GOP poised to gerrymander its hold on power -- Democrats fall short in nearly every key state

[riversedge]

The remaining article says there are a few bright things happening on this issue (and to be thankful for on this #thanksgiving).

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GOP poised to gerrymander its hold on power — Democrats fall short in nearly every key state

Republicans will have power to gerrymander 188 congressional districts while Dems hold control over just 73 seats



https://www.salon.com/2020/11/25/gop-poised-to-gerrymander-its-hold-on-power--democrats-fall-short-in-nearly-every-key-state/


By Igor Derysh
November 25, 2020 12:00PM (UTC)
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Demonstrators protest against gerrymandering at a rally at the Supreme Court during the gerrymandering cases Lamone v. Benisek and Rucho v. Common Cause. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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The Republican Party is poised to cement its hold on power in state legislatures and the U.S. House of Representatives after winning nearly every election in which the power to redraw legislative maps was at stake.

Despite winning the White House and still holding a shot at gaining a majority in both chambers of Congress, Democratic losses in state legislative elections across the country gave Republicans far more power to redistrict, or gerrymander, districts following the census next year.
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The census is already expected to cost states like New York, California and Illinois congressional seats while giving a big boost to states like Texas, Florida and Arizona. Furthermore, Republicans will have the power to redistrict far more seats than Democrats.

Republicans have control over 30 state maps, according to NBC News. The GOP is set to control the redistricting of 188 congressional seats, or 43% of the House, according to FiveThirtyEight, while Democrats will control the redistricting of no more than 73 seats, or 17%.

Democrats spent hundreds of millions targeting state legislative races but lost nearly every state where control over redistricting was at stake. Republicans were able to hold on to their majority in Texas, fended off Democrats in Pennsylvania, retained their majority in North Carolina, upset Democrats to hold on to the Minnesota state Senate, kept control of the Iowa state House, maintained their supermajorities in Kansas, and flipped the state Senate and House in New Hampshire. Missouri also re-elected Gov. Mike Parson, maintaining Republican control of the state's redistricting process, and Virginia voters passed an amendment that gives a bipartisan commission rather than the Democratic state legislature the power to redraw maps...............

[Iliyah]

1. Democrats will be ok . . .

[edhopper]

10. The Democrats have a 4 vote majority right now

that will be gerrymandered away in 2022. We are not "ok".

[LymphocyteLover]

15. seriously-- this is worrisome as fuck

[Demsrule86]

20. How is that? We are likely to lose the House.

[paleotn]

2. If this keeps up....

the country will break. The right will become more and more extreme until some of us walk away, leaving the nuts to their own devices. A soft break at first, where states operate as coalitions on issues outside of those powers specifically delegated to the federal government. Then a big fight over the interstate commerce clause and how that impacts those areas no delegated to DC, as the Rethug controlled states attempt to drag the rest of us down the rat hole with them. Demographic shifts and young voters may save us. Beyond that, I'm not optimistic. Our system may yet be unworkable long term like so many said so long ago.

[LymphocyteLover]

16. how much more extreme can they get? They are already a death cult that denies a deadly pandemic

[paleotn]

19. A lot worse....

Trump was just a warm up. If they grab the house in 2022, it's going to get really ugly.

[LymphocyteLover]

26. how so though? They can make a fuss but they have no credibility or appeal beyond their base

And thank god won't have executive power

[paleotn]

29. That's the problem....

They have credibility with 47% of voters three weeks ago. Roughly half the country. They will feel emboldened by their echo chamber to even crazier things to satisfy their base. That might include an attempt to impeach Biden on trump up charges...pun intended. It's like the 2010 thru 2018 Congresses on steroids.

[LymphocyteLover]

35. True, that is quite possible if they take power. But I feel like we can't have this sort of mess

after the last 4 years and the ongoing crises. We need govt to work somehow.

[Demsrule86]

21. That won't happen. What will happen is 4 or 8 years where we get nothing.

[paleotn]

25. I hope that's the worst we can expect...

But even that is dangerous. If government doesn't provide people what they expect out of it due to gridlock, they lose faith. We now have two diametrically opposed views of what this country is and should be. They're irreconcilable and still diverging. The ironic thing is, our government has checks and balances designed specifically to tamp down such passions and chart a middle course of compromise, but that might be its downfall once again. There's just no compromise with Trumpers and the modern Republican Party. We've tried for nearly 2 decades now and failed. We've not seen this much distance between the two dominant schools of political thought in America since the 1850's.

