This is infuriating.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/04/1398938/-GOP-proud-of-Dark-Money-RedMap-election-rigging-firewall-that-gained-unearned-legislative-seats

I can't do justice to the story with excerpts of excerpts, please go and read the story about how badly Republican gerrymandering has screwed over the House of Representatives. Here in my home state, according to the included graphic from Mother Jones, it took 2.5 Dem voters to elect a Dem to the house for every Republican voter to elect a Republican to the House. It's no wonder John Boehner has held onto his seat easily every time anyone has bothered to challenge him, when the district has been so packed with Republicans.

Go, read it, and remember why it is vitally important to gain control of the offices that control redistricting, why those are every bit as important or more than actually winning the White House.

[Sunlei]

1. It is frustrating when main focus is on the Federal lvl, when the LOCAL govs control our 1 vote.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. ^^THIS^^

[mountain grammy]

20. That's been our Democratic party's biggest mistake..

ignoring local elections. We've allowed the thugs to take over locally, and control the news media, exactly how the Nazi party came to power. Please excuse the reference but it is relevant.

[Sunlei]

23. our one vote is the only real 'democracy' America has.

That's why most republicans work so hard to deny a vote for demographics they fear will vote D.

They're also very good at overall managing funds and support and gerrymandering maps to insure thousands of tiny local districts elect their people.

I agree, your reference is very relevant. hitler would have ruled the world if he had use of todays RW propaganda monster and their hundreds of tax free "political charities" helping elect them.

always annoys me how the auto correct capitalizes the nazi word

[bvar22]

58. The Russians & Russian Weather would have beaten the Germans...

...at Stalingrad and Kursk no matter what Hitler did (short of an A-Bomb).
WW2, for all practicable purposes was over after the Battle of Kursk.
The German Army and Armored Forces were in full retreat, and never mounted a serious offensive after that.

The American Landing at Normandy was NOT about beating the Germans.
It was about beating Stalin to Berlin.

[Enthusiast]

63. I agree.

It's incredible how the United States has played down the Soviet Union's role in defeating Hitler.

I was born in 1952. From what I heard growing up the US defeated the Axis mostly by themselves with a little help from the UK.

[nikto]

64. Wait. Wasn't it Ronald Reagan who won WWII by himself?

[Enthusiast]

68. Saint Ronald and John Wayne.

[bvar22]

71. I was born in 1950, and heard the same stories.

It was only after high school that I learned about Stalingrad and Kursk.
Nobody really knows, but estimates are that the Russians lost over 20 MILLION soldiers
while the USA was getting ready to fight for 3 years.

[arely staircase]

65. Stalin was the most forceful advocate of a second european front

he thought Roosevelt and Churchill were dragging their feet..

[bvar22]

83. Churchill & Roosevelt WERE dragging their feet.

The more Germans that died fighting the Russians, the fewer casualties for Britain & the USA.

When the Allies finally launched D-Day, and landed on the beaches of France,
they found most of the massive Big Gun Bunkers (the ones that could hit a ship 20 miles away,)....they found most of these massive gun emplacements empty.
The hardware had been removed, and sent to the Russian front,
or diverted to the Russian Front before delivery.

If the Allies had attempted to cross the channel with those massive German Naval Rifles (Cannons)
in place, D-Day might have ended very differently.

[arcane1]

51. It's a big mistake on the voters' part too.

Many people sit home on election day because they think their vote for president doesn't count, and ignore the elections where their votes count the most. Republicans have been more successful at getting those people to vote.

[Enthusiast]

62. I'm afraid the party at the national level could have cared less.

I hate to say it.

[lovemydog]

45. So true!

We must focus locally. Vote in every local election!

[SCantiGOP]

48. Gerrymandering is the #1 issue

That and voter suppression. Solve those two and every other issue is suddenly on the table and able to be addressed.

SC has an example like Ohio. Roughly 1/3 black vote and 7 reps should logically result in two majority-minority districts. But Jim Clyburn's seat extends over 120 miles from downtown Charleston to downtown Columbia and packs in so many AA voters that the other six districts are safely GOP.
Hell, they elected Mark Sanford back to Congress after he lied to his staff and family (and over Fathers Day weekend) to have an affair.
The district that elected Trey Gowdy ( yeah, sorry for that one America) is so red, Jesus couldn't win that seat as a Democrat.

[lovemydog]

49. Thanks for the info.

It's awful, terrible that they skew these districts so that all the democratic party votes get stacked into one place.

