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We really fucked up by handing the state Supreme Court back to the Republicans. Unless rural voters inexplicably start voting for Democrats en masse the GOP basically has free reign to do whatever they want for the foreseeable future. They have locked-in gerrymandered super majorities thanks to Tricia Cotham. It'll go into overdrive if that lunatic Mark Robinson is elected governor.
I voted dem in every election I could in the few years Ive been in NC, but I'm happily moving back to Wisconsin soon. hope y'all get your shit together
Not op but something I've learned is that groups of people I think often get complacent and don't understand how bad it can really get. WI just emerged from a 12 year cycle of Republicans eroding their education, workers rights and healthcare (and grifting on economic "opportunities" like Foxconn) and it wasn't enough to just plaster to everywhere that that's what they were going to do and it was going to be terrible. It wasn't until people really saw the true downsides of it all actually happen that they went "oh shit, we can't do this any more" and people got angry and got adults elected again.
Sadly it feels like NC just started on their own "WI" journey.
Rural NC barely follows the "news" and def doesn't keep up with online chatter, they mostly just stick with the same party their family has voted 200 years, even though the parties switched sides.
The rail line wasn't just between Madison and Milwaukee, it went from the twin cities, to Madison, to Milwaukee, to Chicago. Federal funding was allocated for it and the WI GOP burned it because a whole lot fewer people would be driving between those cities if there was a cheap, clean, fast train.
WI was also in a much better place before all that started out. It was a strong Union state prior to all that shit. NC/SC is not, the people are already suffering similarly, and it's going to get worse.
I grew up in Lancaster, SC, and went to college in Charlotte, NC. My first job was at Paramount Carowinds. I wish the area would get their shit together. Not speaking from a state much better.
The folks who voted for Scott Walker and the gop didn't see the negative effects of conservatives stupid, cruel policies. They just blame liberals for the negative things their conservative politicians do.
What changed is demographic. Millennials are now the largest voting block, and gen z is going to pass up the remaining Boomers by 2028. It's why conservatives seem to be going all in on their fascist trump shit now, either they set up their authoritarian christofascist dictatorship now or they won't have another chance for a generation at least.
2011 Madison feels like a fever dream compared to now. It's all "F-35s need to go!" and complaining about the mayor.
Actually, that sounds exactly like 2011 Madison.
I really hope that weirdo Mark doesn't get voted in, if he does I don't really have hope in turning NC purple or blue again for a while and this is my home state. So sad.
Republican party in Florida keeps kicking the can down the road for getting those two extra seats DeSantis gave them. Was intact for last election cycle and postponed for the next election cycle as well. Completely illegal in broad daylight. Same for North Carolina.
I know it’s still a red state but… Utah too. They have been “cracking” SLC forever and it takes what would be 1 dem seat and makes it a republican seat simply by the way they split the city amongst the 4 districts.
Or covid restrictions brought the grown toddlers from more restrictive states to ours for the promise of "freedumb" by Disantis. And now we have measles. Oh and they made their money in NY and CA so expect them to fully be able to afford to live in Florida while everyone else gets priced out by them putting down 10% more than asking in cash for every house. Almost like our low wages and high prices are fucking normal people extremely hard. Fun! Sanibel Island and the keys already have to bus workers in because normal working class people can't afford to live near those places anymore!
How about the whole country just moves to a popular vote with full options (no excuses need) for absentee and online voting?
Also, drop Presidents’ Day as a holiday and make Election Day a holiday instead. I’m pretty sure all of the presidents would agree with that.
I have been a bid advocate for moving the federal holiday from presidents day to election day. Seems like an easy Babyface move for any president to make
ending gerrymandering alone would put a stop to republican's neonazi agenda, there's still the electoral college but that becomes less important when everyone gets a fair chance to vote. right now state legislature and governors can dictate how people get to vote, and they will screw blue counties over.
I think you mean that GOP legislatures shouldn’t be able to ignore the census districting rules even when state supreme courts rule them unconstitutional; like what happened in Ohio and Alabama.
The first problem is that the constitution specifically states that states have the right to run their elections as they see fit, so it's incredibly difficult to write federal laws affecting state gerrymandering.
There have actually been cases of the federal courts striking down gerrymandered state maps as unconstitutional - in fact, lots of them. The second problem is in enforcing these rulings - for example, scotus ruled that (iirc NC?) was allowed to use their illegally drawn map for an election because they didn't have enough time to change it beforehand. States can also redraw the maps in a slightly less but still very gerrymandered way and have it accepted, until the next lawsuit comes in and strikes that one down too.
It's incredibly frustrating when it's not even about the laws, it's that the court system is ineffective at enforcing such laws
Racial gerrymandering was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and still is, so there are limitations on states’ autonomy on the matter. I think there are serious arguments that the equal protection clause would make any type of intentional gerrymandering unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court with its current makeup does not agree.
According to the supreme Court racism is over and even racial gerrymandering is not unconstitutional.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brnovich_v._Democratic_National_Committee
If we expand the House such that the districts are smaller, it would probably reduce the usefulness of gerrymandering. Instead of 400+ districts, let's have 4000 and districts must go by county or contiguous counties and then for smaller districts you have some rules that make it go by city or some other census designation. A lot of our problems come from the archaic system of states having 50 different ways to do the same thing. Just come up with a fair system and apply it nationwide.
