative justices tossed out a lawsuit alleging that Pennsylvania’s congressional districts were unconstitutionally drawn to maximize Republican representation in Congress.
Now, I fear, that the Supremes seek to gut the Voting Rights Act to to accomplish what they could otherwise not accomplish in the South. The ramifications of that 5-4 Bush v. Gore decision in 2000 continue to reverberate.
Riiight. It's purely coincidental that, although there were more Dem PA voters in this last election than
Repssuckers, of the 18 PA Congressional districts, only 5 are to be held by Democrats and 13 (lucky us) by Rape-Public-CONs. No gerrymandering. Nothing to see here. Move along.I'd sure like to hope that Roberts is still concerned with how "his" Court will be seen in history, but this is not encouraging. Yikes.
Got Enraged and Engaged:
Mooched the Vote 2012!
;-)
Article 1, section 2 states that no Congressional district will have less than 30,000 citizens. There are proposals that we also put a cap on the size of a district. Say we cap it at around 75,000 or so, and order the district to split in two when that happens. This would:
a) remove the re-districting quandary and, as a result, end gerrymandering forever;
b) solve campaign finance in the House (too many Reps to bribe; too small each district to keep something like that quiet);
c) provide a more realistic Electoral College; and
d) probably deal a death blow to both political parties (which would be good for the country at this point).
While we are at it, repeal the 17th Amendment (and allow the state's executive to appoint the Senators instead of each sattes' legislatures); drastically disempoer the Executive, making the President more of a 'crisis manager' than a king; limit the Supremes to 10-year terms.
Presto-chango... the federal government is now fixed. Free of charge, too...
Not on board with your solutions, Edward, but I like your passion. We need to be thinking about this.
Again, we need to be clear about what just happened. In addition to turning the White House over to Bush in 2000, with Vieth v. Jubelirer, the right-wing justices on the Supreme Court helped to give the U.S. House of Representatives over to the Republicans in 2012, despite the fact that Republicans received fewer overall votes.
Edward - I don't know that many Americans are interested in that drastic a restructuring of the entire Federal government. And, as for the redistricting, the issue isn't so much the number of citizens per district as where the lines are drawn.
For example: given the highly precise demographic data available now, and the tendency for like-minded Americans to live in geographic proximity to one another, one common tactic used to gerrymand (certainly here in Pennsyltucky) is to take a dense population of, say, Democratic voters and draw the district lines so that that clump of population is split into a variety of districts each with a majority of Rape-Public-CON voters, diluting the ability of the Dems to carry a majority in any given district.
Do that (and some other tricks) carefully enough, and as I noted above, here in PA, with a Dem majority of voters overall, we nonetheless have an incoming Congressional delegation of 5 Dems, and 13 Rape-Public-CONs. Which, apparently, is just fine with SCROTUS. House of Representatives? Not exactly... yuck!
Got Enraged and Engaged:
Mooched the Vote 2012!
;-)
Ed had a good map of Pennsylvania the other night: in 2010, the state was 2/3 red with western and eastern ends blue, by congressional district. This year, after the Republican gerrymander was done, there were two little blue dots in an otherwise-red state. My nephew in Pittsburgh, who hadn't been doing his off-year voting, told me today he now understood why I keep lecturing him to vote every election, because his neighborhood was in a previously-Democratic congressional district that is now represented by a hard-right Tea Partier with a 65% Republican voting edge over Democrats.
This was why Nebraska didn't give Obama the one electoral vote like 2008 - they redistricted and put that one democratic district into three Republican districts.
THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE TO VOTE EVERY YEAR people!!
And the "Republican opposition" to the Voting Rights Act is actually the "Confederate opposition" since the Republican Party has now been taken over lock-stock, and barrel by the Confederate Southern Treason White Supremacy Party.
CJ, throughout the first century-and-a-half of American Congressional history, everytime there was a census, there was new apportionment, which meant a huge battle was fought over re-districting. With it came gerrymanders galore.
Congress 'solved' this by freezing the size of the House at 435 in 1929; up until then, the House increased in size periodically (from its initial 65 in 1789, IIRC) as required. [This turned out to be no solution, to no surprise.]
