Comments on: Get Out Your Crayons

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 01:28:23 +0000

Before term limits and the 2000 redistricting things were fairly balanced in the Florida lege, so districts tended to be compact with a certain logic to them. Now everyone is a rookie and the party apparatus is more important than actually being in lege, because everyone is jockeying for their next job.

It’s all the little specks and ribbons that are attached to districts that make them really absurd.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:57:48 +0000

Here in California we passed Prop 11 which at least takes the California legislative boundaries out of the lege’s hands. Strangely enough, it was Repubs who were for Prop 11, and Dems against it. Just goes to show that the party currently in power in the Legislature really does *not* want to give up that power…

– Badtux the Gerrymandered Penguin
.-= last blog ..And on today in 1939… =-.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:29:48 +0000

Texas got redistricted not only in 2000 as usual with the U.S. Census, but again in 2003 when the by then Republican legislature passed a law requiring a midcensus redistricting. (A decent and mostly unbiased summary is in the wiki.) Much skulduggery took place and many strange districts emerged: one was a hundred miles or so along a highway, if I recall; some, like my majority-Democratic district, were dissolved altogether into adjoining Republican-leaning districts. After two boisterous and IMO noble attempts at quorum-busting, Democratic legislators ultimately failed to prevent it, and a court battle ensued. In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all but one of the new districts complied with the Voting Rights Act That ruling set the 'publicans right back to attempting to assure that Gerry has his day. It's tough to run a two- or multiple-party system when one of the major parties doesn't give a good damn about democracy, only about staying in power. I hate to say it, but that ultimately leads to unhappy people committing unhappy acts. Yes, hanging seems about right for DeLay, but don't let his buddies get the contract to build the scaffold. .-= last blog ..How To Cheer Yourself =-.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:20:17 +0000

In reply to jams O’Donnell.

He was an amateur, Jams, and lacked the tools, like Geographic Information Systems, to map out where the voters are and which party they belong to to produce districts that are almost totally filled with Democratic voters, and then build other districts where Republicans own 55-60% of the voters. The purpose being to make 40-45% of Democratic voters unrepresented. That’s how they get 65% of the legislature/parliament while a minority party.

That’s why we have some districts/constituencies that include a couple of blocks from one side of a street in what you would think was logically in another district/constituency.

I’ll be the first to admit that the Republican Party of Florida hired some extremely competent people to design their mapping software for the 2000 Census redistricting. The results look like hell, but they accomplished their primary goal of screwing the Democrats.

By: jams O'Donnell

jams O'Donnell — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:48:15 +0000

THe ghost of Governer Gerry is resurrected Bryan? .-= last blog ..First bloom on the Tree Paeony =-.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:40:11 +0000

He should be hanged, Steve. The rope is recyclable and there is no leaking of bio-hazards.

To be democratic all you have to do is put it on the ballot.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:14:06 +0000

Somebody lock up Tom DeLay for the duration. What I'd really like to see is DeLay shot, but that's not exactly democracy, is it? Then again, neither is what he did... .-= last blog ..How To Cheer Yourself =-.