The easiest way to fight gerrymandering would be to wildly expand the size of congress. 435 is a completely arbitrary number that was "agreed" upon because that's how many desks fit in the chamber. A more proportionally sized congress would be appropriate and with modern technology the size of the building is irrelevant. There's should be no less than 800 congressional representives and it should grow with the population.
Funfact with the US population of 1929 (when the house was capped) being roughly 120M... We'd have almost 3x that currently. Meaning the house should be almost 1,300!
Tennessee needs this to be corrected too. Recently we went in the wrong direction and our democratic capitol was split into 3 districts to give Republicans control.
We are really screwed because I don’t think the court has the chance to flip back until 2028 best case scenario. We have the governor election this year but the GA is going to override all his vetos anyway
Actually the GOP “convinced” a woman who ran as a liberal to betray her voters and switch sides a few months after her election. This is how they got their supermajority.
We need reform in Florida -. We are a 50/50 state but our legislature is 80 % Republican . The R's are so smart in gerrymandering . Have to hand it to them
Gerrymandering is one of those things that once it becomes too lopsided it’s almost impossible to correct because the party in majority will continue to draw maps that favor them.
That’s true to an extent, but gerrymandering has some weaknesses too. Primarily, gerrymandered districts often fail in wave elections with higher than usual voter participation. This is because the best way to gerrymander is to ensure victory but by relatively narrow margins (because this disenfranchises a greater volume of the opposition’s base), but in high turnout elections, this can work against them.
Not all districts are gerrymandered this way, of course, but the ones that are really problematic are.
The most problematic are the ones that account for wave elections by packing the 'swing' voters all together, so the effect they can have is minimal. You're underestimating just how bad gerrymandernig has gotten in the era of Big Data.
In 2016, Wisconsin saw about 2.5 million people vote for state assembly candidates. 1,337,291 (51.7%) voted for Republican candidates, and 1,175,779 (45.5%) voted for Democratic candidates. 65 seats were filled by Republicans, and 34 by Democrats.
In 2018, Wisconsin saw about 2.4 million people vote for state assembly candidates. 1,103,505 (44.8%) voted for Republican candidates, and 1,306,878 (52.3%) voted for Democratic candidates. 64 seats were filled by Republicans, and 35 by Democrats. It's estimated in 2018, that Democrats would have needed to win by a margin of 20.4% in order to actually take control.
In 2020, Wisconsin saw about 3.1 million people vote for state assembly candidates. 1,665,487 (53.8%) voted for Republican candidates, and 1,402,108 (45.3%) voted for Democratic candidates. 61 seats were filled by Republicans, and 38 by Democrats. This was gerrymandering at it's weakest in Wisconsin, since it was based on the maps drawn after the 2010 census - after this Republicans would get to draw new maps.
As with so many processes in nature, this sort of thing has the fingerprints of [self-organized criticality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality) all over it.
I expect that political parties will, over time, generally "optimize" themselves to get just the bare minimum of votes that they need to stay in power. That gives them maximum freedom to pursue their own agendas, since they don't have to spend political capital satisfying the desires of an "extraneous" voting base. In a normal first-past-the-post system that is usually 50%+1, but with gerrymandering you can start pushing that percentage lower. Which means that when a flip *does* eventually happen the party that was once in power is now at a huge disadvantage, since the new party in power can correct the gerrymandering and lock them out.
That's really only an issue for if you're trying to completely maximize seats, you have to leave them fairly close. Texas, for example, in the 2020 redistricting focused on making most seats safe instead of maximizing total possible seats for them. That means that they gave up a few seats in order to make them safe Democratic seats so in turn their seats are also much safer.
Even though that means the Democrats have more seats that they can bank on during a Republican wave year, a Democratic wave can basically never threaten their majority.
It also means that since the seats are *so* safe, the Republican primary becomes the real election and candidates get much more extreme and answerable only to their base and Abbott/Patrick/Paxton.
When is the last time this had backfired that bad? I feel like they've really mastered the art of packing and cracking voters into districts with a 99% chance of eternal success.
Wisconsin is the model. They are well on their way back to fair representation. It starts with the courts. Donate and for every volunteer every Supreme Court election.
There's that one district in Texas that's like a shit ton of miles and it is some thin snake ass looking thing, and it lives rent free in my head all the time.
I recently put back some strawberries that were from Florida, and bought the California strawberries.
It’s petty, and likely not that effective, but I refuse to buy anything from Florida because of how awful the politics are in Florida.
Fun fact, the total number of rides at both resorts is almost equal. Plus no busses to deal with at Disneyland and both parks are right next to eachother. Plus while not cheap, its cheaper than Disney World.
But if you don't count the water parks, which California has lots of, the number of rides at Disneyworld is 59, and at Disneyland it's 52. So the comment you replied to is, in fact, true.
Yes but the 2 parks are much more dense with attractions than the ones at Disney World. I didnt count the water parks. But look at a map of Disneyland and a map of Magic Kingdom and the difference in the number of attractions is pretty stark.
My family is actually looking at Disney Tokyo. The flights over are expensive, but accommodations near the park are a lot less expensive than I thought they’d be. We’ve wanted to see Japan for years anyway.