Do you know what's being done to address it?

What can be done?

Are the courts providing any relief? I'd imagine that takes time. And even then, if the courts are stacked with unethical party hacks they'll find some reason not to order redistricting.

Am I correct that voting for democratic in every local election is the best solution? What else am I missing.

Thanks and I hope you're enjoying a good holiday weekend.

[SCantiGOP]

50. Local voting is key

The biggest success of the GOP has been winning almost 2/3 of the statehouses so they get to control re-districting.
Unless your state has voter-initiated referendum, which mine doesn't, there is no way the party in power is going to want to set up an independent commission to handle the process. So the GOP basically has a lock on the US House for the rest of this decade.
However, another liberal Supreme Court judge added during the next Democratic presidency could have them address the current system which clearly violates the "one man, one vote" principle.

[Yupster]

70. One problem is Democratic voters

are often stacked overwhelmingly in one place.

You see it on election night.

Republicans will be way ahead in Ohio. Then all of the sudden Cleveland's inner city vote comes in and the Democratic candidate moves ahead. It's hard to un-gerrymander districts in inner city Cleveland when it may vote 96 % Democratic. The same is true for Pennsylvania, Michigan and other states.

Democratic voters need to spread out a little for the district makers to have a chance.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

75. I don't know that they have much choice. Most of them probably can't afford to go rural.

Also, living in close together with lots and lots of folks tends to make you appreciate Democratic ideas more, because you have to share public spaces with so many people. So you want good public transportation, schools, roads, police, libraries, sewers, lights, etc, etc, etc. Rural areas don't have the same tax bases, so they really don't have the population density to afford as many of the shared public goods and tend to be composed of people with their own septic systems, dirt or gravel roads connecting to the public highways, few or no streetlights unless they're paying the bill, etc. So they buy into the more libertarianish 'self-sufficiency', thinking of themselves as more alone against the world.

The greater the population density, the more Democratic, the less the population density, the more Republican. It may not hold everywhere, but it's a good rule of thumb.

[Delmette]

2. I agree

We must get control of one or both houses of Congress.

[Chasstev365]

3. The Ground War

In 2016 a major focus should be to turn out Democrats at the state level to tip some of the Republican governorships to the Democrats. It won't happen it places like Alabama, but there is potential in more moderate states. Until that happens; we're screwed!

[-none]

9. That is what need to be done for starters.

That is how the Republicans took over. The Republicans started at the bottom, running for dog catcher, school board, any elected office to build up the resume, and worked their way up to "electing" a president.
We need to do the same, only do it honestly, unlike the Republicans did.

[Auggie]

16. This was Howard Dean's strategy in creating Democracy for America

http://www.democracyforamerica.com

[Sunlei]

31. few to none expose the corruption at the local levels and even at state levels.

I agree, do it honestly. A start could be an audit of local funds and exposure of corruption.

Even then people, other politicians don't seem to care about millions spent on a 'bridge to nowhere' or a tiny town spending couple million on a facility for dog sledder hubbie.

Or even neighborhood associations who will create enough fines on locals (who can't afford to pay) they get jailed. The association gets to seize the home/property and sell it.

Small neighborhood associations (local govs) are even more powerful legally then the banks that hold the mortgage.

[bvar22]

86. Do you know what happens to people...

...who expose local corruption in the Police Department or Mayors Office.
They get to spend eternity with Jimmy Hoffa.

It will take some courageous warriors to fight this battle,
but I agree with you that it MUST be fought.


OTOH, Local, State, and Federal Corruption is as American as Apple Pie,
and those who expose it usually get very fucked.
SEE: Snowden
SEE: Don Seigelman

[The Jungle 1]

4. Good politics however

I am not one bit happy this gerrymandering happened and we need laws to prevent it.

That said the republican strategist who developed the plan to make this happen were pretty smart folks. Maddow even gave them high praise.

If you enjoy the drama of politics then you have to love the gerrymander play.
Problem is we are stuck with it for a decade.
But look on the bright side in a decade the republican party will be all but imploded. Demographics don't lie.

[spooky3]

7. I think you are overly optimistic.

Without aggressive action by Dems, this situation will change only slightly.

It is terribly un-democratic. In VA, it was reported that many more Dem votes were recorded than Repub., and the growing areas are purple to blue (NoVA and Tidewater), yet 8 of the 11 Congresspeople are Repub.

