CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING MEGA-THREAD

[SkyBubble]

That's exactly what they did before the VRA was passed.

By Democrats. Which was 60+ years ago. Are you claiming we've made no progress in that time?

What they're doing in Louisiana, and threatening to do in Alabama, is effectively designing a district to prevent a minority from getting elected. Open your eyes already.

No, what they're doing is no longer drawing districts to favor any specific racial group. Taht's called fairness and equity, things your party has always opposed. You assume and assign motives based on your own preconceived notions.

So now allowing a district centered on a compact geographic area where the majority of voters are Black is "anti-white racism"?

Nobody is claiming that. Connecting unrelated communities in order to create a "black" district is racist and unconstitutional.

When districts are engineered by zeroing in on voters primarily because they are Black, that’s racial sorting by another name.

100% true.

As Samuel Alito has noted, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not require the creation of majority-Black districts; it requires that voting practices not dilute minority voting power. Those are not the same thing, and treating them as interchangeable is where your argument goes off the rails.

Precisely, and this bears repeating.

In Tennessee there is just one Congressional seat held by a Democrat. It’s a geographically compact district centered on Memphis, which is 65% black.

Republicans plan to carve up that district into long, narrow districts and thereby dilute the black voters enough to make them irrelevant.

That district is represented by a white man who is likely to be replaced by a black woman. To you, somehow that "dilutes the black vote."

A black man was elected, so Louisiana eliminated the position.

A criminal was elected. You have no evidence that it had anything to do with skin color.

Furthermore, we have waaaaaaay too many people working for the government.

Michigan's legislature map was redrawn in response to a lawsuit demanding more black majority districts. The new map then had fewer Dem districts. The commission that thought it was done for the decade needed a budget again to hire a lawyer to go to court and then go back to work. At least one member had left the state. The next commission may need all new members to redo a redone job.

Dems in other states fighting for their district preferences may also need to decide which is more important: black districts or Dem districts.

I remember the 2011 Maryland redistricting. The plan was gerrymandered as it could be in order to eliminate a Republican seat in the Panhandle, and it worked. MD-3 and MD-2 were the most gerrymandered and 3rd most gerrymandered districts in the entire USA.

The plan created 2 majority-black districts. They were sued by the Fannie Lou Hamer PAC (a black political committee) and the Maryland GOP, who were supporting a plan that would have created 3 minority-majority districts, been less gerrymandered, and preserved the Panhandle seat.

Guess which plan got adopted.

 

[YDB95]

By Democrats. Which was 60+ years ago.

Correct, the VRA was passed by Democrats.

Are you claiming we've made no progress in that time?

No. But the job isn't done. If it were, you wouldn't see Republicans rushing to eliminate as many Black majority districts as they can.

No, what they're doing is no longer drawing districts to favor any specific racial group.

Oh, but they are. The group they're favoring is, of course, whites. And in the South, that means Republicans by another name. And you know it.

Taht's called fairness and equity, things your party has always opposed.

Look at the nearest calendar. Does it say 1964? Nope.

You assume and assign motives based on your own preconceived notions.

There is nothing preconceived about almost 60 years of the Southern strategy.

Nobody is claiming that. Connecting unrelated communities in order to create a "black" district is racist and unconstitutional.

In what parallel universe is Memphis (for only the most obvious example) unrelated to itself?

That district is represented by a white man who is likely to be replaced by a black woman. To you, somehow that "dilutes the black vote."

Splitting a majority-Black (and geographically compact) district into three majority white ones, all of which stretch hundreds of miles from Memphis into rural areas that have very little in common with it, most certainly is diluting the Black vote. It's irrelevant what race the current member from that district is, though I'm not surprised to learn you think otherwise.

A criminal was elected. You have no evidence that it had anything to do with skin color.

What does Trump have to do with this? (Well, everything, but that's beside the point.)

I remember the 2011 Maryland redistricting. The plan was gerrymandered as it could be in order to eliminate a Republican seat in the Panhandle, and it worked.

The Panhandle isn't populous enough to warrant its own district.

 

[Chernosoth]

Putting Maryland's panhandle in West Virginia and the whole peninsula in Maryland would make some sense. If a ship hits the Chesapeake Bay Bridge then Virginia would have only ferries to reach the peninsula during repairs.

 

[73Seahawks]

Putting Maryland's panhandle in West Virginia and the whole peninsula in Maryland would make some sense. If a ship hits the Chesapeake Bay Bridge then Virginia would have only ferries to reach the peninsula during repairs.

The Southern United States:
*Delaware
*Oklahoma
*Mississippi
*Arkansas
*Florida
*Georgia
*Louisiana
*Tennessee
*Kentucky
*South Carolina
*Virginia
*Maryland
*Alabama
*North Carolina
*Texas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United_States

I find it crazy that Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia haven't elected an African American to Congress yet.

 

[Chernosoth]

I find it crazy that Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia haven't elected an African American to Congress yet.

WV never had much of a black population. The land is too poor for plantation slavery.

 

[Rightguide]

South Carolina redistricting will eliminate the DEI district of low-IQ 85-year-old dipshit Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. The political IQ of South Carolina will go up 20 points as a result.

 

[Hel_Books]

South Carolina redistricting will eliminate the DEI district of low-IQ 85-year-old dipshit Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. The political IQ of South Carolina will go up 20 points as a result.

On the other hand, trying to gerrymander a lot of "red" districts where Republicans have a small majority and packing Democrats into a few "blue" districts can backfire in a "wave" election where edge the Republicans have isn't enough to overcome the shift. In recent by-elections the shift has been up to 30 points. MAGA may have used their racism just to shoot themselves in the foot.

 

[Chernosoth]

South Carolina politics is notoriously vicious. Making the primaries nonpartisan like California could add some spice.

 

[73Seahawks]

South Carolina politics is notoriously vicious. Making the primaries nonpartisan like California could add some spice.

Considering the upcoming special session of the South Carolina General Assembly could get juicy and uglier with legislators spewing their hostilities toward each other, with regard to the likely gerrymandering out of US Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC 06th), whose likely to get gerrymandered out of office regardless.