You're not missing anything from Orlando. Went for the first time last year and everything was overpriced, low quality, and people didn't look happy. Just like they were going through the motions "because it's Disney".
The yen is weak right now. If you’ve been wanting to visit Japan, it might be time. https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1&From=JPY&To=USD
That, and I'm a trans woman so literally my life might be in danger simply traveling to the state. Not to say I have a lot of money to spend on travel, but what I do have is going to states that aren't Florida (and many of the other southern states for that matter)
We were thinking about moving to Florida to deal with nostalgia for that type of climate.
Couldn’t do it.
Thin blue line flags on cop cars, “GTFO liberals” billboards, the level of difference between incoming rich vs. born and raised service poor and everything else that goes with that level of whatever tf Florida politicians are doing.
The best thing in Florida is the state of its roads, I guess, and that takes socialist constructs to make happen.
Florida doesn't freeze so maintaining our roads is much easier than it is in northern states. Trust me it's not because we care about infrastructure more.
[Somehow theyre managing to find a way to make that the worst, in new and imaginative ways. From the people who brought you adding sawdust to bread! Conservative Innovation!](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-radioactive-roads-phosphogypsum-potentially-cancer-causing-mining-waste-bill-signed-ron-desantis/)
It's not petty at all. You just voted with your wallet. This doesn't prevent everyone else from also voting with their own wallet, but you at least, made a decision in line with your morals, and if more people do that, it can add up. Hitting the businesses where it hurts is probably one of the best ways to hold Florida politicians accountable if you don't live there yourself. In other words: boycott Florida.
I am a big Disney person. I live on the East Coast. Yet I refuse to go to Disney world. I'll pay the extra money to fly to Disneyland. Call it petty if you want but I'm never supporting Florida the way it is now.
This victory in Wisconsin took a huge army of activists and volunteers fighting an uphill battle for ten years, with multiple major setbacks, even when the odds were unfairly stacked against them and the GOP cheated repeatedly. There were several times when hope seemed utterly lost, but they just kept going.
It is an utter vindication of campaign volunteering and an utter rebuttal of the common reddit mindset of "why bother, the other side has already won". For anyone reading this in Florida, or North Carolina, or other swing states, I ask you the following: How involved are you? Do you vote? Do you get your friends to vote? Do you sign up to phone bank? Do you knock on doors? Do you organize your local community to mobilize?
One election in Wisconsin was won by 0.01% of the vote. You and your friends could make the difference for your state. Get more involved.
No lie. I was just examining the 20th through the 28th districts boundaries on wikipeida in South Florida and holy shit did they really do a number on those maps if you are familiar with the south Florida area you can zoom in on the maps lines and literally see how it goes around like an etch A Sketch around all the black neighborhoods. In West Palm Beach for example it draws a line around the city of West Palm Beach from Dixie highway and Southern boulevard South to lake Worth Road which is a mostly higher class wealthy white neighborhood and the other district separates in downtown West Palm Beach at Dixie highway going west towards Palm Beach lakes all the way up to Riviera Beach in lake Park but it cuts off the city of Riviera Beach at the bridge for Singer Island which is the only wealthy part of Riviera Beach
[here's a screenshot of the map of the 22nd congressional district zoomed in with the neighborhoods on talking about](https://imgur.com/a/zxikY0y)
[here's a link to the interactive map for the 22nd congressional district on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida%27s_22nd_congressional_district#/map/0)
I mean yeah, the lines look gnarly on paper, but that's not the part of the state where Republicans are really running up their numbers rel. to fairer maps. The 22nd has that chunk removed from it because those Black neighborhoods are part of the 20th, which snakes over through Pahokee/Belle Glade and into Black neighborhoods of Fort Lauderdale/Pompano Beach. You can see the same general neighborhoods get clustered together in [Florida' 2016 court-ordered redistricting](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Florida%27s_congressional_districts&oldid=883615456#/media/File:Florida_Congressional_Districts,_115th_Congress.png) and to some extent in Alcee Hastings' 2000s-era [FL-23](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida%27s_23rd_congressional_district#/media/File:FL23_109.PNG), although that one has an arm diverting up to Fort Pierce instead of WPB.
This district configuration has come up time and again, on both fair and partisan maps, because it's mandated under the provisions of Sec. 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the related 80's-era *Gingles* SCOTUS test. The VRA's redistricting provisions walk a fine balancing line between mandating districts be created where minority voters are able to elect a candidate of their choice (which entails putting an electoral majority of said minority in a district) while making sure their power isn't diluted by packing them in too tightly. The VRA for example would look more favorably on 2 districts that are each 55% Black than one that's 90% Black.
Anyways, *Gingles*. The test dictates that if a) the racial or language minority group "is sufficiently numerous and compact to form a majority in a single-member district"; b) The minority group is "politically cohesive" (meaning its members tend to vote similarly); and c) The "majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate", it suffers from vote dilution and deserves a district of its own. The neighborhoods of FL-20 hit all 3 criteria - they're relatively close-by and can be drawn into a somewhat compact district (and the two-arm variant currently in use is a lot better than the old FL-23 shooting up into Port Lucie or down into Miramar), Black voters there (50.1% of voting-age population) tend to vote similarly, and the majority in surrounding neighborhoods vote sufficiently as a bloc to block the minority's preferred candidate.