Remove the issue of apportionment, and you remove re-districting. Remove re-districting, and you eliminate gerrymanders. Remove gerrymanders (and keep the districts small) and you may not even need the Voting Rights Act.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929
Pretzel Logic, I would love to tour the southlands in a travelling minstrel show... ;-P
I offered this proposal up in a group of about two dozen strangers at a political demonstration about a year ago. The show of hands regarding this option was almost unanimous in favor of. Given the record low approval rating that Congress has now, I would think the American people would be open to this kind of restructuring. Regarding the location of the lines, when increasing the size of the House by that much -- about 20X -- the lines would be increasingly irrelevent to each sitting House member, as they are about to have their district cut down to 5% of what it was. Also, having a floor and a ceiling makes the district lines a little more obvious: cutting a 75K district in half means *no less than* 30K. You may have some play with the additional 15K, but not much.
The real losers in this kind of setup would obviously be the two major political parties. Just that alone is formidable opposition. But when we look at the mechanics of what is required to get this done, its not all that radical.
Wealthy people can use super-pac advertizing to cause mass hallucination.
That is what is broken.
A slander fine needs to be levied against the campaign bank accounts and superpacs within 14 days by a 13 member jury each time an advertizement becomes public that can be proven to be untrue. That fine needs to be $10 for each viewer and reader.
Citizens United finished the transition to fascism in our election process.
That is what needs to be fixed.
Slander fines levied against candidates and super-pacs will fix the election process.
Our election system is not broken. Campaign financing isn't even broken.
Fixing the wrong things will make that worse (@Edward).
None of those things are broken. Nice passion though.
The signers of the constitution could not have imagined how massive wealth disparity and mass media could be be used to manipulate the election process to cause delusional thinking.
Here is my favorite.
At oral argument in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder (2009), Justice Anthony M. Kennedy stated:
"Congress has made a finding that the sovereignty of Georgia is less than the sovereign dignity of Ohio. The sovereignty of Alabama is less than the sovereign dignity of Michigan. And the governments in one are to be trusted less than the governments in the other." "No one questions the validity, the urgency, the essentiality of the Voting Rights Act," he added. "The question is whether or not it should be continued with this differentiation between the states." (NY Times)
Can Justice Kennedy's criticism of state-by-state "differentiation" ie "discrimination" inherent in the Voting Rights Act be turned around and applied more broadly, and in terms of the Equal Protection Clause that Bush used in Bush v. Gore?
For example,
1. Is it not discriminatory that voters in some (high density) areas must pass endurance tests (replacing the old "literacy tests"), standing in hours-long lines to exercise their right, tests not required of others who are able to exercise this same right in minutes? (On election day, I was struck by the contrast of long lines in Florida and Ohio to another voter's comment that, when she went to vote at a rural church, there was only one other voter there.)
There have been provisions and adjustments for per capita representation (although clearly we have gone way beyond the demographics enshrined in Article 1: "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative."). Following constitutionally mandated 10-year census, states lose/gain representatives in order to maintain some proportional representation.
Should there not be a similar law regarding access to the means of choosing those officials, beginning at with basic per capita mandates for numbers of polling sites and polling machines?
2. What about interstate "differentiation"/discrimination in voter registration?
See, for example, the comment of anonymoose & squirrel on this thread:
"In Tennessee they have made it almost impossible to register to vote late in the season, not before the period has ended but in the last few weeks. I registered by mail ten days before the deadline to post the letter and they lost it. It wasn't lost in the mail it was lost by the Shelby County Election Commission and they lost 15,000 the same way during the 2008 election."
To begin with, why must voter registration be geared towards the election cycle? This just increases periodic high volume registration that might actually overwhelm local institutions (in addition to incompetence and/or corruption). It makes more sense to have a continuous registration process, which would not put increasing pressure on the system and/or on (potentially disenfranchised) voters as election day nears.
On his/her 18th birthday, the government should send each eligible voter a voter-registration form and/or information on how to register. Every child born in the US receives a social security number. This means that there already exists a system with the tools to track the age of every native-born American. (As those eligible for the draft found out during the Vietnam War era!) Of course, it would help if there was standardized federal voter registration, but it is still not impossible on a state-by-state basis.
