Democrat's race based gerrymandering is in trouble at SCOTUS

[neurosis]

I call bullshit..

I'm surprised to see Washington on that list as well. I know that there has been at least *some* gerrymandering here. Maybe just not in the list of worst offenders.

[mkd]

Democrats love to talk about gerrymandering of districts, but try to have an honest conversation about accurate census counting and see how that goes.

....or voter ID.....

[ajayers180]

I have a lot more where that came from.

I've noticed that.

[ajayers180]

Technically, Texas is included in the racial gerrymandering conversation?

"Texas Racial Gerrymandering
Texas Republicans have unveiled new congressional maps that critics say constitute racial gerrymandering, diluting the voting power of Latino, Black, and Asian communities.
The redistricting, initiated mid-decade, aims to bolster Republican gains ahead of the 2026 midterm elections and is seen as an effort to secure more seats for Donald Trump's agenda.
The dramatic reshaping of District 35, currently represented by Latino Congressman Greg Casar, would absorb historically minority neighborhoods in east Austin into a neighboring district, effectively weakening Latino electoral influence."

Do you have a link for that. I'm currently in Austin, Texas and can't find it.

[mkd]

One last thing to add in the left vs right gerrymandering.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2747/related-bills

"In 2022, Congress nearly passed the Freedom to Vote Act, a landmark package of democracy reforms that included a prohibition on partisan gerrymandering in the drawing of congressional districts. The transformative bill passed the House and had majority support in the Senate. It stalled only because the Senate failed by two votes to modify the chamber's archaic filibuster rules to allow the bill to advance to an up-or-down floor vote."

No surprise here considering what I found earlier?

Who voted against the bill to end partisan gerrymandering?

"All 50 Republican senators voted against advancing the Freedom to Vote Act in a procedural vote, effectively blocking the legislation from moving forward in the Senate. No Republican senators supported the bill, resulting in a 51-49 vote against advancing it—the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster were not met. The only Democratic senator who voted "no" was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who did so as a procedural maneuver to bring the bill up again later, not out of opposition to the bill itself. The opposition from Republicans was unified, and the vote failed primarily due to their filibuster."

His vote was about ending the filibuster rule. Dang good thing he did that, too, because the minority party would be totally screwed

[ajayers180]

His vote was about ending the filibuster rule. Dang good thing he did that, too, because the minority party would be totally screwed

I lost your point after "His" did you mean Booker?? who wanted to end the filibuster?

[Incogneeto]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/cory-booker-tantrum-video-sparks-avalanche-of-jokes-memes/ar-AA1JAVpR?ocid=BingNewsSerp

[mkd]

I lost your point after "His" did you mean Booker?? who wanted to end the filibuster?

Had Schumer not voted No, tit would have destroyed the minority party filibuster. He was the only Dem with a brain on that day

[Jeff]

Who voted against the bill to end partisan gerrymandering?

"All 50 Republican senators voted against advancing the Freedom to Vote Act in a procedural vote, effectively blocking the legislation from moving forward in the Senate. No Republican senators supported the bill, resulting in a 51-49 vote against advancing it—the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster were not met. The only Democratic senator who voted "no" was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who did so as a procedural maneuver to bring the bill up again later, not out of opposition to the bill itself. The opposition from Republicans was unified, and the vote failed primarily due to their filibuster."

You know how this shit works, what else was in the bill?
They love to cram useless shit in there knowing full well the other party will vote no so they can champion that they all voted no on said article only telling half the truth.
Also as MTG said a lot of times they vote no even if they support it because then it gives control to the other party to be the ones that bring up bills to vote on.
It's a game, that's all it is. Otherwise there would only be one single thing to vote on at a time...which is how it should be IMO.

[YoDoug]

Otherwise there would only be one single thing to vote on at a time...which is how it should be IMO.

One could only dream. That would keep all the misc pork out of bills because if everyone had to vote on subsidies and pork for other states it would be DOA. The downside is presidents would veto anything the other party put before them.

[neurosis]

You know how this shit works, what else was in the bill?
They love to cram useless shit in there knowing full well the other party will vote no so they can champion that they all voted no on said article only telling half the truth.

They do, and there were things in the bill that I know Republicans wouldn't support, but they wouldn't even pass the procedural vote for debate in the Senate. The Democrats said that they would be willing to hear arguments for amendments, but Mitch McConnell said that the bill was unnecessary.

The chance of Republicans voting to make gerrymandering illegal seems very unlikely when you look at how many States take advantage of it.

[neurosis]

Otherwise there would only be one single thing to vote on at a time...which is how it should be IMO.

    

That's another thing that I would like to see disappear from US politics. If these guys had to vote on one policy at a time, it would be easier to hold them accountable for their votes. 

[beej]

   

That's another thing that I would like to see disappear from US politics. If these guys had to vote on one policy at a time, it would be easier to hold them accountable for their votes. 

I get what you're saying but, that's never going to happen, though. more often than not, 2 policies are so intertwined that if you don't include them together, neither will have a chance of passing. so just because of that in and of itself, you often have multi-policy bills. so then you could say, but let's not have bills that have policies that are not intertwined. but how do you define that? it's complicated. and to further complicate it, things will get attached to bills just for the sake of political talking points. A bill might get proposed to prevent child trafficking. which everyone would be in favor of, but then attached to it, is a proposal to defund planned parenthood. now republicans can claim that democrats voted against the child trafficking bill, and vise-versa.

At some point we went from a political system that seeks compromise to a political system that seeks cheap political points. both parties are guilty and we ourselves are guilty of encouraging it.

[neurosis]

that's never going to happen, though

Even something as simple as doing away with omnibus bills would be a step in the right direction.

But I agree. That's never going to happen. The system is set up to fail intentionally, and then people wonder why I don't support either political party.

[beej]

Even something as simple as doing away with omnibus bills would be a step in the right direction.

But I agree. That's never going to happen. The system is set up to fail intentionally, and then people wonder why I don't support either political party.

The system has flaws, but it's not set up to fail. If you just take a step back and look around, this country has thrived in ways that no other country has. we tend to concentrate on the flaws rather than look at the big picture. In a trade that tends to draw perfectionists, it would be easy to listen to the conversation here and think it's all shit. But in reality there are just negatives and positives to any given system. we shouldn't lose sight of the positives in discussing the negatives.