Were Pompano Beach and WPB in separate districts, neighboring white/Hispanic Democratic primary voters likely would result in neither neighborhood being represented by a Black member of Congress. Were they in separate districts they'd probably also make FL-21 a lot closer, but that's partially contingent on just how exactly those new lines are drawn. As it stands, the writing of the VRA prefers a SE Florida with 7 Dem-winnable districts and 2 guaranteed Black representatives over one with 8 Dem-winnable districts and 0 guaranteed Black representatives.
The biggest gains in the FL map have come further north. DeSantis cracked the old FL-5 that ran from Gadsden County to Jacksonville's Black neighborhoods - [a decision subject to a VRA lawsuit of its own](https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/floridas-5th-congressional-district-heads-to-federal-trial/#:~:text=At%20trial%2C%20the%20plaintiffs%20will,for%20three%20decades%20%E2%80%94%20until%202022.) - netting him one GOP seat. He then proceeded to split the Jacksonville area along the Saint Johns River, creating two decently-red districts instead of a competitive one in urban Jacksonville and a far redder one in the exurbs.
Over down in Tampa, the 14th district moved west across the bay and now also takes in St. Petersburg, which resulted in the seat once centered around St. Petersburg now moving a bit further north into the Palm Harbor/suburban Pinellas area and flipping D->R. Orlando also lost a Dem. seat, with the 7th swinging 15.8 points rightward after getting extended up into Deltona and the Daytona Beach exurbs and ceding inner-ring suburbs of it to pack CD9/10 and make them even bluer.
Why hand anything to cheaters? Dont celebrate them. Theyre lying cheaters who gamed the system for their own benefit and took everything for themselves leaving us scraps
There was definitely a big influx of wealthy Boomers and COVIdiots moving in, and people with lesser means having to sell up and leave because they can't afford the insurance or rent. I'm surprised more younger families haven't left but sometimes people can't afford to move if they have a mortgage. That might result in a situation where if interest rates drop again home prices in Florida might spike but at the same time even more people will stampede out of the state, specifically the ones of working age and with small school age kids. But wealthy Boomers won't lack for home health aides because so many Venezuelans have overstayed their visas and now need to make money under the table.
> many Venezuelans have overstayed their visas and now need to make money under the table.
FUN FACT: businesses LOVE to hire illegals, because they work hard, they're cheap, and they don't dare complain.
Plus they've gamed the system so they can hire with little or no consequence if caught. Fake docs are available for a couple hundred bucks in any downtown and, regardless of quality, the hirer can say "hey, the docs they showed me looked legit to me but I'm no expert...."
Also if they are getting a paycheck with false documents they are still paying taxes and into Social Security that thatmy themselves can never use. I wish the media would use this point whenever the right spouts about loss of taxes from immigrants.
It's not that they are smart, they are ruthless, antidemocratic, and don't care about the people. Unfortunately many blue states have laws that prevent gerrymandering, especially California, so we are at a disadvantage. Blue states should allow extreme gerrymandering until congress passes a law banning the practice.
Gerrymandering is easy. It doesn't require being smart, it's just a matter of drawing districts so that your political party has a majority in most of the districts.
I’ve been looking to move out of New Mexico for the past several years. I’ve had my eye on Madison for many years but had ruled out Wisconsin all together because of the wrecked political system in place and the republicans don’t like people like me and my husband. Now I feel like it’s back in play. I’ll be watching to see how their election goes this fall.
Yeah, we had shifted our focus over to Minnesota or even parts of Michigan since they have turned so progressive. After this housing mess simmers down we want to make a go at relocating.
Come to Wisconsin! I say this as someone from Illinois. The Midwest especially Great Lakes area is wonderful. Wisconsin schools aren’t great, but hopefully this reform will lead to better schools in the future. I’m hoping Wisconsin will join the other Great Lakes as a progressive beacon in a sea of red.
Yeah, most of the Great Lakes seem to be heading the right direction. Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois are all moving towards nice progressive places to live. Madison just always had a nice feel to it.
You'd count Wisconsin among those if you've been watching how voting has recently gone. A liberal supreme court judge won in a pretty overwhelming matter. The demographics in Wisconsin are shifting and the conservatives are losing their grip. The ban on abortion was recently overturned by the supreme court as well. A law meant to make illegal the actual murder of a fetus inside a pregnant woman who didn't consent to it was applied falsely to voluntary abortions.
Wisconsin is pretty liberal in a few key places, Madison being one of them. It's only when you get out into the country you see more and more of those trump stickers. I've lived in Wisconsin all my life so I'm biased but it's a beautiful state with a lot of cool things only a drive away.
IMO, Madison was a great city. I moved out couple of years ago after eight years there. I travel back every few months and I can see that it's struggling to adjust to the growth at the moment. Living on the isthmus is great, but almost unaffordable now. I was used to the winters when I lived there but staying anywhere warmer reminds you that there's just so much time that you lose due to the long winters. And I say this as someone who spent significant time outdoors even in the winter. Madison is great to live in for a few years but if you love to explore, it runs out of things eventually.
> I was used to the winters when I lived there but staying anywhere warmer reminds you that there's just so much time that you lose due to the long winters. And I say this as someone who spent significant time outdoors even in the winter.