I would like to think Justice Thomas would have a liberal view of the Voting Rights Act. But who knows?
Clarence has whatever view Scalia tells him to have.
are you kidding? Thomas? Thomas is the most hostile of any justice to anything smacking of protecting minority rights.
Thomas follows whatever direction the people who buy him give to him.
You would think so but if you actually read his opinions you come away completely confused, and not because he is black but because they are some of the worst pieces of legal reasoning imaginable.
The only other people I can think of in the modern era who have written anything I would regard as "Worse" from a legal reasoning standpoint are John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales if that tells you anything.
Thomas sold his soul a LONG TIME ago!! He is bought and paid for by the extreme right.
His wife is tea party, however I am not at all convinced that this is a bad thing. Its very possible they are taking the time to put in an end to the madness that happened in Florida especially, their efforts didn't pay off, far from it, it got more voters out.
Maybe I am being optimistic but Roberts has voiced his frustrations that their supreme court is seen as partisan.
If Roberts has an opinion about the Supreme Court being seen as "Partisan" it's that they shouldn't have gotten caught.
Thomas is against the same affirmative action programs that he himself used to get through school.
I have really never quite understood Clarence Thomas He believes affirmative action hurt him more than it helped him. Even with his degree from Yale, he had a hard time getting a job because he believed that all the employers refused to hire him because they felt he only got through on "affirmative action". You'd think the blatant racism of the employers he faced would be what he concentrated on, but instead it appears he blames "affirmative action"!
He is also an Ayn Rand acolyte and that just blows me away. I've tried reading her books (both when I was young and now) but I can't get through a single one of them - she's one of those authors who doesn't let you "discover" what she's trying to tell you - she hits you in the head with a bat on page 1. NOT a great author to my mind!!!
Boy, as partisans become more unreasonable, and we are faced with litigating again laws that have been settled for 3 generations time, maybe the solution would be more along the lines of third world nations - same day registration and voting, with the use of indelible ink!
Now what would those VRA challengers say to such a change? Who cares! -Kevo
GOP:"1850, 1950- we'll take either one!"
SCOTUS: "I DO miss my mint julep on the veranda, and listening to the strains of "Swing low, sweet chariot" drifting from the cotton fields."
Remember the Act that gave 18 year olds the right to vote? The Supreme Court upheld the Act because Congress has the right to set rules for federal elections. The Supreme Court ruled that, indeed, Congress was responsible for setting the rules for federal elections, but for state elections, the states could do it. Having to conduct two sets of elections would have been prohibitively expensive for the states, so they allowed 18 year olds to vote in state elections.
The Court will likely rule the voting rights act constitutional. And the President will go even further. In his post election speech, Obama said, "We have to fix that" when referring to the long lines caused by attempts to suppress the vote. I am confident he will.
"Given the current makeup of the high court, it's not unreasonable to think there are five conservative votes for weakening the landmark civil rights law.
Keep in mind, the Voting Rights Act remains a critically important statute, and was used just this year to block odious voter-ID proposals in Texas and South Carolina."
............
There is widespread hope that if the Voting Rights Act is overturned, the highly unsuccessful Voter ID laws attempted by several Republican governors will be a replaced by a much more respected Voter IQ law.
Republicans are upset with this substitution, mainly because they will lose massive numbers of their voting base in the wide swath that is part of the country from west Texas through southern Missouri across Kentucky to the eastern seaboard of southern Virginia. Included would be everything South of those areas to the Gulf of Mexico. Mid to southern Florida would very likely be excluded from this area.
Several Southern legislators, asked about this, replied, "Voter IQ Law? Sounds like a good idea to me..." not fully understanding that they themselves would probably be among the numbers eliminated from the voter rolls in their own states.
Addendum: Also on the cusp are at least two Supreme Court members.
Usually when the supremes agree to take up this sort of thing it means they want to weaken it. This is why elections MATTER. Sure Romney would not have passed legislation regarding a woman's right to choose, but he would have appointed justices who would do the job for him. You see, for conservatives, you are only an activist judge if you rule against them.
