My rant about the GOP being the majority in Congress "they" got there by CHEATING

[Botany]

In OH most of the congressional districts are so gerrymandered that the races are over before
the first ballot is cast. I believe that is the case in Florida and Tennessee too. All across America
a Koch Brothers backed think tank redraw the district lines in many places so that the republican
was all but guaranteed to win the district especially if the congressperson is an incumbent.

This is Gym Jordan's district.

[Probatim]

1. It used to be the citizens would select their politicians - it's the reverse now.

Especially if you're a republican.

[ITAL]

2. The GOP received 4 million more votes

That's not all gerrymandering. Sure there are uncompetitive districts that depress Dem turnout, but it also happens the other direction (I know some Republicans that don't bother to vote in LA half the time because they have no chance here). As much as it might suck, they arguably should be in control of the House.

[In It to Win It]

4. With such a slim House majority, gerrymandering made all the difference

particularly in states like Ohio where gerrymandering is unconstitutional, the maps were struck down, and they still got to use them. Gerrymandering is literally against the rules in Ohio and they still got to use a map that was declared illegal. Ohio's map wasn't just ethically or morally cheating, but it was actual legit against-the-rules cheating.

Same in Florida. They gerrymandered 3 Democratic-leaning majority-minority districts right out from under us. As with Ohio, gerrymandering in Florida is unconstitutional. It is actually against the rules. It violates the law. Their map was struck down by the court and was reinstated by the appellate and the Florida Supreme Court refused to intervene.

It's cheating because it actually violates the written rules. These particular instances shouldn't be explained away by saying they got more votes. They violated the actual rules of the game to achieve that majority.

ETA: It's looking like they will have a majority by 3 or 4 seats. That's 3 or 4 seats obtained through illegal maps.

While I agree that more votes should mean a majority, that's skewed because several Republicans ran unopposed. There were no Democrats to throw any votes to.

[ITAL]

13. Dems also ran unopposed

It was 24 GOP seats and a dozen Dem seats this cycle (in 2020 more Democrats ran unopposed than Republicans for what it's worth). That twelve seat difference probably accounts for just about all the four million extra votes, but I'm too lazy to crunch the numbers in the 36 races with no opposition to see how much the Republicans gained in them overall.

[Zeitghost]

15. They got more votes

Gerrymandering does not get you more votes, it get's you more seats with fewer votes by stacking and packing those votes into the right districts.

It happens, but it washes out on a national level due to places like California where Dems generally take 75-85% of the seats with ~66% of the votes.

The real issue with gerrymandering happens at the State Legislature level where controlling 60% of the vote can get you almost all the seats if lines are drawn in your favor.

[In It to Win It]

21. I'm not denying they got more votes. They got more votes.

I'm differentiating in that they simply have a House majority because they used maps that broke the law, independent of their vote count. They have a House majority by illegally diluting Democratic voters in a handful of states.

The real issue is ignoring the law and will of voters. I'm not referring to a national count or a national allocation of House seats. My issue is more granular than that. I'm referring to a handful of seats that they have because they violated the rules that voters voted into law.

Getting more votes should mean that they didn't need to cheat in the handful of states where they did cheat. However, they still felt a need to cheat. Regardless of whether it washes out national, that doesn't excuse the voters of Ohio having their votes diluted or the voters of Florida.... and Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama. Just because it may align nationally and look mildly proportionally correct, it doesn't excuse diluted voters in the particular states where Republicans broke the written rules.

[Zeitghost]

27. They have drawn maps that favor them

And we have drawn maps that favor us. And we've both had maps challenged and tossed in court. And before anyone whines about "bothsideism" it's absolutely true and can proved with a simple comparison of % of votes to % of seats won. You can call it gerrymandering or describe it another way, but when those two numbers start to drift apart in states with more than 2-3 seats, political gamesmanship is taking place.

Personally I hate it, but the math tells me it's a wash at the national level and while it has other implications (like moving both parties away from the majority of voters in the middle) I don't have a huge problem with a party that receives X% of votes also winning ~X% of the seats.

If they had more votes (and they do) and they played these games in Red States to a further extant than we did in Blue States, they would have won even more seats. The fact that the percentage of seats won is very close to the percentage of votes cast for both parties tells me that it was a level playing field. It may not have been a just or fair field, but it looks as if the bias was present on both sides in more or less equal amounts.