[Oilwellian]

28. I'm in one of their gerrymandered districts

Roanoke is quite liberal, even our newspaper is liberal. But if you look at Goodlatte's district, it spans across half the state to include a lot of rural red towns. The people of Roanoke and surrounding areas are woefully underrepresented.

[spooky3]

38. It's really outrageous. N/t

[Cosmocat]

8. Last part is flat wrong

I was there with the demographics thing, but the last 20 years has showed that to be folly.

Whatever the demographics may be, there are forces at work that favor the GOP that we won't see any significant changes in our lives.

Older people DO tend to swing "conservative over time." It isn't universal, of course, but on the margins they gain more than they lose over the age of our electorate. AND, older voters tend to vote more than younger voters.

They control the messaging in the media, and it only has gotten more brazen with time.

Money more today than ever decides politics and they they are the big dog in that regard in countless ways.

Their voters vote, out of anger and hatred, our voters basically only tune in during presidentials.

They run on fear and division, and like it or not, that is the energy that wins more elections than not. People are too self absorbed today to get out and vote FOR something regularly. The poison they spew gets people out to vote AGAINST things in every election.

There was absolutely no reason, none to give republicans any power after Bush II, but only two years after we got a good democratic president with a majority in both chambers they had one of the biggest mid term wins of our lives, and now have the senator, too. They have more power at the state level, in the judiciary and in congress than they did a quarter century ago.

Whatever it may or may not look like demographically, they WILL fight, claw, lie, cheat and steal their way to power like they always have.

[brush]

15. If the repugs still control state houses, state legislatures and Congress . . .

in 2020 redistricting will not change things as they will be in charge of it with their new "Tom Delay" orchestrating, whoever that will be.

Demographics only work for us if we gotv humongously in the mid-terms as well as the presidential election cycles to prevent that.

[NV Whino]

22. And Texas ignored the ten year rule.

[Sunlei]

32. agree , we need the Federal Gov. to makes laws to ban gerrymandering or even better

Take local and state control over voters and votes away from local and states.

[Ms. Yertle]

52. Wait, what???

Take local and state control over voters????????????????????????

Surely you can't mean what that sounds like.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

66. I think it's the 'over voters' part he means.

Ie, make voting requirements uniform across all states, which actually makes a lot of sense for all elections that actually affect national politics. Now if state legislatures did NOT do redistricting, they wouldn't need to be covered by this. But certainly the control of the election of federal Congressfolks should be uniform and controlled by national rules.

[Cosmocat]

6. Pa's lines are comically bad - federal and state level

Same kind of bizarre ratio for PA relative to votes per party for congress.

State districts are gerrymandered to virtually ensure the Rs control the senate and the house only swings in big D turnout years.

I will say this, however.

Ds try to put on a charade about how they don't like it, but they know they have perpetual safety in their seats, too ...

[lastlib]

10. As I've done before, I STRONGLY urge EVERY Democrat

to go to this website: Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee If we don't support the LOCAL party, we will get the GOP dregs for another decade, and that's a recipe for suicide folks. Get out there--Donate, Volunteer, do WHATEVER YOU CAN! for the local team. The national victories will follow if we can win enough of the local contests. WE CANNOT WAIT for a president to do it all, cuz it ain't gonna happen--we have GOT to have the national clout, and that only comes from winning enough of the locals. Start here. Today. Make this Fourth of July the day we start to work on REAL independence from Republican rule.

[Gloria]

13. The Dems need to raise awareness of this...

When you have more votes and still lose seats in the House, you know things are screwed up...

This should br a campaign issue of the highest order, up there with voter suppression and the Supreme Court...controlling the key levers of power..

[calimary]

43. Somebody in the DLCC may have started waking up. I think.

http://dlcc.org/news/dlcc-launches-advantage-2020-key-success-next-round-redistricting-70-million-plus-effort

At least they've recognized there's a problem, Thank GOD! In recovery, that's always the first step.

[Gloria]

60. Thanks for that info!

Plus, the "Horrid Hillary" people are working on voting access.... (sarcasm)

[treestar]

19. Wonderful

Thank you. DU keeps waiting for the perfect President as though that is all it takes.

[mountain grammy]

21. Thanks for posting the link.

It took some doing to turn Colorado blue, and now we're losing that edge again. Gardner replace one of the best Senators Colorado ever had and now we're stuck with his sorry, lying ass for 6 years.

Time to get busy.

[lovemydog]

55. Thank you.

Happy 4th to you and your family / friends.

