Dave Wasserman is the US House editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report:
By our estimate, neutral/commission maps in the blue states of CA, CO, NJ, VA and WA (93 seats total) will end up costing Dems 10-15 House seats they could have seized by gerrymandering, making Republicans even stronger favorites for House control. https://t.co/B6pIvVChXf
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) December 9, 2021
In several states controlled by Democrats—including my own California—voters have approved nonpartisan commissions to draw district boundaries. In those states, we get fairminded maps that treat Democrats and Republicans equally.
No state controlled by Republicans has ever created a truly nonpartisan redistricting commission. In nearly every red state, the legislature controls district maps and gerrymanders them as ruthlessly as they can. There are a couple of blue states that also do this, but not many. The end result is that blue states tend to draw maps fairly while red states draw maps that heavily favor Republicans.
On the bright side, liberals can all feel good about themselves for being so dedicated to fair voting. On the down side, we're probably going to lose the next election because of this. Hooray for us.
I've come around to the "Don't pre-emptively disarm" position on this as well. If we want to pass national anti-gerrymandering laws, then I'm all ears. But state level you might as well tilt it as much as possible, since that's what Republicans are doing.
Yes. I can imagine national election reforms that would do us a lot of good. Democratic-controlled states can't do it by themselves.
Unilateral disarmament. Who didn't see this coming? I suggest the DNC start consulting with Lincoln Project from now on. Or is it too late?
I second that. We can't become as dishonest as the party of trump, but must learn how to assemble & repeat - together - some better slogans, sound bites & explanatory messaging of how government works. They're busy promulgating the message that it doesn't & shouldn't- no better than Bannon.
I know that Maryland Democrats have been guilty of gerrymandering, but the same people who take umbrage at that haven't been noted for pointing a finger at all of the truly outrageous gerrymandering done by the other party - can we just call them Know-Nothings or Insurrecionists now?
I think the point from the Democratic perspective should be that either nobody gerrymanders or everyone gerrymanders; and the Democrats would have come out ahead. The problem with the Democratic approach is that there’s no reason for Republicans to stop gerrymandering because there’s no possible downside for them—Democrats never retaliate and, as in this example, actually create even fairer redistricting plans in response to bring screwed in red states.
Yes, & when the redistricting choice was on the ballot here, our Democratic bigwigs gave us their direction on the sample ballots: vote "yes." But I & some others didn't vote as suggested, because that meant that the final decision would be made by the state supreme court in the event that the participants chosen by the parties could not come to an agreement.
And guess what happened? Yes, it went to the majority-Republican court, which has selected other "deciders."
Ours has devolved into a nonpartisan political party lead by an out of touch gerontocracy supported by a courtier class whose fate is determined by success in fundraising but unconnected to the party success in elections. I see no prospect of change before the Trump restoration which means that we’re basically headed towards authoritarianism (but with lots of self-righteousness and feeling in the fundraising emails).
I share your fear, but not your expectation - that may seem unjustified, but I have to hold onto a little hope.
I appreciate your perspective. But it’s seems clear that either for reasons of selfishness (the two assholes) or an inability to see the gathering storm for what it is or an unwillingness to confront Republicans, I think a Republican Congress in 2022 and a Trump restoration sometime thereafter is close to an inevitability.
For myself, I have enough friends who have themselves (or through family) experienced life under authoritarianism to make sure to have a plan and a place to land. I urge others who might be in a position to do so to learn the words to O Canada.
I wish you & your friends well. Unfortunately, I no longer have the wherewithal to even get out of the old, old dominion, & the only close friend elsewhere who would welcome me is a US citizen whose husband died & who was then "rescued" from the hatred of Muslims by a relative who took her home - to Tehran. Of course, I fear for her safety there, too.
Hope that our rational fears will not turn out to be accurate & that we'll all be alive to see trump defeated & no second insurrection. My real prayer is that he will be unable to campaign.
From your mouth to god’s ear!
Looking at history & around at us now, belief in deus ex machina seems unjustified - perhaps that ear has grown tired of listening in the common era.
Lehit'!