[In It to Win It]

29. But again, my focus is on the legality of it. That was the point of my original post

In my state, it is illegal. It is unconstitutional. The state legislature cannot pass maps that favor an incumbent or political party. Again, that is in violation of my state's constitution. That violates the rules. Because they violated the rules, that was 3 less Democratic-leaning seats from my state. In the House, that clearly makes a difference. That's seats they would not have otherwise had if they followed the rules.

Nationally the figures between votes percentages and number of seats they'll get are about compatible. My point is that for my state and a handful of others, is it not compatible. That is because they violated the law, which is cheating. Unlike NY's tossed maps, my state's highest court kept the maps for this cycle. Unlike Maryland's tossed maps, Ohio Republicans got to use their illegal maps.

Even though, nationally the numbers of House seats may align with the vote count, that does not excuse the cheating. They can gerrymander all they want but they do not get violate the law.

Ultimately, if they have to violate the law to get a majority (which it looks like they did), that is a tainted majority built on cheating for using illegal maps.

I'm not making a fuss over Texas being gerrymandered in favor of Republicans because partisan gerrymandering is legal in Texas. It is allowed. It's morally cheating but not legally cheating. My fuss over Ohio is that it's illegal. My fuss over Florida is that it's illegal.

Independent of the vote count proportionality to House seats, it's the illegal maps that gave them a majority and nothing more. It is a majority built on illegality.

[Zeitghost]

30. It's illegal here as well

And yet we continue to take a bigger share of the congressional seats than the vote totals would indicate we should with truly representational districts and we have the oddly drawn districts that stack and crack different communities. I wish it wasn't necessary, but until it is taken seriously and controlled nation wide, we have to play those games.

We basically leveled the playing field. Prior to 2018 we were down over 20 seats to gerrymandering. But back in the 90's we were gaining that many. Every redistricting cycle sways things one way or another.

[BrienDoesIt]

5. I gotta disagree

If "more votes means X should win", then Hilary should have won.

I haven't looked, but I'd be curious about the state breakdown. Were most of those votes in red states or was it fairly even across the country?

Someone tried to bring up this very point to me when I told them land doesn't vote. Their response of "more repubs voted than Dems", which is fine, but it lacks context, completely.

[FoxNewsSucks]

6. how many million Democratic votes were suppressed?

[inthewind21]

11. I don't know

How many?

[uponit7771]

18. 1 too many

[uponit7771]

17. A point that means little in this context, we know gerrymandering helped GZP which isn't very ...

... democratic at all.

[catbyte]

3. Ridiculous. I wish other states had the option we had here in Michigan to put an

de-gerrymandering prop to a state-wide vote. We never could've flipped the state legislature without it. It seems so un-American that the citizens of a state are prevented from bringing something to a vote through citizen petition drives.

[Botany]

7. We tried to do that in OH too .... it got shot down.

n/t

[In It to Win It]

19. In fairness to the Ohio Supreme Court, they did strike down the gerrymandered map

in accordance with the state constitution's anti-gerrymandering amendment, but the case had gone on for so long that it was too late. The maps were already being used in the primaries.

[In It to Win It]

14. We did that in Florida in 2010

It is in our state constitution. Republicans did not give a single fuck.

[catbyte]

20. How can they do that? It's unconstitutional. Are all of the judges in FL up the GQP's ass?

That might be a silly question given the results of the last election. That's not how we roll in the Great Lakes State.

[In It to Win It]

22. Yes they are... but the particular trial judge that heard the case did

strike down their map, and did order the state to use a fairer map.

However, the state appealed and the appellate court reversed the trial court decision, and Florida Supreme Court chose not to intervene.

[catbyte]

25. Wow.

I'm so sorry. I didn't realize how lucky we are in Michigan. But, the abortion prop might not have made it onto the ballot if we hadn't flipped the MI Supreme Court blue in 2020. The MIGQP members of the canvassing board rejected the citizen petitions because there was a minor word spacing issue. They used the bogus excuse that it "might confuse the voters" so it went to the Court and they ordered it placed on the ballot. I have serious doubts that they would've done that if we hadn't flipped it, although one Republican did vote to put it on the ballot. I guess you're screwed when you give the GQP so much power.

