dems in midwest/great lakes states have allowed themselves to be screwed...

[msongs]

watching rachel showing how repubs totally control so-called blue states (presidential) by gerrymandering. so why have dems in those states allowed this to happen? the future looks bleak for states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and now North Carolina. quite sad really.

[bigdarryl]

1. Bottom line we Dems sat on our asses in 2010

And as a result were paying the price

[satxdem]

3. and

We will be paying for years.smh. hate to even think about it.

[bluestate10]

11. We can't reverse it until 2020. We need to pick up seats in the legislatures in all states

leading up to 2020 and deliver the knockout punch in 2020. If we don't get this done, a large amount of the change that the nation has seen in the last 70-80 years will be progressively erased over the next 3 decades.

[AndyTiedye]

13. The State Legislatures are Just as Gerrymandered as Congress

In some cases Democratic votes only count 1/3 as much as Republican votes.

[msongs]

2. maybe california & NY can lend them some dems voters in 2014? nt

[Iggy]

4. In Addition...

"democratic" union members in WI, and apparently Michigan as well, voted FOR GOP governors in 2010.

WTF??

[julian09]

5. Especially cops in a lot of states.

[Iggy]

7. Cops I Get

but factory workers, municipal workers voting for GOP governors-- that's about as DUMB as it gets.

[bigdarryl]

6. The only way to even the score is to

Get our own millionaires and billionaires to start getting in the political process instead relying strictly on the unions to turn out the base.Or even our own billionaires to start funding the unions to counter what the Koch brothers are doing funding these groups like ALEC who are writing legislation to cripple the unions money

[midnight]

8. Shutting Democrats out of the process and drawing the redistricting maps in secret, the Walker

Republicans passed the gerrymandered legislation after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars with legal help from Madison-based Troupis Law Office and Milwaukee-based Michael Best and Frederich and Scott Walker signed the maps into law named Act 43.

Then came a federal lawsuit by Latino-rights group Voces de la Frontera and some Democrats issuing the claim that the maps violated the U.S. Constitution by needlessly changing registration of hundreds of thousands of voters into new districts. Republicans later lost the lawsuit where Assembly districts 8 and 9 remained untouched by the redistricting laws.

The plot thickens as legal costs skyrocket in what Senator Miller described “Because they rammed through a bill crafted behind closed doors, Wisconsin citizens had to file a lawsuit and the Department of Justice had to defend the Legislature’s abuse of power.”

It turns out the legal team involved with Michael Best & Friedrich warned Republicans that they were going to face certain defeat in their quest to try to turn Wisconsin into a red state for decades to come.

http://scottwalkerwatch.com/2012/08/07/new-records-show-secretive-walker-loyalist-republicans-were-warned-about-careless-redistricting-legislation/

[milwaukeelib33]

9. Alright, this is beyond pilling on at this point

Yeah, we just let it happen. Maybe you missed the couple of people walking around and twiddling thumbs in Madison.

What can we say? The numbers are the numbers.

Enough of these "how did we let this happen" threads. Beating until morale improves isn't helping here.

[julian09]

10. GOP took control of state offices, while losing in presidential race.

It was quite an educational presentation, Dems actually won the representative vote statewide, but lost the district or representative count. That gerrymandering really has to be challenged. They take two Dem districts and make it one district or take one Gop district and make it two districts depending weather the state has gained or lost population.

[John2]

12. I was

looking at how she and that other guy described the gerrymandering scheme. I took a look at the Constitution for Elections also and if I'm not mistaken, saw that any U.S. citizen can challenge it. They can challenge it on the grounds, that it is unconstitutional. one example is Boerhner's District, takes in parts of an urban are. If the urban area is more Democratic than those rural areas where a citizen have more in common with that municipality, then that citizen can challenge that representative. Congressional representatives are based on population or persons, and not land.

These rural areas will have to need the same number of people in their Districts as these urban areas. If there is not enough people in those rural areas, then Districts would have to be made larger, to include more people. If Republicans are ciphering off some predominately white suburban areas or a minority of African American areas to reach the amount of population needed, then that can be challenged by any City which governs that surrounding areas and provide city services. Any citizen in that area they ciphered off from the City, can also challenge it. Say if you have a large City, like Los Angeles or New York, then they can increase their representation in Congress, because they have most of that state's population. The city of Los Angeles or New York can redraw their precincts or boroughs. They can add Staten Island to another Borough,which allows every citizen voting for the same number of representatives in that one huge borough. Say if you allow one representative for 700,000 people, then a huge borough of 1,400,000, would vote for two representatives. I think any citizen can challenge it.