Wisconsin: This is not democracy

[Scuba]

[yeoman6987]

1. Gerrymandering

They need a new system obviously. The problem is that all the Democrats (for the most part) are in big cities. So they get their districts and then out of the city area, the Republicans get their. Well the states are huge so if you cut up the states, the big cities where the Democrats are only get one or two districts which is why they typically have more votes, but it is just that those districts have more votes than needed since the GOP is so small in big cities. What is the solution? I don't know...lol. Maybe cut the cites up and have the GOP areas part of the city districts.

[maxrandb]

2. I hate to continue to sound like a broken record

but we are going to be paying for the complacency of 2010 for a generation

If progressives and other Dems wanted to send a message to their reps, that's fine. but let's just make sure that we don't do it DURING A FRICKIN' CENSUS YEAR

We can bitch all we want, but we're stuck with these districts for the next 8 fucking years...all because we didn't get the fucking pony we wanted and turned the reigns of state house after state house over to the Tea-bagging Koch Heads.

Nothing we can do about it, except realize that off-year elections fucking matter...EVEN IF IT'S FOR FUCKING DOGCATCHER!

[Tigress DEM]

3. ALEC had it's fingers in this mess back in 2012

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/02/11968/wisconsins-shameful-gerrymander-2012

Wisconsin was one of five states where the party that won more than half of the votes for Congress got fewer than half of the seats. Largely because of redistricting, Republicans in Wisconsin received just 49 percent of the 2.9 million votes cast in the state's congressional races, but won five out of eight seats, or 62.5 percent. And that redistricting process was carried out with a nearly unprecedented level of secrecy and obfuscation.


<snip>
In early February of 2012, GOP legislators released multiple documents, but continued to keep around 84 emails confidential. The three judges -- two of them appointed by Republican presidents -- again criticized the Republican legislators for "an all but shameful attempt" to keep documents secret, writing:

"Without a doubt, the Legislature made a conscious choice to involve private lawyers in what gives every appearance of an attempt -- albeit poorly disguised -- to cloak the private machinations of Wisconsin's Republican legislators in the shroud of attorney-client privilege."

<snip>
CMD Highlights ALEC's Redistricting Activities; Leads to More Legal Wrangling

..... As the federal court ruled on Wisconsin's maps, the Center for Media and Democracy (publishers of PRwatch.org) revealed that the highly partisan American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) was involved in redistricting, based on emails obtained through open records requests to Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. ALEC had pushed redistricting approaches spearheaded by the former lawyer for the national Republican Party, Mark Braden, and hosted a special conference call with that partisan lawyer to advise ALEC legislators on redistricting.

[Enthusiast]

4. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch..........nt