It is really hard to guess where the heads of the Justices are. Though I doubt it, it is plausible that conservatives looked at the partisan manipulations of the very foundation of our democracy and concluded that they need to reverse themselves.
On constitutional grounds, not on any 30 year precedents. The Elections clause is explicit on the powers of Congress to do whatever they like with law regarding elections: Section 1, article 4:
Personally, I don't think that Scalia has had any come to Jesus conversion experience, but Justice Kennedy and Justice Roberts might plausibly have had a change of heart, and pressed with liberals on the court to hear this case.
Unlikely, but possible.
JohnM -- The Elections Clause seems straightforward, so can you or someone else help me understand the reasoning in Vieth v. Jubelirer? I knew this was coming, but like most of the SCOTUS rulings since Bush v. Gore, the ad hoc factor seems greater than any legal argument.
I think the court is rushing to overturn more old precedents before Obama gets to replace one of them. It is beyond my comprehension why the SCOTUS would even want to go near the issue that has the potential for antagonizing minorities. A decision weakening the law will only bring more attention to the court by minorities, garner more public interest in the issue and support for who ever Obama nominates to the court.
This treatment of the issue today in Slate is helpful:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/11/the_supreme_court_may_gut_the_voting_rights_act_and_make_gerrymandering.html
So is a reading of the Scalia-screed decision in Vieth v. Jubelirer itself, complete with Parliamentary, pre-Revolutionary strict constructionist revisionism (gag!). Here's the text via the Brennan Center:
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/vieth_v_jubelirer/
We are in deep doo-doo. It was one thing to grow up during the "Impeach Earl Warren" years in Alabama; it was another to live through the results of Bush v. Gore, as thousands of American troops were not able to; I'm almost too old to endure this attempt to reverse the progressive direction of American history.
Well, we won on Tuesday, but SCOTUS has something else in mind.
I'm extremely glad that Judge Roberts decided to keep Obama care(s). But I'm worried that he did this largely so that he could get away with many more conservative decisions. Healthcare reform will get far more attention than most of these others decisions so by making this one case a clear example of independence, he may free the conservative court to run rampant over many others. Hopefully Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan can fulfill the role President Obama envisioned for them by bringing home the real world experiences of everyday Americans so at least a few on the court may understand what voting rights really means. It's also possible that after witnessing the unprecedented voter suppression efforts of this election may be, just maybe, enough understand how important it is to keep voting rights. Elections absolutely matter and at least I don't have to worry about the next few nominations.
Helena, I am not a lawyer, but I think the interesting speculation is what the nature of the unstated constitutional objections are regarding gerrymandering. This article has some interesting coverage of the possible arguments, with specific reference to Vieth. Perhaps you have already seen it. (link to abstract with downloadable pdf)
Gerrymandering is one of the oldest tricks in the book, how do they keep letting it happen.
Maybe the supremes just want to add more states to the list that have to get permission to change voting laws close to an election - LOL
Wow, how partisan have we become as a nation! Maybe the "Justices" will revoke voting to "land holding gentry" after all!
In Tennessee they have made it almost impossible to register to vote late in the season, not before the period has ended but in the last few weeks. I registered by mail ten days before the deadline to post the letter and they lost it. It wasn't lost in the mail it was lost by the Shelby County Election Commission and they lost 15,000 the same way during the 2008 election. These votes are mostly students and young blacks so the purpose was to prevent them from voting Democratic. Memphis, Tenn is primarily a Democratic-voter area so they d everything possible to prevent voting here.
My only concern was voting for Obama since I'm not going to stay in Tennessee any longer than I have to, or enough to get some money to go places where there are jobs and not controlled by republicans since Memphis is hell.
I contacted them several times but got no answer until I contacted the local Democratic Party but they still lost my registration form.
Boycott these States. I'll avoid driving through Missouri and Oklahoma and buying gas if I have to drive through there. Boycott products from these states. Warehouses ship stuff out of here and they can be made to ship from western warehouse if you buy online. Tell them to do that when you buy. You can threaten to send it back if it has a Tennessee or other state address which suppresses votes.
If you don't mind the cold, there are plenty of jobs available in ND. Also, you don't have to worry about registering to vote because we are the only state in the nation where you do not have to register. Just show up on election day with an i.d. showing you live in this state and you are good to go. Do not be scared off by the fact that ND is a red state, if you move to Fargo, it is not so red here.