[LymphocyteLover]

27. that is true... also we do need government action on the economy, pandemic and global warming

and things will get much much worse without effective leadership...

still, it's hard to see how we can descend into an outright civil war like 160 years ago

[paleotn]

30. Not civil war....

If we break, we do so peacefully, relatively speaking. We're way too integrated economically for a shooting war. More like the break up of Czechoslovakia or some kind of return to a looser arrangement like the Articles of Confederation. Either way, it's Putin's dream of doing the same thing to us that he thinks we did to the former USSR. I don't want to go there, but we're pushing that envelope more and more every year it seems.

[LymphocyteLover]

34. Yeah, I've thought about that but not sure how it would work

I suppose if liberal states realize they are only getting held back by GOP minority rule, they could break away. But surely if they were to go to that extreme, something would give first?

Or are Republicans really willing to lose the Republic?

[GoCubsGo]

3. Meanwhile, they're also killing themselves off in droves with COVID-19.

Between that and their cutting short the census, I have a feeling their power is going to be muted quite a bit.

[beachbumbob]

4. who's power?

[GoCubsGo]

5. The GOP's.

[beachbumbob]

6. not sure how you came to that conclusion, as all they did was reinforce power state wide

all over America

[GoCubsGo]

7. The fewer there are of them, the more their power is diluted.

They can create what they think is a heavily "red" district, but if the halted census undercounts Republicans, and/or if they're all killing themselves off with COVID-19, many of them aren't going to be as "red" as they think.

[Ace Rothstein]

9. COVID deaths are a small fraction of the population.

I feel horrible for those who we've lost but it isn't going to affect elections.

[GoCubsGo]

12. Small, but growing.

And, it's about to get much worse.

[PTWB]

33. What?

How many people do you think have died from COVID? How many do you think will die by the time that the quickly approaching vaccines are in wide distribution?

500k? 600k? For sure that is a huge number of excess deaths... but what is the partisan breakdown? 55/45? 65/35?

It’s not enough to have any meaningful long term effect on GOP power.

[LymphocyteLover]

17. it does affect older voters more though, and they are more reliable voters

[former9thward]

31. A majority of the Covid deaths have occurred in Blue states.

In terms of actual numbers the Covid deaths will have no meaning in elections.

[uponit7771]

8. This is a huge battle that was lost and is more important than White House logically seeing house ..

... controls more important moving parts in US government.

Down ballot polling in this election sucked ass

[triron]

11. How do you know it was the polling?

Down ballot races should be much more accurate than national polls (not less),
as long as sample size is adequate. How many mail in ballots never got counted
in swing states (either they arrived late, didn't arrive at all, or ?)?
How much voter suppression was there? There may be other hidden reasons as well.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

28. How many ballots got DeJoyed? This shit stinks.

[maxrandb]

13. A couple of things

First, I'm not sure the census "costs seats in California, New York and Illinois, and adds seats in Texas, Florida and Arizona". All the reports I've seen indicate under counts and under participation in "red" states.

Second, with Democratic Governors in PA, WI, MI, etc., the most the Retrumplicans can hope for is a "push" where the maps would be vetoed.

I'm not saying that this is not going to be a problem, it is! But, there are grassroot actions going on all over the country to try to limit gerrymandering. It's just not time for "Dems in disarray" hand-wringing.

The mission should be to keep those 80 Million + Biden/Harris voters nboard and motivated to come out in 2022. Retrumplican asshats won't turnout without Dipshit Donnie on the ballot.

But FIRST, we need to do all we can to win those senate seats in Georgia.

I'm optimistic about the future.

I honestly believe that Donnie Dipshit has destroyed the Retrumplican Party. They are like a ship that has been hit by a torpedo. They're taking on water, but from above the water line, they look seaworthy.

This has been a traumatic and eye-opening 4 years. We are in the prologue of the history of Donnie Dipshits presidency.

A few years from now, finding an American that supported Donnie Shit for Brains is going to be as hard as finding a German in 1950 that supported the Nazis.