OMG yes I was livid when the quisling Democrats in the statehouse voted for that turd of a constitutional amendment and I told everyone I knew in Virginia on my side to vote no but that did not good because I don't know enough people hahaha. Now we are screwed in Virginia.
Not certain; I keep alert to the morning VPAP email, & some seem to think that the map presented yesterday (not finalized) might not be as bad as expected, but it does present a problem for Spanberger & 2 others, as I recall. Have no idea if comments submitted by the public will have any effect, given the calendar crunch- duplicate elections, anyone?
And I was glad to just be voting & not handing out those sample ballots as I've done in previous years.
Sounds like wonderful example of a pyrrhic victory: the Democrats take the moral high ground and lose at the ballet box.
A Black Swan event, indeed.
Repealing Roe v. Wade may be a radical game-changer, but who knows? If it is going to happen, it will be before the 2020 elections...
The Supremes announce all their decisions before they leave for summer recess so yes they will announce their repeal before the 2022 midterm elections.
Given how that expected decision would/will motivate Democrats to vote, I'd almost expect that the Riberts court - if indeed it still is that- they may wish they could really wait.
But since SCOTUS just made a nearly unprecedented announcement that they MAY announce a decision on an unspecified case on Friday morning...
I kind of feel we should go on the attack with this. We should sponsor initiatives in purple states. Those initiatives propose independent commisions, AND, I think it would be good if a statewide initiative mandated that if the percentages of total votes cast was enough different than the number of seats awarded, the districting shall be declared invalid and the districts be redrawn by independent commission, and that commission's makeup shall mirror the aforesaid vote total percentages.
How far off is far enough off? Maybe 5 percent? Someone with the right data and tools can make a better analysis, but we've seen a lot worse than that.
Thing is, a lot of this stuff can't get past a statewide election. But it doesn't have to.
Furthermore, I would love to see Republicans try to argue against this. They don't believe in democracy. They don't believe in majority rule. They are enemies of the America I know and love.
And yet they're their own worst enemies- electing to forego both masks & social distancing, & now vaccinations.
T think it goes beyond just owning the libs. There’s a logic to it: Biden was elected in no small part to deal with Covid-19. If Republicans can get the pandemic going, it’s Biden and the Democrats who will be held accountable. I believe that at least some of the decline in Biden’s favorability rating is attributable to his passivity in deal with the situation.
Oh, I know that the Republican politicians are accomplishing their goals that way; it's just a d###d shame that the rank-and-file are sacrificing health & lives. I don't see Biden as being all that passive; he has risked attacks by issuing reasonable vaccine mandates that should be under his purview, & of course, some judges are blocking even those, however temporarily. It's especially aggravating that non-government employers such as Fox can issue mandates while decrying everything Biden says & does. I sure haven't been a fan of his for his past behavior, but given the likelihood that no other Dem could have won, am hopeful enough that I don't want to be very critical - especially given the Manchin-Sinema problem
So how do we reason with Republicans who in many cases surreptitoously get vaccinated themselves but publicly encourage their voters to risk all?
The GOP has no shame. You will never, ever, ever, ever, ever get the GOP to argue for gerrymander reform if they control a statehouse. Virginia's amendment was actually proposed by the 2019 GOP controlled house after they read the tea leaves and knew chances were high that they would lose control in the 2019 elections. So this "reform" was simply a trojan horse for the GOP to keep in control of gerrymandering via the VA Supreme Court which was packed with GOP friendly judges over the 20 years they controlled the statehouse.
Any word on if Yungkins will bulldoze his way to removing Virginia from the Interstate Compact on Climate Change?
Apparently, his executive order is insufficient to do so, but George P. Bush's Non-Mexican MAGA-adjacent Carlyle Group Heir seems not to care.
Presumably those 10-15 Republicans from swing districts in blue states will be least Liz Cheney types and maybe leftier. Will be interesting to see what the Trump party does with them.
Generally the idea is purple state is that they set the districts to create a few D+60 and many R+5-10.
Swing districts are what republican members of nonpartisan commissions go for in heavily blue states.
Liz Cheney's district is the state of Wyoming, which has a single seat in the House. Redistricting won't be an issue for her.
Turnout, turnout, turnout...