And you could make ND less red.
Or you could join us in Blue Maryland!
ND can't be but SO red, as they just had a surprising win by a Democratic Senate candidate!
That's outrageous what happened to your and the other votes. I do lots of voter registration in my state, but I am HYPER-meticulous about turning them into the Board of Elections and even keep a spreadsheet of people I've registered and whether they have shown up in the system yet (which is publically availabl online). If someone doesn't show up after awhile, I contact them and send them another form.
Dan, if you look at ND's history, they always vote red for President, and mostly blue for Senators and Rep.'s. I have to say it is a good state to live it. Low crime, low cost of living, state surplus, unemployment was at 2.4% in September.
I wonder if the Supreme Court will give the extreme right wing of the Republican Party the goal that they have been longing for all along.
Remember that the Heritage Foundation and the right wing extremists joined together and started their propaganda campaign BECAUSE of the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
This new Republican Party is DETERMINED to return the United States back to before 1965 and is intent disenfranchising minorities and women. They came pretty close this election - we can't sit on our laurels for two years like we did after the 2008 election - it is time to get these extreme right wing nuts OUT of our Congress and OUT of our Government.
The "new" Republican Party, aka The Old Confederate Southern Treason Party.
Maybe one constitutional amendment is needed for both this and the citizens united decision
Congress can set whatever rules they want for national elections. They should take that power and craft laws that not only make it fair for everyone but push the states towards standardized voting rules for all elections.
From this to Citizens United and everything else in between Congress definitely needs to check and balance this conservative Supreme Court whenever we have to. Not only do they have to do it more, but they have to do it more quickly.
Absolutely. The right wing minority is wagging the national dog.
Please check out this story..omg you could have a field day with this one..LOL
http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2012/11/the-end-of-liberty-in-america-only.html
He is suggesting cutting off your nose to spite your face.
He's probably friends with this guy.
Wow! that poor, pathetic little man. I really feel sorry for him, I hope he someday escapes his dilusional little world.
Amazing that the SCOTUS decided to accept this challenge. Wonder what would have happened if repiblicans won? Despite Chief Justice Roberts approving the Affordable Care Act, I still beleive the far-right injustices especially Scalia & Thomas are corrupt. Roberts will have to vote with the far-right justices on everything to make up for his vote on ACA. The voting rights act is still valid and necessary. We cannot let the SCOTUS weaken or overturn this law!!!!
But what options do we have if they do?? They are Supreme..
And here I thought we had a few days to relax after fighting for Barack..
I think the Voting Rights Act should be amended. Election Day should be a national holiday, and voting should be compulsory.
Why is it that we seem to be fighting over issues that were settled decades ago like the Civil Rights Act, Roe v Wade, etc. Can anyone doubt that the justices appointed by republican presidents are not activists under their skirts, I mean robes. I thought the job of the Supreme Court was to interpret laws not legislate new ones or reconsider laws on the books that have already stood the test of time.
Next some republican will try to prove that Medicare and Medicaid are unconstitutional.
Fortunately Obama will have the chance to appoint one or two justices before his administration ends to balance the extremists like Scalia and company.
Why is it that we seem to be fighting over issues that were settled decades ago
Because as Frank Rich said, the Right is "the cockroaches of American politics." Just when you think you've stomped the last one, they're ba-a-a-a-ck!
Here is the biggest con job that these Republicans, extremists of hatred, and the extreme wealthy been pulling. Jesus talked about being careful of rich people and clergy. Jesus mentioned that it is easier for a camel to get through an eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven. Which means these rich people causing all this trouble would go to Hell. But what does these republicans, extremists of hatred, and extreme wealthy do, they claim to be good Christians to deceive people and than demand all these things that you know will only bring abuse, misery, despair and death to people. Now it just cannot get any better than that in seeing the total con job these people have been pulling. And will they stop nope, because they think they are the job creators in which they have gotten so much help for. Talk about arrogant jerks they are at the top of the list. Corrupt, as the day is long as the rich even have the nerve enough to tell President Obama to follow the Romney policies. And every step of the way they will deceive you. Hypocrites, because they have not even followed the teachings of Jesus or whatever their religious faith is, except to desire and worship greed and crave power where they think they are God.
