Read the story, not the Boing Boing post. That’s not what happened.
The result it achieves is more seats for one party. Which didn’t happen here.
1 Like
We have that. It’s called the Voting Rights Act. The supreme court gutted it. And the GOP refuses to pass a fixed version. So states are pretty much free to fuck minorities over through gerrymandering.
But again, that isn’t what happened here. And discussing it as if it were, instead of the actual gerrymandering going on in that state, is bullshit.
2 Likes
“There goes the neighborhood.”
Because normally egregious redistricting is done to protect the interests of incumbent lawmakers. This is to constrain an opposition lawmaker by not allowing him to move to a new district, instead keeping him in the old district at the expense of the residents in the wedge.
1 Like
Gerrymandering is noted for the weird shapes it makes on the map, and for the way it entrenches the power of the incumbant. Its a bipartisan problem, both teams do it, and both teams collaborate with each other to maintain the incumbant’s stranglehold on power.
Is it so hard to imagine that career politicians might feel they have more in common with players on the other team, than they have with their constituents? It’s a poorly kept secret.
2 Likes
Why does anyone need a second home? Always puzzled me. Especially when it gets up to six or seven.
And would he have had the money for it before he was in the state senate, or did he manage to get the money just by being a senator?
3 Likes
Of course its gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering isn’t just redrawing a map.
Agreed.
It’s redrawing the map to benefit one party over the other.
Not necessarily.
But to that point, how does it not benefit the incumbent’s party for him to be smoothly reelected in original district?
Plus, you’ve missed a defining point of gerrymandering, that it’s a redrawing of a map in an obviously awkward and unintuitive way.
3 Likes
Lol, this is blatant gerrymandering. Any patently-innatural tweaking of electoral maps for results of any type is gerrymandering, it’s incredible how one could even think of arguing about it.
Also, it’s pointless to look at who proposed it first - what matters is who approved it, and that’s both parties including the senator himself. If the incumbent senator really feels damaged or constricted by this outcome, then he should learn to manage “his” votes in the relevant committees through the party, and oh, what about himself actually voting against?
A state senator who can’t manage his direct affairs sounds pretty unlikely to me; a state senator cooking up a series of excuses to cover a deal he made with “the other side”… much more likely. Among other things, now the party cannot ask him to risk his seat by running in the harder district. As the brits would say, trebles all round!
"That’s what North Carolina State Senator Ben Clark of the state’s 21st district did after he bought a home in the 19th district. " is a flat out lie, and should be updated.
Clark voted to approve because the courts imposed a Friday deadline for new districting plans, and Clarke was on the committee stage of the proposal, before it gets its vote in the general assembly. The Dem strategy, being in minority, seems to be to let the GOP go forward with their plan and have the courts (which forced this redistricting in the first place) throw them out.
2 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