[mmonk]

11. Agreed. It's hard to celebrate the 4th with no representation.

It is a hollow holiday for those not allowed to participate in representative government.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

30. We focus so much on other ways in which Republicans disenfranchise Democratic voters, but

this is their most effective and insidious method of so doing. They might as well have simply wiped a third of Democratic voters off the rolls in so many states by making their votes simply not matter.

[mmonk]

37. It turns voting from an act of participation into an act of symbolic protest.

[mmonk]

40. There is no route to defeat them by voting here.

(snip) Back in 2012, more North Carolinians voted for Democrats than Republicans in North Carolina’s Congressional elections. But Republicans ended up winning nine out of the state’s 13 seats that year. Those numbers piqued the interest of researchers at Duke, who decided to seek a mathematical explanation for the discrepancy. They recently published a study with their results. (snip)

http://wunc.org/post/duke-mathematicians-investigate-2012-election-results-north-carolina

[bottomofthehill]

12. And it gets worse

The Republicans are trying to change how the Electoral College votes are allocated. By giving the Electoral vote to whomever wins the congressional district. So much for democracy. All of our elections will be like 2000 where Al Gore got almost a million more votes than GWB but had the election taken from him. That was when the tables were almost even, now...

[freshwest]

14. They think long term. They've been on this tack since the 90s and before that they built up their

influence in churches and media outlets as well with seminars and corporate buy outs. It was either get into their business model or else, after all, government is the source of all evil, privatized all of it and then it'll be fixed, right? Cut all the taxes and you'll be rich all of a sudden, right? The schools are indoctrinating the kids to be communist and gay, we have to get our kids out. And they've been planning an Article V convention to rewrite the Constitution to finish all of the Koch agenda. it's been a strong plan carried out by big money and a gullible public who follow every outrage and don't thing long term about what they are doing to the country. Meanwhile many say they won't vote until a version of political American Idol is offered them. Americans are no longer fit to govern ourselves, do not want to be bothered, and have left it to corporations to rule. Because thinking is hard.

[mwyn8]

17. There is a glimmer of hope

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/04/30/house-democrats-gerrymandering-bill/26649507/


Plus there is ballot initiative. Interesting Daily Kos article here.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/28/1227200/-Structural-Reform-Ending-the-Gerrymander

[jwirr]

25. And thanks for posting this. Hope - something more precious than gold. Or at least to many of us.

[daleanime]

18. bookmarked

[jwirr]

24. Happy Independence Day Erich. You are completely right about this article. I think, given what is

at steak - the SCOTUS - we should start out assuming that this 2016 election will be rigged in their favor not matter what. This is what they have been waiting for - to appoint enough rw judges to the SCOTUS to keep power in their hands for years regardless of the popular vote.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

26. Thanks. got my flag out this morning

(I tend to only put it up on the major holidays, because I forget I have it out and leave it out after dark) read that article, then had to go out and spend an hour or two in the garden to get centered again. I knew it was bad, but it just steamed me up bigtime to have it rammed home with the graphic showing that my vote is only 40% as effective as my Republican neighbours' votes.

[jwirr]

29. I know - I am going to take the day just to be with family and try to enjoy that.

[olegramps]

27. A powerful element is the fundamentalists and evangelicals.

The Republicans appealed to their fundamentalist's beliefs to gain their support. As a consequence they are a powerful force in local elections and turn out their congregations to support those who adhere to their demands. For example this is vividly demonstrated in school board elections that then proceed to push for funding of charter schools and religious based schools. This principle extends to virtually every local and state elections. Democrats need to find an modus operandi to counter this block. Democrats have failed to even attempt to convince these congregations that they are foremost in demanding that society adhere to Jesus' basic teaching of the equal and fair treatment of the least of us and his outright condemnation of the greedy rich. This should be in conjunction with the challenge of the wedge issues that the Republicans have stressed to the extent of their convenient outright dismissal of Jesus basic teachings.

I would suggest also that perhaps utilizing local teachers unions that could extend their influence in classrooms to help their students realize that their right to a basic education free of indoctrination is under attack. They could be a powerful and exuberant voice in their communities to counter the right-wing propaganda.

[Gothmog]

33. We are suing in Texas over the gerrymandered districts

Hopefully we will be getting a ruling in that case soon

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

34. Good news.

I'm hoping the recent SCotUS decision will bear fruit, and more non-partisan redistricting will pop up.