Since the Constitution give Congress the power to manage congressional elections, then I would say the US Supreme Court should back up the Voting Rights Act.
Lets see...
The list of things that no one will ever fix but they will keep talking about...
The Voting Rights Act was to ensure fair access ot voting by all Americans. The 5 Supreme Court Injustices don't believe in fairness. And certainly not for Democrats, minorities and women.
The Tea Party won't be happy until all brown skinned people and women are reduced to chattel once again.
One thing I think that we need to do is to take advantage of the ground network already in place by the Obama campaign and get people out there to get folks registered to vote... with their pictures IDs well in advance of the next election. Lets not wit until just before the election, but have everything in place.
Why can't a voters picture be affixed to their voter ID card like a drivers lic. or passport.
Can't this country pull it's brains out of its ass even for THREE days?
Can't this country pull its brains out of its ass even for THREE days in succession?
I am afraid the message that the tea party evangelical extremists took away from this election was that Governor Scott and and others in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia had their hands tied in their efforts to deny the vote to those they deem undeserving and that has to be changed, and then here comes the Supreme Court to help them out.
Oh Joy. Such a wonderful week had to end on this note. We can always hope one of the Gang of Five will surprise us. Maybe John Roberts again?
@Edward Kirby:
To cap district size at 75,000 would require over 4,100 Congressional Districts, almost 10x the number there are now. The average district right now has ~720,000 people. And since districts cannot cross state lines (that will be true no matter how many we have), there is always an imbalance when you have states with only 1 Rep for the whole state (= way more than 720K people, but not enough to earn a 2nd seat) vs states who have just earned a seat by the skin of their teeth and usually have far smaller populations per district. look up "apportionment" for the formula used for this. I am not against adding more districts/members of Congress, but there will never be districts equal in size.
I think the better way to deal with gerrymandering--by party, which is the real way it's a problem--is to make laws saying that the % of people of one party in one district can't be off by more than a reasonable margin from the state average of that party. The problem is, more and more people are registering Independent, plus I believe some states don't regiater by party at all. Maybe it would be better to use actual voting for high offices, since GIS computers can easily do that now.
In my state (NC), we have 13 districts. There used to be 7D/6R which is as close to break-even as you can get, and very well fits the makeup of the state (we were Red by the slimmest margin of any state this Presidential election, and Blue by the slimmest margin in 2008). Yet a GOP/Tea Party takeover in 2010 got hold of Redistricting and gerrymandered it so we will now be 9R/4D (almost 10R/3D). Clearly that does not match the demographics of this state, and the %age of Democrats in Dem-heavy districts is far higher than the %age of Republicans in Rep-heavy districts. I don't see how this did not violate redistricting laws.
I agree ! Edward Kirby is obviously a well-meaning person, but I believe his solution will only make a bad situation far worse, not really resolve the gerrymander issue, and virtually impossible to achieve!
I have seen this issue argued for at least 60 years in political science and political history seminars and conferences and the medicine offered is nearly always far worse than the disease. The fact is that this issue has plagued this nation since Massachusetts' Governor Elbridge Gerry signed the first gerrymander law in 1812.
The best solution I have seen is the creation of non-partisan redistricting commissions and even that does not work when state legislators require their own approval of commission recommendations.
Let's apply that section 5 thing about having to get official clearance in Washington before they may put into effect any change in election laws or procedures, no matter how small to all parts of all states. There, that'll make it fair.
white people mourning Romney:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/pajaroentertainmentltd/white-people-mourning-romney-31ii
Not all white people :)
No, not all white people......but the is just the kind of truth that we find hard to swallow. When you look at all these pictures and listen to the right wing whine, because they think willard would have made a difference. Please.
And 4 more years of depression with Hussein in office.....higher gas prices...MORE welfare and foodstamps...more Coalminers losing their jobs....THAT is what AMERICANS NOT on the Government dole are mourning. But never fear...with the House firmly in Republican control, the brakes on this agenda will be heavily applied.