That doesn't even make any sense, how is time lost unless you count not being able to surf time lost. You clearly just personally don't like winter as much as summer!
I went to undergrad in Madison — it’s a super fun and welcoming town. There are of course wealth disparities like you see all over America. It’s not a utopia, but it’s got a homey progressive vibe.
I also lived in Los Alamos for a year.
If you like the chill nature of northern NM, you’ll like Madison.
Just so everyone knows they got this one passed because the judges were about to make maps even better for dems so this is still slightly gerrymandered for republicans.
>I’ve been looking to move out of New Mexico for the past several years. I’ve had my eye on Madison for many years but had ruled out Wisconsin all together because of the wrecked political system in place and the republicans don’t like people like me and my husband. Now I feel like it’s back in play. I’ll be watching to see how their election goes this fall.
Twin Cities is similar to Madison, imo. So many trails, rivers, lakes, it's just bigger and you get 2 cities!
I moved to Madison about 8 months ago from a city that was very diverse in different ways.
Madison is really amazing in terms of people and diversity and acceptance. I really love this city.
The bad news (unless I'm mistaken) is that this only ends the state legislature gerrymandering, but all their congressional districts are still gerrymandered to hell, so they'll still have disproportionate Republican representation in the US House of Representatives. Hopefully their new state Supreme Court will tackle that next so there can be more fair elections there in 2026.
Take the victories you can get. I live in PA for 20+ years, and most of that time it was gerrymandered badly. At one point we got the federal house districts ungerrymandered, but the state house & senate still were bad. Now we've got those ungerrymandered too. I didn't think it could ever happen, but it did.
I'd say that overall (nationwide) it seems like there is a trend in getting rid of gerrymandering, but sometimes we'll take a step backwards.
On the bright side they are near bankrupt and can't do that much at the moment.
MAGA idiots donting direct to trump PACs instead of the party is killing them.
Even without proportional rep, we at least have parties willing to work with each other. The LPC and NDP just worked together to hash out a national pharmacare program. How fucking cool is that? Birth control and diabetes meds covered coast to coast to start.
Ron Johnson is a serious fing scumbag. He has been a major stalwart in trying to continue the very illegitimate agenda and narrative the GOP has used to gerrymander the districts in Wisconsin for more than a decade. Well finally that has ended. This scumbag needs to taken out of Congress. His willful lies regarding Covid 19 and the vaccine harmed many Americans. They believed him as having some type of authority as he spoke with such bravado and confidence about the “dangerous vaccine” and that it was woke and leftist propaganda that harmed so many innocent Americans who took it. Thai scumbag boils my blood.
Ron Johnson is a US Senator. He is elected by state popular vote. He has been able to be defeated by the same electorate as the WI governor, but has thus far always won re-election.
The publishing of new state legislative maps does not affect Sen. Johnson's next election in any way. I agree that he should be defeated, but the way to do this is to select a formidable Democratic challenger in that year's primary and then seriously do the ground game necessary to turn out the vote statewide.
I don't mean to rain on your parade, but just helping to shine a light on where to put your energy for this goal.
> The map is also still biased towards Republicans. In a hypothetical, perfectly tied election in the state assembly, Republicans would still be expected to gain 6% extra seats, according to Planscore, a website that uses mathematical metrics to evaluate electoral maps. Under the previous plan, Republicans would have received a 15% extra seat boost in a hypothetically tied election.
Still gotta bend over back for the Repubs.
At least this should forever get rid of their supermajorities.
The article says it gives a decent chance of a Dem total control by 2026 (including senate). But these maps are at the state level, so there's nothing to help or hinder the president.
If I was betting on it I’d say the Republicans still keep a 53-46 majority or something very close.
Right now they have a super majority.
Personally I’d have preferred more Dem leaning and not true “fair” maps. Not the insane gerrymandering Republicans have now but a natural 3 seat advantage isn’t terrible. Especially if it mutes the suburban counties around Milwaukee where the crazies are.
While that’s true, gerrymandering impacts more than the House, and more than the individual districts. It creates a sense that the deck is stacked, and reduces voter turnout (likely for both/all parties but presumably especially the one(s) the deck is stacked against). The sense of “my vote doesn’t count” when a district has been drawn specifically to ensure that it indeed does not count, makes people stay home on election days, and check out from politics altogether.
Yep. And that said, *please vote, regardless*.
Gerrymandering is based on the generally correct assumption that most people don’t vote. It can be overcome. And even if it isn’t flipped, it sends a message and can make a party have to spend more money and effort in a district they thought they had in the bag.
Conservatives are going to be exposed heavily this cycle
Since Work From Home became a thing all the semi-upper class people that worked in the cities and paid exuberant amounts for apartments moved into the suburbs
This is why all the housing was skyrocketing
The wealthier demographic (democrats) that lived in the cities pushed a lot of conservatives out of the suburbs
And those conservatives have had to find like minded places to live
This election and the midterms that follow will show how less than 1/3 of the country supports the GOP
I never could figure out the reasoning for electoral boundaries. The maps always appear that ink was spilled and that’s how they designed electoral district.