[Gothmog]

35. The Arizona decision is meaningless in Texas but the earlier opinion on Alabama was helpful

The GOP packed African American voters into a few districts which is illegal under the SCOTUS ruling in the Alabama case. This case has been going since 2011 and I hope that we get a ruling soon.

[TheKentuckian]

36. If districts had to be regular shapes, continuous, and equal in population shenanigans

would be greatly reduced.

I also think that the House needs to be greatly expanded, 435 by definition makes reasonable representation difficult if not impossible.

[AwakeAtLast]

39. You need only look at Austin, TX to understand that

This is Democracy on GOP Gerrymandering:

Democalypse 2014 - South by South Mess: Austin's Real Weirdness - The Daily Show - Video Clip | Comedy Central
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/kwgaxa/democalypse-2014---south-by-south-mess--austin-s-real-weirdness

We need the 50 State Strategy now!

[etherealtruth]

41. It is infuriating .... the power of redistricting is particularly horrible in MI

The voters in the State of Michigan have voted for the democratic presidential candidate since 1992. We have two solidly democratic senators .... we have had only one 1-term republican Senator in the last 40 years.

Yet, we have a knuckle dragging extreme right wing state legislature that does NOT represent the will of the residents of the state of Michigan

I do note that we did elect a republican for the governor's house, though (there are a multitude of reasons for this)

[Ms. Yertle]

53. And yet,

we have a Republican governor. Elected by the citizens state-wide. Go figure.

[etherealtruth]

54. That was my last sentence

I think there are a multitude of reasons ... Voters are low information voters and believed him when he initially ran claiming he wasn't a tea bagging nut job and when he ran the first time the state remained in economic disaster (thank you GWB). We had weak democratic opponents (though I liked and supported them) and very very low voter turnout (probably the saddest part of the entire thing)

[yardwork]

42. It is infuriating but I still get furious with people voting R

Gerrymanders wouldn't work if so many people didn't vote against their own interests.

[lovemydog]

44. Fully agree. The House is super important!

Thanks for your post.

We have to do better in Congressional elections. Big time!

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

46. I know this is nothing new to many, but I hadn't realized until now just how formalized

the Republican orchestration of gerrymandering was. I guess I always sort of assumed those in each state were simply working on their own to favour themselves, not that there was greater coordination going on. And I didn't know just how badly I was getting personally screwed in terms of how little my votes at the state and local level mean.

[lovemydog]

47. Yeah, gerrymandering is a horrible way for parties in power to stack the deck

in their favor. Historically, courts can sometimes provide relief. But not if the courts are stacked with unethical hacks from the party that's in power. It's a terrible problem. I don't have any great solution except get rid of republicans at all local levels.

[JDPriestly]

56. Republican wins at the state an local levels are due to poor leadership

at the top of the Democratic Party.

Howard Dean understood the importance of grassroots organizing in each and every state for the Democratic Party. We have it in California and our state generally votes Democratic.

So the changes need to be made at the leadership level in each state and in the federal Democratic Party.

We should be encouraging good people to run and the party should support them vigorously in every state in the union and not just at election time.

Let's take Boehner's district. Who is organizing the campaign for the next candidate for Boehner's seat right now? What about the races for the state seats in Ohio? Someone should be working on those campaigns already. Get name recognition. Identify local issues. Start organizing, holding barbeques, whatever.

If we organize for the presidential campaign this early, we should be doing the same for the local, state and federal campaigns also.

[GoCubsGo]

57. This is what happens when everyone stays home during mid-term elections.

What's it going to take to get people to understand that local and state elections, and US Congressional elections are at least as important as who is President, if not more so? Maybe this, but I doubt it.

[bvar22]

69. If the troops are not motivated,

it is ALWAYS the fault of Leadership.

If the voters don't Turn Out,
it is always the fault of Leadership.

Blaming the voters for a lack of enthusiasm never fixes the problem.
However, if Leadership ever finds the courage to face where they have failed us,
the problem can be addressed.

[GoCubsGo]

82. I consider voting an obligation.

Don't turn out. Don't complain when shit like this happens. I live in the town were fucking Lee Atwater grew up, if that gives you any sort of clue as to the quality of candidates for which I get to vote. I still go vote, even if I have to write in half of them, knowing they don't have a chance.

And, perhaps the problem isn't "enthusiasm." Maybe it's too many people not understanding the importance of mid-term elections, local elections, state elections...

[Liberal_in_LA]

59. k&r.