[In It to Win It]

26. Here in Florida

If we want to change the courts, we need to win the governorship. It's just the political reality here. The governor appoints the judges and and those judges stand for retention elections... and judges never lose retention elections. Most people just don't know what exactly they are voting for when it comes to judges.

A few years ago, we had 3 Democratic appointees on the Florida Supreme Court. They are no longer on the court because they aged out. They reached the mandatory age of retirement in 2019, which was 70 at the time (now it's 75). DeSantis winning in 2018 meant he got to pick their replacements. They had been on the Court since the 90s. They actually enforced the anti-gerrymandering amendment along with moderate Republican appointees, and they formed a majority forcing the state to redraw some of the congressional districts. Now, the last remaining moderate Republican justice finds himself in the position of a lone dissenter more often than he used to be.

Also, speaking of abortion, it is protected under the state constitution's privacy amendment. Our constitution also has a privacy amendment. The Florida Supreme Court ruled that abortion was protected by the state constitution's privacy clause. That has been the law of the land in Florida since '89. The women of Florida had two layers of abortion protections in the state level and the federal level (with Roe and Case). Also, the voters directly voted in 2012 to not remove abortion protections from the state constitution. Once Roe was overturned, in theory, the abortion issue should have safe in Florida. DeSantis and the Republican attorney general are in the Florida Supreme Court right now trying to remove abortion protections from our state constitution.

Going back to the point of governorships, winning in 2018 would have made all the difference in Florida politics. Democrats turned out and came extremely close by a few thousand but obviously we lost and got DeSantis. He has since appointed 4 justices to the Florida Supreme Court, a majority of the justices. That governorship meant Democrats finally having input on the redistricting maps, keeping abortion protections safe, and courts that would enforce the anti-gerrymandering amendments. So it appears we're screwed for now.

[catbyte]

28. Ah, so the Governor appoints SC judges in Florida. Here in Michigan, they're elected for an 8-year

term. They're on the non-partisan ballot but state parties nominate candidates. I don't get why it's "non-partisan," but there you have it. I can't imagine how hopeless Democrats must feel in Florida because the GQP certainly has a stranglehold on the state. I hope you guys find a Democrat to run other than Crist -- I can't see how anybody could trust him after flipping parties. I wish you good luck.

[yankee87]

8. A child molester protector

It says much, that Gym was elected. He literally let children get raped.

[samsingh]

9. yes they did. They are not legitimate.

[Botany]

16. What happened in OH in 2022 did not need to happen.

The top of the ticket Nan Whaley was such a turd bucket that she pulled down the other
Ds running statewide. She lost by 30 points and ran such a terrible campaign that she
let the republicans get a higher % of people voting a straight party ticket. The networks
come on @ 7:30 and by 7:31 they were calling he Ohio's governor's race for DeWine. Ryan
only lost by 4 or 5 points same with the 3 wonderful women running for state supreme court
too. Losing those 3 places on the OH Supreme Court was worse than losing the senate seat
to that con man J.D. Vance because the OH's S.C. oversees questions about drawing up fair
districts and now OH is fucked as per congressional races for a long time. Most all of the
congressional races in OH are over before the 1st vote is cast.

[republianmushroom]

10. they took control of state legislator so they could cheat and now we are surprised

[inthewind21]

12. Exactly

Kind of explains how we got here doesn't it.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

23. DeathSantis stole 2 or 3 seats by gerrymandering in Florida

In addition, the NY Courts cost the Democrats a couple of seats. Texas is heavily gerrymandered and that cost the Democrats four to seven seats.

We need to pass the John Lewis and related voting rights bills to get around this gerrymandering issue

[Botany]

24. One DUer from Tennessee has posted here that Nashville had 2 Congressional seats that were and ...

... had been solid blue for years but the TN state legislature or somebody redid the districts so as
to split them up into 4 districts that will always go republican.

Democracy and the republican party (along with the very rich and fossil fuel industries) not so much.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

31. Gerrymandering in KY diluted Dem votes around the capitol.

Our legislature will continue to be bloody red for quite a while.

We need a national voting rights act. Again.