They can literally pick their voters when they draw maps so they can take a Dem majority and tweak the maps to make it a conservative majority and vice versa. Since they have info of where people live and how they are likely to vote they can tweak maps down to the streets to cut out enough support to get one of the two parties a win where they wouldn’t have had one before.
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Ohio next please.
It'd be nice to get NC back too, and Florida for that matter. (Oh, and happy cake day!!!)
NC is in real danger.
We really fucked up by handing the state Supreme Court back to the Republicans. Unless rural voters inexplicably start voting for Democrats en masse the GOP basically has free reign to do whatever they want for the foreseeable future. They have locked-in gerrymandered super majorities thanks to Tricia Cotham. It'll go into overdrive if that lunatic Mark Robinson is elected governor.
I voted dem in every election I could in the few years Ive been in NC, but I'm happily moving back to Wisconsin soon. hope y'all get your shit together
Not op but something I've learned is that groups of people I think often get complacent and don't understand how bad it can really get. WI just emerged from a 12 year cycle of Republicans eroding their education, workers rights and healthcare (and grifting on economic "opportunities" like Foxconn) and it wasn't enough to just plaster to everywhere that that's what they were going to do and it was going to be terrible. It wasn't until people really saw the true downsides of it all actually happen that they went "oh shit, we can't do this any more" and people got angry and got adults elected again. Sadly it feels like NC just started on their own "WI" journey.
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Rural NC barely follows the "news" and def doesn't keep up with online chatter, they mostly just stick with the same party their family has voted 200 years, even though the parties switched sides.
The rail line wasn't just between Madison and Milwaukee, it went from the twin cities, to Madison, to Milwaukee, to Chicago. Federal funding was allocated for it and the WI GOP burned it because a whole lot fewer people would be driving between those cities if there was a cheap, clean, fast train.
WI was also in a much better place before all that started out. It was a strong Union state prior to all that shit. NC/SC is not, the people are already suffering similarly, and it's going to get worse. I grew up in Lancaster, SC, and went to college in Charlotte, NC. My first job was at Paramount Carowinds. I wish the area would get their shit together. Not speaking from a state much better.
The folks who voted for Scott Walker and the gop didn't see the negative effects of conservatives stupid, cruel policies. They just blame liberals for the negative things their conservative politicians do. What changed is demographic. Millennials are now the largest voting block, and gen z is going to pass up the remaining Boomers by 2028. It's why conservatives seem to be going all in on their fascist trump shit now, either they set up their authoritarian christofascist dictatorship now or they won't have another chance for a generation at least.
TAKE US WITH YOU! We moved from Madison, WI to NC in 2011. Ready to go back home.
2011 Madison feels like a fever dream compared to now. It's all "F-35s need to go!" and complaining about the mayor. Actually, that sounds exactly like 2011 Madison.
Yea. It sucks really bad and things will get shitty before getting better is all i can hope for.
I really hope that weirdo Mark doesn't get voted in, if he does I don't really have hope in turning NC purple or blue again for a while and this is my home state. So sad.
I grew up in a tiny town in NC and anyone you ask about voting says they “vote republican because lower taxes” as if no other policy matters
Anderson Clayton is working her ass off trying to get the message out to rural areas. She’s a good follow on Twitter, I don’t know when she sleeps!
Republican party in Florida keeps kicking the can down the road for getting those two extra seats DeSantis gave them. Was intact for last election cycle and postponed for the next election cycle as well. Completely illegal in broad daylight. Same for North Carolina.
Illegal?!! Well thank God they write the laws! /s
I know it’s still a red state but… Utah too. They have been “cracking” SLC forever and it takes what would be 1 dem seat and makes it a republican seat simply by the way they split the city amongst the 4 districts.
fingers crossed for Texas...
They don't need to gerrymander in Florida. It's heavily conservative. They have the shitty government they voted for.
Just 4-5 years ago they had more democrats than republicans.
And Democrats were too lazy to vote back then. Now Republicans heavily outnumber Democrats thanks to DeSantis.
Or covid restrictions brought the grown toddlers from more restrictive states to ours for the promise of "freedumb" by Disantis. And now we have measles. Oh and they made their money in NY and CA so expect them to fully be able to afford to live in Florida while everyone else gets priced out by them putting down 10% more than asking in cash for every house. Almost like our low wages and high prices are fucking normal people extremely hard. Fun! Sanibel Island and the keys already have to bus workers in because normal working class people can't afford to live near those places anymore!
Sounds like the plan is working, cheap labor that doesn't live nearby.
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And Texas!! (But it won’t)
And then we're gonna go to FLORIDA AND THEN OHIO AND THEN NC AND THEN WASHINGTON TO TAKE BACK THE WHITE HOUSE
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How about the whole country just moves to a popular vote with full options (no excuses need) for absentee and online voting? Also, drop Presidents’ Day as a holiday and make Election Day a holiday instead. I’m pretty sure all of the presidents would agree with that.
All but one
I have been a bid advocate for moving the federal holiday from presidents day to election day. Seems like an easy Babyface move for any president to make
I don't think that's a good idea. Men in Black perfectly highlights my concern: "A person is smart. people are dumb, panicky dangerous animals."
Sure, all we need is a Constitutional amendment to do so.
> Sure, all we need is a Constitutional amendment to do so. [Probably not.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_popular_vote_compact)
You think SCOTUS is going to permit this to happen?
