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Tag Archives: gerrymandering

Today’s math challenge: Less than 50% of the vote but 72% of the seats

On Morning Joe today, they interviewed Senator Mallory McMorrow. She mentioned toward the end (around 8:02 minutes in) that in 2014 the Republican party had less than 50% of the vote. However, they had 72% of the seats. Unfortunately, it was toward the end and no one’s ears perked up upon hearing this. She notes it will not get any better unless they are voted out of office. At Crooks and Liars today is a post of James Carville suggesting that...

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Michigan Republicans Are Quietly Replacing Officials Who Certified 2020 Vote Totals

This action by the Michigan Republican part does not surprise me in the least. Republicans have had control of the Senate since 1983 and the House (from what I can see) since 1990. They have had a trifecta (including the governor’s office) 2 of 4 times for a number of years also. Much of this has occurred because of gerrymandering state house and senate and federal congressional districts. In 2020 the anybody but trump or biden vote did not apply...

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Enforcing the Constitution

I have met this man on several occasions. He is one of the most unimposing and quiet people I have ever run across. You would never know he is one of the most knowledgeable and capable constitutional attorneys in the nation having testified to Congress on SCOTUS appointments. Erwin Chemerinsky: In Marbury vs. Madison, in 1803, the Supreme Court declared that it is “the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”Quoting Chief...

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Why Gerrymandering Matters

Gerrymandering is not going away any time soon. It will just be used in different manner, a manner in which to achieve congressional districts with a fairer representation of the district’s constituency. Why won’t gerrymandering go away? The districts are too big at an average of 700,000 people per district. This is the result of Congress freezing the number of Congressional Representatives at 435 in 1929 and reapportioning the districts of each state...

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Aída Chávez — GOP Senator Says Impeachment of Judges Who Struck Down Gerrymandered Map Is “A Conversation That Has to Happen”

In the wake of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court order that struck down a Republican congressional map as unconstitutionally gerrymandered, Sen. Pat Toomey said that impeachment of the justices is “a conversation that has to happen.”The GOP map had given Republicans a nearly 3-1 congressional majority in a state that leans Democratic; the court’s new map will still give Republicans a significant advantage, but slightly less of one. For Toomey, that amounted, he said, to a “blatant,...

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Patrick Honner — The Math Behind Gerrymandering and Wasted Votes

In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled extreme partisan gerrymanders unconstitutional. But without a reliable test for identifying unfair district maps, the court has yet to throw any out. Now, as the nation’s highest court hears arguments for and against a legal challenge to Wisconsin’s state assembly district map, mathematicians are on the front lines in the fight for electoral fairness. Simple math can help scheming politicians draw up districts that give their party outsize influence, but...

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Paul R. Pillar — America’s Hypocrisy on Democracy

U.S. politicians often lecture other nations about their flawed governance as if American democracy is the gold standard, but anti-democratic measures like gerrymandering belie that self-image, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar The gerrymandering case that is before the Supreme Court this week is especially important in that respect, because it gets directly to the phenomenon of one person, one vote, one time. That phenomenon is what has occurred in Wisconsin, where the case now before...

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