Georgia, still Brian Kemp's White Triumphalist Fiefdom, just saw 41 local offices flip D. If the Empire State of the South, which is still more of a piece with Lester Maddox & Newt Gingrich & Saxby Chambliss than it is James Earl Carter, Jr., & John Lewis, can overcome a GQP Tilt, almost anywhere can.
Only if they have a Stacey Abrams.
I see Stacy Abrams is the new Green Lantern, now that Barry Hussein can't run for office, anymore.
I obviously wouldn't go that far, given Georgia's replacement of Democratic representation in the statewide electoral positions. And I don't suppose that Garland will take action against Georgia in quite the way he's doing in Texas
He can run for any office but one.
Imagine if Barry ran for president of Kenya.
Speaker of the House!
Putting the Q in John Q. Adams.
The Speaker's Chambers will be moved to Pizza Pingpong.
The secret headquarters of the secret president, in the basement of a random pizza parlor built out of stealth bomber technology and masked with innocent pizza.
Comet Ping Pong was sold for $1 to its current owner by the CIA, who held the deed since 1943, when the building was an OSS safehouse.
Good point.
All the more reason then, for Democrats to move more functionality to states, and to support decentralization, rather than moving ever more functionality up to the Federal level.
And yet all we see from them is constant fights to move *even more* functionality to the Federal level (most obviously wrt abortion). Yeah, that's smart; push everything to the jurisdiction where you're weaker!
Honestly, US politics is a constant stream of tweedledum fighting tweedledumber.
You are nuts! Moving things to the states creates the New Confederacy. Our only hope of saving our democracy is actually at the federal level.
Our only hope for saving democracy is to create a system whereby we deliberately and aggressively squash the desires of 50%-\epsilon of the voters like bug?
And you think that will end well, do you?
Looks like somewhere learned absolutely NOTHING from "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it".
In 2010 I voted against California's Proposition 20 (redistricting "reform"). It was obvious that all states had to make the same change at the same time or there would be a significant imbalance in the House of Representatives.
What did Kevin do?
All California newspapers, with the exception of the Sacramento Bee, supported Proposition 20. Other idiots, like AARP, the goo-goo California Common Cause, and Democrat politicians were also in favor of passage.
When it comes to cold, hard political tactics, the Republicans are much better. Example: They appoint young members to the Supreme Court.
Democrats nominate those at age: 60 (RBG), 55 (Breyer), diabetic 55 {Sotomayor), 50 (Kagan), 64 (Garland - no Senate vote).
Republicans nominate: 43, 48, 49, 50, 53, 55.
When a position is lifetime, actuarial tables must be consulted.
The AP article linked in the tweet doesn't say, but I'm curious how many of those 10-15 House seats "costing Dems" are in California. It might not be many if any at all.
California Republicans pushed for redistricting reform under Arnold, and Prop 20 passed in 2010. Since then, Dems have picked up House seats.
It's hard to say what effect redistricting had, and how much was affected by California's electorate trending blue. Anyway, here are the numbers from recent elections.
California: 53 districts
2010: 34 D, 19 R
Cal. passes Prop 20.
2012: 38 D, 15 R
2014: 39 D, 14 R
2016: 39 D, 14 R
2018: 46 D, 7 R
2020: 42 D, 11 R
California will have 52 districts beginning in 2022.
The prior commission ended up as a mild democratic gerrymander, largely because the democrats did a very effective job in faking a lot of partisan pressure as independent citizen comments and influencing the commission that way. There was an interesting article in a left wing publication explaining how they did that .
As I said earlier , democrats have some biased advantage in commissions due to those who will end up on the commissions being more liberal by profession and inclination. But, last time, the democratic bias came mostly from them just being more competent than Republicans in rigging the system. And cannot blame them for that . The ideal is some system that produces fair unbiased results ( if we can agree what that is) but reality means it is never perfect and can be manipulated. But , like the adversary system in courts , hopefully a fair result ends up as both sides try to manipulate and it cancels out ..and I expect both sides should try their best. Cannot blame democrats for effectively rigging it when Republicans were just incompetent in countering.