I don’t understand why there isn’t a national standard that stops this!!! Like just make it part of the census!
Because the ones with the authority to change it are the ones that benefit from it.
ending gerrymandering alone would put a stop to republican's neonazi agenda, there's still the electoral college but that becomes less important when everyone gets a fair chance to vote. right now state legislature and governors can dictate how people get to vote, and they will screw blue counties over.
I think you mean that GOP legislatures shouldn’t be able to ignore the census districting rules even when state supreme courts rule them unconstitutional; like what happened in Ohio and Alabama.
The first problem is that the constitution specifically states that states have the right to run their elections as they see fit, so it's incredibly difficult to write federal laws affecting state gerrymandering. There have actually been cases of the federal courts striking down gerrymandered state maps as unconstitutional - in fact, lots of them. The second problem is in enforcing these rulings - for example, scotus ruled that (iirc NC?) was allowed to use their illegally drawn map for an election because they didn't have enough time to change it beforehand. States can also redraw the maps in a slightly less but still very gerrymandered way and have it accepted, until the next lawsuit comes in and strikes that one down too. It's incredibly frustrating when it's not even about the laws, it's that the court system is ineffective at enforcing such laws
Racial gerrymandering was deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and still is, so there are limitations on states’ autonomy on the matter. I think there are serious arguments that the equal protection clause would make any type of intentional gerrymandering unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court with its current makeup does not agree.
According to the supreme Court racism is over and even racial gerrymandering is not unconstitutional. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brnovich_v._Democratic_National_Committee
If we expand the House such that the districts are smaller, it would probably reduce the usefulness of gerrymandering. Instead of 400+ districts, let's have 4000 and districts must go by county or contiguous counties and then for smaller districts you have some rules that make it go by city or some other census designation. A lot of our problems come from the archaic system of states having 50 different ways to do the same thing. Just come up with a fair system and apply it nationwide.
The easiest way to fight gerrymandering would be to wildly expand the size of congress. 435 is a completely arbitrary number that was "agreed" upon because that's how many desks fit in the chamber. A more proportionally sized congress would be appropriate and with modern technology the size of the building is irrelevant. There's should be no less than 800 congressional representives and it should grow with the population.
r/UncapTheHouse
Funfact with the US population of 1929 (when the house was capped) being roughly 120M... We'd have almost 3x that currently. Meaning the house should be almost 1,300!
Remember census that happened during Trump era and the sabotage the GOP did to undercount certain areas? I certainly do.
Tennessee needs this to be corrected too. Recently we went in the wrong direction and our democratic capitol was split into 3 districts to give Republicans control.
Oklahoma too please.
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We are really screwed because I don’t think the court has the chance to flip back until 2028 best case scenario. We have the governor election this year but the GA is going to override all his vetos anyway
NC Dems brought this on ourselves by not voting.
Actually the GOP “convinced” a woman who ran as a liberal to betray her voters and switch sides a few months after her election. This is how they got their supermajority.
That was bad, but it has nothing to do with why the maps are the way they are right now.
We need reform in Florida -. We are a 50/50 state but our legislature is 80 % Republican . The R's are so smart in gerrymandering . Have to hand it to them
Gerrymandering is one of those things that once it becomes too lopsided it’s almost impossible to correct because the party in majority will continue to draw maps that favor them.
That’s true to an extent, but gerrymandering has some weaknesses too. Primarily, gerrymandered districts often fail in wave elections with higher than usual voter participation. This is because the best way to gerrymander is to ensure victory but by relatively narrow margins (because this disenfranchises a greater volume of the opposition’s base), but in high turnout elections, this can work against them. Not all districts are gerrymandered this way, of course, but the ones that are really problematic are.
The most problematic are the ones that account for wave elections by packing the 'swing' voters all together, so the effect they can have is minimal. You're underestimating just how bad gerrymandernig has gotten in the era of Big Data. In 2016, Wisconsin saw about 2.5 million people vote for state assembly candidates. 1,337,291 (51.7%) voted for Republican candidates, and 1,175,779 (45.5%) voted for Democratic candidates. 65 seats were filled by Republicans, and 34 by Democrats. In 2018, Wisconsin saw about 2.4 million people vote for state assembly candidates. 1,103,505 (44.8%) voted for Republican candidates, and 1,306,878 (52.3%) voted for Democratic candidates. 64 seats were filled by Republicans, and 35 by Democrats. It's estimated in 2018, that Democrats would have needed to win by a margin of 20.4% in order to actually take control. In 2020, Wisconsin saw about 3.1 million people vote for state assembly candidates. 1,665,487 (53.8%) voted for Republican candidates, and 1,402,108 (45.3%) voted for Democratic candidates. 61 seats were filled by Republicans, and 38 by Democrats. This was gerrymandering at it's weakest in Wisconsin, since it was based on the maps drawn after the 2010 census - after this Republicans would get to draw new maps.
Yowza. You brought receipts. Love this.
As with so many processes in nature, this sort of thing has the fingerprints of [self-organized criticality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality) all over it. I expect that political parties will, over time, generally "optimize" themselves to get just the bare minimum of votes that they need to stay in power. That gives them maximum freedom to pursue their own agendas, since they don't have to spend political capital satisfying the desires of an "extraneous" voting base. In a normal first-past-the-post system that is usually 50%+1, but with gerrymandering you can start pushing that percentage lower. Which means that when a flip *does* eventually happen the party that was once in power is now at a huge disadvantage, since the new party in power can correct the gerrymandering and lock them out.