[War Pigs]

61. i too live in Ohio and we have been gerrymandered to death here!!

despite getting less than 50% of the vote in 2012 repubs 12 of the 16 congressional races and will until the courts act or the next census. Jim Renacci won my district after redistricting despite owing over $1 million in back federal taxes from his business days!

so who do i blame?? the 40-45 million who voted in 2008 and stayed home in 2010 and then pulled the same lazy ass routine in 2014 to re-elect Kasich etc. Voter suppression?? sure its despicable and a problem. thats still no excuse for 40+ million to skip the midterms, is two hours every 2 years too much to ask of people? apparently since they jack off countless hours every week on facebook, twitter and other useless pursuits!!!

they rarely win on high turnout elections plain and simple. we have to figure out how to motivate the midterm voter or else these assholes will continue to win with minority views

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

67. "we have to figure out how to motivate the midterm voter"

Good candidates. That's it in a nutshell. you can't force voters to do anything, you've got to entice them into voting. And you do that by putting up good candidates, who actually care about what voters really think and care about most. And don't simply turn around once they get into office and ignore what those voters want, but work on what the voters told them they wanted worked on.

Candidates who interact with constituents constantly, who get experts to help them out with things they don't understand (but are careful not to simply use experts who have a vested interest in swaying them one particular way), who LISTEN to the people and do what the PEOPLE want, not simply what they themselves want or what businesses or just wealthy voters want. And who give the people feedback - let them know you've heard them, let them know what they and their neighbours have told you, and what you're doing about it. That you're not ignoring them. You want candidates who, when voters get that poll question 'Does this person care about me and my family?' get as close to 100% YES votes as possible.

That's how you motivate voters to come out for EVERY vote. Good candidates.

[Enthusiast]

72. You're describing Sherrod Brown.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

73. Yes, and I'm glad he represents me in the Senate.

And I'm hoping Ted Strickland is going to knock Portman out of that second Senate seat, even if we don't get any other Repub to Dem seat switches in Ohio this year.

[stevenleser]

74. I've been saying this for 10+ years now. Take your state legislature races seriously because this is

what you get. We have essentially zero chance of taking back the house of representatives until at least the election of 2022 which would take office in January of 2023.

So Republicans will essentially be able to stop the efforts of the next Democratic President, assuming we are able to elect one, for the entirety of their first term and half of their second.

[doc03]

76. If Democrats got off their ass and voted in the off years we wouldn't

have that problem. They fall in love with a candidate like Obama or Sanders then leave them hanging once they are elected.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

77. Democrats tend to try to motivate voters with positive messages, while Republicans use fear or hate.

Negativity works better at getting a lot of folks to the polls, unfortunately. And even when Dems do go negative, the rather milquetoast message they use is 'Republicans suck worse than we do!', which isn't really scary enough for a lot of folks.

[dsc]

78. NC is gerrymandered all to Hell

Congress is virtually locked in at 10-3 in favor of the GOP. A very small majority of the vote in state legislative races has yielded them veto proof majorities in both houses of the General Assembly.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

79. That sounds worse than Ohio, but we're still pretty close.

We're down to something like 5 out of 18 districts being Dem, despite likewise being basically a 50-50 state. And they bumped off one of our guys last time around by essentially merging two Dem districts after the last go round. That's when Kucinich got bumped from the House.

[dsc]

80. Our three Democratic districts are won with 75 percent of the vote

while the GOP won districts are around 57 percent GOP.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

81. Yup, that's the way they do it.

But really, that's where they created their own Frankenstein wing. When districts are competitive, a moderate Republican will beat out a loonie one. When they redistrict to make those districts more blood red, the nutcases on the far right end up beating out the moderate Republicans.

[mnhtnbb]

85. True. A result of the Repubs seizing control in 2010. Previously Congressional count was 7 D/6 R

which pretty much reflects the almost 50/50 balance in the state.

We can only hope that the damage the R's have done to the state will backfire on them in 2016.

[LynneSin]

84. In 2012, 53% of all Pennsylvanians voted to have a Democrat represent them in the US House

Yet 13 of the 18 house seats went to the GOP

At one point former Governor Tom Corbett wanted to split PA electoral votes by how the House Seats were won.

Really?

A state could fairly give the majoriy to one party yet the way the PAGOP wanted to split out the electoral votes 16 of 20 would go to the Republicans based on 13 GOP seats, 1 Senate seat and the 2 extra would go to the majority seat winner.