This time around, so far to me seems the institutional bias towards dems might be a touch higher ( as intellectual institutions even more dominated by them ) but should be more than offset by Republicans being more competent in countering ( cannot be worse) and many democrats obsession with racial issues and not focusing on what is best for the party. Seems to be an obsession with creating as many minority majority districts ( but nobody is a majority in ca) and their lobbying for that cuts into their lobbying for partisan democratic concerns.
If you follow Republicans into the abyss, the false equivalence is no longer false.
Here in Missouri, we did pass redestricting reform, but then sold it back for $100 and a cup of coffee. We had referendum to create a non-partisan, independent redestricting panel, and that passed by something like 60-40. Our Republican government delayed its implementation as long as they could, allowing for a second referendum to be crafted the latter was "lobbying reform", limiting individual campaign donations to $2400 (down from $2500!), and limiting lobbying "gifts" to $5 (down from $10!). Oh, and by the way, also establishing that redestricting would be done by an "independent" commission chosen and appointed by the legislature (i.e., the Republicans). That passed 50.5-49.5.
So, in exchange for reducing the allowed campaign contributions by $100 and a cup of coffee, the Republicans regained control of the whole process, just a few years after the voters overwhelmingly took it away from them. But it was very cleverly hidden inside "voting reform", and enough people fell for it.
I live in Missouri too, and like you, immediately thought about Amendment 3 as I read Kelvin’s post. A jujitsu move that stole the language of 2018’s Amendment 1 with the intent to trick voters back into supporting partisan redistricting. A truly ruthless display of Republican assholery, and anyone not following politics almost certainly voted yes thinking it sounded great. After all, who doesn’t like lobbying reform, campaign finance reform, and bipartisan* commissions?
Democrats need to wake up to the fact they are competing with bad faith actors intent on destroying anything in their way.
*in this case, bipartisan in name only as the Governor determines the make up of the commission.
"voters have approved nonpartisan commissions..."
I know they are blue states, but how are Democrats solely to blame for this?
@colbatguano
They are blue because a majority of the electorate is Dem. By definition, Dems are the ones who voted for nonpartisan redistricting commissions.
Not every voter in a blue state is a Democrat. If every Republican in the state voted for it and 10% of the Democrats did as well, the Dems are to blame?
I voted for Virginia's amendment to its constitution, despite the opposition of the party (which had reversed its position from a couple years ago). There have been some bumps along the way, but the outcome looks to be reasonably fair. Alhtough it may cost us Rep. Spanbarger, a leading moderate.
I don't regret my vote. It would be nice to think we could revive the goo-goos and get some purple red states to go non-partisan. I'm not hopeful.
Spanberger is moving to a friendlier district.
The Squad won't be rid of her so easily. Though I imagine likely sharing the Virginia House delegation with future Squad pledge Jennifer Carroll Foy may be a bit of a drag.
The squad is dead.
Inshallah.
I see that Spanberger has been gerrymandered out of her old Virginia district, which is now much redder. But I haven't heard that she is moving, or even wants to move to a new district.
No she has not announced any plans to move yet. And why should she -- these maps aren't set in stone, the VA Supreme Court is taking comments on them and will have a public hearing to get feedback on the maps.
The current gerrymander proposed moves two of the female reps out of their current districts and takes a hatchet to the democratic voters in Jennifer Wexton's district making a swing district. So a a female Virginia no it's not a good map at all. And you were a fool to vote for this trojan horse of a "gerrymander reform" as it was designed by the GOP to salvage their ability to shape Virginia districts even after they lost control of the statehouse.
No pre-clearance....and wait to approve maps until last possible moment. Why wait? Simple, courts will declare it's too late to fix things for this election cycle.
Try harder. Democrats heavily gerrymandered the northeast, really I should say Northern Republicans.
And no state controlled by democrats has ever created a truly non partisan commission either. Is such a thing even truly possible? They are too easily gamed to favor one side or the other and , so far, democrats have managed to get some redistricting advantage from " non partisan independent " commissions over Republicans in most cases. Not enough to create egregious gerrymanders , but some soft pro democratic ones like what happened last time in California and even more so in Arizona. To some extent, democrats have a natural advantage in " non partisan " commissions as the type of people who tend to be interested in that sort of thing but still identify as not partisan do lean more to the left. Note that sometimes the " independents " on the commissions are independent of democrats by being farther left and never see " farther right from Republicans " on commissions. And of course one problem is some people can just pretend to be a republican while really being a Democrat to get on the commission, or vice versa but Republicans just have not been as good with that trick.
