At Tuesday’s argument before the Supreme Court about gerrymandering — the science of using map-drawing and Big Data to keep ruling parties in power even when a majority votes for the opposition — Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was searching for a way to uphold the unsavory practice. But there was a problem: Gerrymandering is making a mockery of the right to vote in Wisconsin, the focus of the case before the court, where a redrawn map allowed Republicans to hold more than 60 percent of the state assembly while getting less than half the vote. And so Alito resorted to subterfuge. He waited until the closing minutes and hit Paul M. Smith, the lawyer arguing against the Wisconsin plan, with the last question of the argument. “You paint a very dire picture about gerrymandering and its effects,” Alito said, “but I was struck by something in the seminal article by your expert, Mr. McGhee, and he says there, ‘I show that the effects of party control on bias are small and decay rapidly, suggesting that redistricting is at best a blunt tool for promoting partisan interests.’ So he was wrong in that?” The question baffled Smith, who said he would need to see the context. “Well,” Alito retorted, “that’s what he said.” No, it isn’t. I called Eric McGhee, the expert, after the argument. The quote Alito pulled was not from the “seminal article” McGhee co-wrote proposing the legal standard for gerrymandering at the center of the case. It was from an earlier McGhee paper, using data from the 1970s through 1990s. In the paper at the center of the case, by contrast, “we used updated data from the 2000s,” McGhee told me, “and the story is very different. It’s gotten a lot worse in the last two cycles. . . . The data are clear.” Why would Alito resort to this sleight of hand? Perhaps because it’s clear that if he stuck to the facts, he’d have to acknowledge that the growing abuse of gerrymandering threatens democracy. more https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...17f86c-a87b-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html
NPR had a lengthy description this morning of how the gerrymandering question affected the health and lives of two previous Supreme Court justices. You might find it interesting to replay it from their website. IMO the issue is fairly clear--can politicians in power gerrymander at will, or are there certain basic principles that should be followed? If so, what are they, and can they be legally enforced? On the other hand, if you have a small, productive, intelligent rural population feeding and caring for a large, nonproductive, less intelligent city population, who should actually have the greater say? What if the less capable population made decisions that destroyed their own caretakers?
Wow ... nonproductive, less intelligent city population Funny ... I just went to a Conference and Presentation Monday afternoon at Capital One in Chicago's High Tech Organizations ... Guess those dumb ass city folks are funding the State ... can't eat Corn everyday
If they can't feed themselves during a disaster scenario they are still limited. High tech immediately goes out the window when electricity is cut.
Quoting the WAPO and then using them to describe "fake news" is the pot calling the kettle... well you know. I mean, how many stories have they published in the last year that have had to be rescinded because they were so apparently fraudulent they would have been sued otherwise?? Here's the thing. In the world of voting, folks who know that their incumbent is likely to be reelected easily don't vote. The behavior of not voting is not being taking into account in the data model, and isn't being projected as to what the likely voter rates would have been had there been an actual race that required real participation. SO all of these suppositions that "show" more democrats voting simply have no merit given the paucity of the data to support it. More, democrats would just as likely do EXACTLY THE SAME THING if they were able to ensure that only their candidates could win. Been to Maryland ever? How about Illinois..? California??
And here's the thing. The last three sentence above hit the nail on the head. End gerrymander, and the likely result will be more voting. Good analysis, dr.luggit.
I agree the democrats do it too ( I know because back when I used to believe in the DNC, I worked on designing proposed congressional districts and I know how we came up with our proposals--race). That said, the highlighted part is wrong. Perhaps counter intuitive, but the GOP creates most of of the DNC safe seats. Gerrymandering has evolved over the years. It was finally figured out in Georgia during the Newt Era that packing all the blacks into a district or two took them out of being able to swing several other neighboring districts. This was in part due to the now gutted Voting Rights Act mandates in place at the time. The GOP packs democrats into the smallest possible urban districts now in order to give the GOP a better chance in all the other ones. Now here is the down range kicker--if the DNC were to win on this and the their safe seats got broken apart in the process, it could very well be an even worse situation for them. The DCCC is horrible horrible horrible at helping democratic candidates in most places, particularly the South and fly over country. Without a few safe seats in there, they could lose even more seats.
And so be it for both parties. The only thing that is important: the people should pick the winner, not the Party the district.
