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(Politico) California moves to dismantle GOP map — and Trump’s grip

Slartibartfast

Slartibartfast

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California’s Texas-thwarting gerrymander has swiftly transformed from fantasy to reality.

Democrats in the House and the state Legislature are coalescing around a plan to draw a half-dozen Republican incumbents into oblivion — and persuade California voters to approve the new congressional maps before next year’s midterms. Party leaders are closely tracking the dual-track developments in which lawmakers in Texas and California are moving, in partisan parallel, to shore up their respective party’s House majorities. California Republicans are casting about for a way to avoid extinction.

It all points to a high-stakes, big-dollar brawl thrusting California to the center of the political universe.

“Legally, we can do it,” said Xavier Becerra, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former Biden Cabinet secretary who is working with a voting rights institute that has briefed lawmakers. “Politically, we must do it.”
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I would be nice if Texas hadn't opened pandoras box, but here we are. Honestly, I hope Cali gets to the point that it seats nobody from the GOP just to show them that there are certain things that they should not mess with.

Ideally enough dems are seated to not only take over the house, but also to force the release of the Epstein files.
 
Slartibartfast said:



I would be nice if Texas hadn't opened pandoras box, but here we are. Honestly, I hope Cali gets to the point that it seats nobody from the GOP just to show them that there are certain things that they should not mess with.

Ideally enough dems are seated to not only take over the house, but also to force the release of the Epstein files.
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I wonder, will there be enough attorneys specializing in election law and redistricting to meet the forthcoming demand?
 
districting is completely broken. states need to agree on an independent non partisan process and stick with it. I know there is no perfect process, but the current one is totally broken.
agree on a computer algorithm or whatever and use it. I know it will be disruptive at first, but this is completely out of control.
 
ncguy said:
districting is completely broken. states need to agree on an independent non partisan process and stick with it. I know there is no perfect process, but the current one is totally broken.
agree on a computer algorithm or whatever and use it. I know it will be disruptive at first, but this is completely out of control.
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This isn't the only thing the roberts court broke and if society can't rely on the courts, we make it happen ourselves and the fallout will be what it is.
 
Slartibartfast said:



I would be nice if Texas hadn't opened pandoras box, but here we are. Honestly, I hope Cali gets to the point that it seats nobody from the GOP just to show them that there are certain things that they should not mess with.

Ideally enough dems are seated to not only take over the house, but also to force the release of the Epstein files.
Click to expand...

I mean this is only going to descend into madness. CA (and maybe NY and IL?) will follow Texas' lead and where does it end?

Democracies, like marriages, are fragile things. It only takes one to start making up their own rules and ruin the whole arrangement. Once a party decides they're going to rig the system in their favor to win at any and all costs, it's over.
 
Bok Tuklo said:
Shelby County v Holder
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From the holding summary:

The Court held that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act imposes current burdens that are no longer responsive to the current conditions in the voting districts in question. Although the constraints this section places on specific states made sense in the 1960s and 1970s, they do not any longer and now represent an unconstitutional violation of the power to regulate elections that the Constitution reserves for the states. The Court also held that the formula for determining whether changes to a state's voting procedure should be federally reviewed is now outdated and does not reflect the changes that have occurred in the last 50 years in narrowing the voting turnout gap in the states in question.
 
Bok Tuklo said:
Shelby County v Holder
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I mean, I understand what NatMort is saying: a vote is a vote is a vote.

It ignores history, however. It ignores the history of how people were denied equal treatment under the law because they were effectively barred from voting. The consequences of that legacy are still with us today, which is why the VRA was enacted, because it was the first piece of legislation that actually had teeth to enforce voting rights. It was not the first voting rights law, though. There were voting rights laws intended to empower non-whites going back to 1870.
 
Along Came Jones said:
From the holding summary:

The Court held that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act imposes current burdens that are no longer responsive to the current conditions in the voting districts in question. Although the constraints this section places on specific states made sense in the 1960s and 1970s, they do not any longer and now represent an unconstitutional violation of the power to regulate elections that the Constitution reserves for the states. The Court also held that the formula for determining whether changes to a state's voting procedure should be federally reviewed is now outdated and does not reflect the changes that have occurred in the last 50 years in narrowing the voting turnout gap in the states in question.
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And the bold is where the decision fails. Because it assumes that racism and the desire to weaponize the power of voting against non-whites just went away. It's naive at best, but at worst, the results in 2025 are exactly what the majority wanted, and they weaponized the supposed unfairness of race-consciousness to rationalize reviving the worst of race-consciousness on the other.
 
How would California's independent redistricting commison change the layout of the districts?

Wouldn't they be fair?
 
Metric Mouse said:
How would California's independent redistricting commison change the layout of the districts?

Wouldn't they be fair?
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It was designed to prevent what is occurring. The only way around it would be a plebiscite, in my opinion.

But again, we are a post-law nation at this point so who knows?
 
multivita-man said:
And the bold is where the decision fails. Because it assumes that racism and the desire to weaponize the power of voting against non-whites just went away. It's naive at best, but at worst, the results in 2025 are exactly what the majority wanted, and they weaponized the supposed unfairness of race-consciousness to rationalize reviving the worst of race-consciousness on the other.
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Do you believe race-based voting patterns are the same now as they were in 1965? Using 2024 election data Texas Republicans are gambling they are not.
 
Slartibartfast said:
I think people are past your typical attempts at gaslighting.
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R.c7ac60f9094714667565a3c3dd825eb9
 
In 2024 36% of Massachusetts voters voted for Donald Trump, yet the Massachusetts House delegation has 9 Democrats and no Republicans.

Has Massachusetts been gerrymandered?

(Keeping in mind that we literally coined the term.)
 
multivita-man said:
I mean, I understand what NatMort is saying: a vote is a vote is a vote.

It ignores history, however. It ignores the history of how people were denied equal treatment under the law because they were effectively barred from voting. The consequences of that legacy are still with us today, which is why the VRA was enacted, because it was the first piece of legislation that actually had teeth to enforce voting rights. It was not the first voting rights law, though. There were voting rights laws intended to empower non-whites going back to 1870.
Click to expand...

It does become tiresome, however, when one has to dumb oneself down in order to understand one of his posts.
 
NatMorton said:
In 2024 36% of Massachusetts voters voted for Donald Trump, yet the Massachusetts House delegation has 9 Democrats and no Republicans.

Has Massachusetts been gerrymandered?

(Keeping in mind that we literally coined the term.)
Click to expand...
Massachusetts has for as long as I've paid attention has been about how they manipulate the 1st District.
 
Along Came Jones said:
Do you believe race-based voting patterns are the same now as they were in 1965? Using 2024 election data Texas Republicans are gambling they are not.
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That's not even the point of that legislation, the point is that you can gerrymander and draw maps in ways that can completely remove the ability for certain groups to get representation. That's a reality now as it was in 1965. When you see states that will have a majority of voters from one group or even a close split down the middle, yet the other group gets much higher numbers of representatives, that's not democracy.

When a state like Alabama has 25% of their population as black but are drawn in a way that waters down their political influence, their their issues don't get resolved.

Pretty basic democracy stuff here.
 
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