But you can try to solve that issue by giving the party itself a choice of their members with independents also jointly chosen . So far , that structure has been a continual failure. Either by producing a deadlock as neither side will compromise and then it goes to the courts, like va this year. Or , if you have a tiebreaker rule, it all just depends on who chooses the tiebreaker if the sides deadlock , like nj every year . In nj, really why bother even having a commission? Just skip right to the court choosing the tiebreaker as it will always end up there.
And in effect for many commission states , the net result is just democratic control anyway with perhaps some restrictions or pressure to be somewhat less blatant in the gerrymandering. Nj has a commission which , this year is expected to be a soft democratic gerrymander due to a democratic court choosing a democratic tiebreaker. The ny commission is a joke as democratic legislature can overrule. The ca and AZ commissions so far seem to be much less pro democratic than last time ( probably leans a bit democratic in CA still and neutral in az?). Mich seems to be fairly neutral on congressional but pro democratic on state ( on congressional, the most pro Democrat was too much of a jerk and messed up).
And some states without commissions that Republicans control are restrained in how far they can go by state laws or constitutions or democratic leaning activist courts. Fla Republicans will not be able to go as far as they could without the constitutional restrictions, although will be able to push harder now that court is republican majority . Ohio Republicans are constrained somewhat too but there the state geography makes a fairly effective gerrymandering doable without being egregious in method as prohibited by ( fairly loose rules) . But they cannot go as far as Illinois democrats did. Same as Massachusetts in reverse . In MA, the geography allows a 100% democratic house delegation without having to be all that blatant about it.
Basically, the republican advantage just counting up number of seats controlled by each party and commissions vastly overstates the republican advantage.
Republicans are still mostly advantaged by geography as democrats still tend to be more concentrated in most, but not all states. Meaning a neutral map on non partisan criteria will tend to give Republicans a slight advantage . So Illinois democrats have to really create some ridiculous shaped clearly gerrymandering districts to get an unfairly high number of seats while in Ohio, Republicans can do it without being as obvious.
But , even there, the republican advantage is shrinking and might even reverse in ten more years. In recent years, democrats have gained relatively in the more split suburbs while Republicans have somewhat cut into democratic advantages in urban areas and increased their votes in rural areas. Many rural areas are becoming natural republican vote sinks like urban areas are for democrats..
Maybe we won’t get so many crazy republicans if the districts are more balanced.
I know… what have I been smoking? 😂
I voted for that non partisan commission in Michigan.
https://www.michigan.gov/micrc/
If Michigan ends up 50/50 republicans and democrats in the House and legislature, so be it. That’s an accurate reflection of the split in this state.
With completely non partisan criteria , such as geographical compactness, a neutral map in such an even state like Michigan should produce slightly more Republicans than Democrats . Simply because with the natural geography democrats are more packed. Not true in every state ( opposite in Nevada and maybe Virginia and California) but is true in Michigan with one big very democratic city . The increased packing of Republicans in rural areas not enough to offset that. But maybe might get Republicans an advantage of one or two , not as much as what they got from 2010. That republican advantage likely a touch larger for smaller legislative seats . And , in a place like Michigan, vra would normally hurt democrats although the " creative " interpretation of it being pushed by democrats on the committee ( splitting up black heavily democratic Detroit into many districts where they control none) might change that.
And, yes , if districts were more balanced and competitive, it should and will produce less " crazy " Republicans but you have to also concede less " crazy " democrats..although more proper term here is extreme as whether the extreme is " crazy " depends on where you are on the political spectrum.
But that expectation of moderation had not been fulfilled as much lately. As politics has become more polarized and voters realize that control of congress itself is more important than how conservative or liberal, the moderates of either party will vote for the extremes of their own party before a moderate of the other party, even if they are politically closer to the other party moderate . And it is not irrational. If you are say close to the middle, say 55% conservative on a full spectrum, does make sense to vote for a 90% conservative for congress over a 45% conservative barely democratic alternative. In reality, whether an individual republican is a 90 % or 55% conservative means little in actual final votes . They still lose with any too conservative vote anyway . But control of congress is important.