[LymphocyteLover]

18. good point-- those Dem governors should save us from the worst

and I tend to agree about the long term fate of the GOP. I just don't see how this ends well for them.

[blm]

24. ✔️✔️✔️

[former9thward]

32. All states ended the Census with a 99.9% count.

No one had any serious undercounting at the end.

The Census figures as of Oct 27, 2020:

https://2020census.gov/en/response-rates/nrfu.html

[roamer65]

14. Not in CA and MI.

We took that power away from legislators.

[paleotn]

22. As it should be everywhere.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

36. I hope so. I know it passed, but ...

... we'll know after the districts are drawn next time.

[roamer65]

37. A panel of 13 I do believe.

...and we will probably lose a district as usual.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

38. What do you mean, "we"?

The state may drop the number of districts, but, it should gain in the number of Democratic-leaning districts. If there's a drop in the Republican district count, that's not a loss

Of course, it means that some "solid Democratic" districts may be realigned into more competitive areas, so Tlaib, Dingell, and others may have a general election fight on their hands in 2022. (assuming the district map is re-drawn by 2022)

[roamer65]

41. True.

But I am scared we will lose MI-11.

It was a district gerrymandered for Thaddeus McCotter in 2001. It has since flipped to Dem.

Yes, they are scheduled to be redrawn next year. In time for 2022.

[albacore]

23. How about legal remedies? Court cases based on "one man one vote"?

Baker v. Carr 1962 started it.

Yes.. I know the SCOTUS is rightwing, but they are also literalists, and they generally support stare decisis.

Hit the courts for redress.

[BumRushDaShow]

39. "fended off Democrats in Pennsylvania'

2020 is NOT 2010.

How about this headline for PA after the 2018 election - "Republicans failed to gain control of the PA governorship and State Supreme Court" (both of which will have a say when it comes to re-districting).

Media propagandists fail to emphasize this including the OP article's author who dismisses it -

"People are focused on Democrats not making gains in 2020, but we measure this by where we were a decade ago," Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for the group, told the Post. "We've reduced the total number of seats drawn entirely by Republican legislatures and governors from 213 in 2011 to 175 in 2021, and that's before the census."

Grassroots groups echoed that sentiment, arguing that Democrats "are going into the next redistricting cycle in a better position, at least in some states."

"Over the last few years, we have been able to defeat Republican trifectas and supermajorities, along with passing fair districting reform measures," Lyzz Schwegler, the co-founder of Sister District, a volunteer group that aims to end gerrymandering, told Salon. "For instance, in 2011 the GOP had trifecta control of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Going into this cycle, Democrats control at least one branch of government in both of those states. Wins in 2018 broke GOP supermajorities in both chambers in North Carolina, the Pennsylvania Senate and the Michigan Senate. And wins this year kept the GOP from gaining supermajorities in either of Wisconsin's chambers."

https://www.salon.com/2020/11/25/gop-poised-to-gerrymander-its-hold-on-power--democrats-fall-short-in-nearly-every-key-state/

What these young writers fail to realize is that the 2010 general election happened AFTER "Citizen's United", which essentially invalidated "McCain-Feingold" (Bipartisan Campaign Finance Act of 2002) and resulted in the extreme monetization of politics leading to an election during a Census year that created what Democrats have attempted to claw back the past decade. Democratic districts were purposely diluted or concentrated to maximize GOP control and that layout continued through to THIS YEAR because the next Census and re-drawing of the lines won't happen until AFTER this year.

In essence you have a race where one contender is forced to run it on a muddy, pock-marked road while the other contender runs it on a smooth paved highway and then you insult the one running it through the mud and demand to know why they haven't "won".

The issue of the First Amendment and its application has been debated endlessly - including the ACLU's opposition to McCain-Feingold. However little did they know that "Citizen's United" would equate that a "corporation" (or other entity) was a "person" with similar rights, and that has cascaded into an acceleration of the shoving of this country down the rabbit hole of corporatocracy.

[StarfishSaver]

40. The groundwork for this was laid in 2010 when some Democrats threw a temper tantrum

because Obama hadn't personally delivered them each their very own pony, refused to go out and vote, and allowed state legislatures across the country to flip red. The GOP legislatures drew drastically gerrymandered districts that made it difficult to overcome this year, even with massive turnouts.