And one argument I rarely hear democrats make when they argue for proportional representation is that, as actual voting for congress becomes more like voting for a parliament, the argument for proportional representation and party list is better. There are strong arguments why a district fptp system makes more sense, and that a more broadly distributed 49% minority which is a majority in 60% of the area SHOULD win over a highly concentrated 51% majority that only is a majority in 40% of places people live. But that makes more sense if the type of representative is affected by the entire political mix, and not just who has 50% + in their party.
Here in CA, I have been greatly disappointed by the ca runoff top two system. In much of CA dominated by national democrats, it should have produced many moderate democrats winning with the support of Republicans and a minority of democrats. And produced a viable state coalition of national Republicans and moderate democrats which could alternate in power with more left wing democrats, leaving the balance of state power being the middle of the electorate ( moderate democrats) .
Has not really happened as national partisanship is so entrenched. Look at recall election where Republicans stubbornly backed elder rather than falconer. And recent senate election where they did not turn out when top two were democrats rather than voting for obviously better choice of Sanchez.
I don’t really have any satisfying answers. The system of government requires a decent respect or the policy preferences of other factions. That’s been lost. And I don’t think it’s coming back anytime soon. I certainly believe that tinkering with voting systems or structural changes aren’t going to help. The various factions hate each other. They don’t really want to coexist. They want to destroy each other. Pistols at 20 paces. That’s how we’re going to end up. Good luck.
The conservative character is a pile of runny dog shit melting in the sun on a hot summer day.
Is something we cannot say too often.
Shit doesn’t melt in the sun. It isn’t like ice cream. It dries out. Perhaps it then blows away, but it may just further harden, like cement.
That analogy works also.
I know there are some nitpickers & naysayers among Left Twitter who are lamenting the recent Convicted Paedophile Josh Duggar with Various GQP Grandees montages as a benighted Democrat embrace of mindless GQP smears of Bill Climpton using Jeffrey Epstein, but it's still jilarious. These montages have everything: then Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, basshole profundo Mike Huckabee, Man on Dog Rick Santorum, MTV's Dan Cortese, Soup Cruz (R - Quintana Roo), Good Hair Rick Perry...
Also think democrats in more states who are gerrymandering have been more effectively focused on gaining control of the house. Republicans seem to have been inclined more toward incumbent protection and locking in an advantage even in a good democratic year for THAT state.
Consider Texas. The republican gerrymander was considerably milder than it could have been and more was about moving republican incumbents from lean to likely or safe republican. In a moderate democratic wave year , it will be very effective in preserving republican seats. But , in such a year , Republicans will lose the house anyway so all it does is lose by less . It does very little to gain republican seats in a neutral year like 2020 when control of the house is very close.
While look at Nevada, where democrats did a very effective gerrymander of a swing state designed to get them all the seats in a year when the national vote is close enough that control is in the balance. To do so, they create all marginal lean to barely likely democratic seats, all of which could go republican in an even moderate republican wave. Very possible the Nevada delegation is all republican after 2022. But they do not care as in that case, they are losing the house anyway.
Ruthless and effective and ignoring the interests of their own incumbents for the good of the party. Do not see Republicans doing that ..
I’d like to see reform that would ensure that Congress reflect the will of the voters, but the Supreme Court’s Republican appointees said we can’t have that. The only thing that will change their minds is for Democrats to gerrymander even more extensively than Republicans. That will require getting control of more state legislatures and governorships. If we want the gaming to end, we first have to beat the GOP at its own game.
I’d much rather live in a state that is doing it right (California) than one that continues to engage in the insanity of hyper partisan, no holds barred warfare.
I agree with you about as often as I agree with Mitch Guthman, but when you're right, you're right.
At least neither of you is Robert E. Lee's Horse.
I'm not clear on how not getting as many seats as we might theoretically have gotten translates into stronger odds for Republican control. Maybe someone meant to say that maps weren't drawn fairly in blue districts. But they didn't.
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Doesn't Iowa have a non-partisan map?