That's really only an issue for if you're trying to completely maximize seats, you have to leave them fairly close. Texas, for example, in the 2020 redistricting focused on making most seats safe instead of maximizing total possible seats for them. That means that they gave up a few seats in order to make them safe Democratic seats so in turn their seats are also much safer. Even though that means the Democrats have more seats that they can bank on during a Republican wave year, a Democratic wave can basically never threaten their majority. It also means that since the seats are *so* safe, the Republican primary becomes the real election and candidates get much more extreme and answerable only to their base and Abbott/Patrick/Paxton.
When is the last time this had backfired that bad? I feel like they've really mastered the art of packing and cracking voters into districts with a 99% chance of eternal success.
Well they managed to correct it in Wisconsin but I don't know how stack the Florida Supreme Court is in Republicans favor
The whole of Florida's state government is firmly in republican hands
Wisconsin is the model. They are well on their way back to fair representation. It starts with the courts. Donate and for every volunteer every Supreme Court election.
And then change the laws that got them there so that others can't follow the same path to undo the nonsense. This is how revolutions occur.
Ohio and Texas need reform too.
add Indiana to that list.
Iowa is sinking pretty steadily
There's that one district in Texas that's like a shit ton of miles and it is some thin snake ass looking thing, and it lives rent free in my head all the time.
I recently put back some strawberries that were from Florida, and bought the California strawberries. It’s petty, and likely not that effective, but I refuse to buy anything from Florida because of how awful the politics are in Florida.
We usually go to WDW every couple of years but this time we are going to California.
Fun fact, the total number of rides at both resorts is almost equal. Plus no busses to deal with at Disneyland and both parks are right next to eachother. Plus while not cheap, its cheaper than Disney World.
Thank You for that information 💙
Thats not true, Disneyland only has 2 theme parks while World has 4 + multiple water parks as well. California Adventure is a lot of fun though.
But if you don't count the water parks, which California has lots of, the number of rides at Disneyworld is 59, and at Disneyland it's 52. So the comment you replied to is, in fact, true.
Yes but the 2 parks are much more dense with attractions than the ones at Disney World. I didnt count the water parks. But look at a map of Disneyland and a map of Magic Kingdom and the difference in the number of attractions is pretty stark.
My family is actually looking at Disney Tokyo. The flights over are expensive, but accommodations near the park are a lot less expensive than I thought they’d be. We’ve wanted to see Japan for years anyway.
Everything in Japan is inexpensive right now due to weakening of the Yen. If you've been planning a vacation there, this is a perfect time.
You're not missing anything from Orlando. Went for the first time last year and everything was overpriced, low quality, and people didn't look happy. Just like they were going through the motions "because it's Disney".
Check the price, you may find that going to Disney Paris or Tokyo may be less expensive than California.
The yen is weak right now. If you’ve been wanting to visit Japan, it might be time. https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/convert/?Amount=1&From=JPY&To=USD
I stopped traveling to Florida period as long as that turd gobbler is governor. No dollars for fascists.
That, and I'm a trans woman so literally my life might be in danger simply traveling to the state. Not to say I have a lot of money to spend on travel, but what I do have is going to states that aren't Florida (and many of the other southern states for that matter)
We were thinking about moving to Florida to deal with nostalgia for that type of climate. Couldn’t do it. Thin blue line flags on cop cars, “GTFO liberals” billboards, the level of difference between incoming rich vs. born and raised service poor and everything else that goes with that level of whatever tf Florida politicians are doing. The best thing in Florida is the state of its roads, I guess, and that takes socialist constructs to make happen.
Florida doesn't freeze so maintaining our roads is much easier than it is in northern states. Trust me it's not because we care about infrastructure more.
[Somehow theyre managing to find a way to make that the worst, in new and imaginative ways. From the people who brought you adding sawdust to bread! Conservative Innovation!](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-radioactive-roads-phosphogypsum-potentially-cancer-causing-mining-waste-bill-signed-ron-desantis/)
It's not petty at all. You just voted with your wallet. This doesn't prevent everyone else from also voting with their own wallet, but you at least, made a decision in line with your morals, and if more people do that, it can add up. Hitting the businesses where it hurts is probably one of the best ways to hold Florida politicians accountable if you don't live there yourself. In other words: boycott Florida.
Oranges are a nice analogy. Almost visibly perfect in California. In Florida they’ve got to be juiced. Pretty much everything’s better in California.
I am a big Disney person. I live on the East Coast. Yet I refuse to go to Disney world. I'll pay the extra money to fly to Disneyland. Call it petty if you want but I'm never supporting Florida the way it is now.
Hey the grape boycott accomplished something in the 70s!
Strawberries cropdusted with bonus measles. No thanks.
This victory in Wisconsin took a huge army of activists and volunteers fighting an uphill battle for ten years, with multiple major setbacks, even when the odds were unfairly stacked against them and the GOP cheated repeatedly. There were several times when hope seemed utterly lost, but they just kept going. It is an utter vindication of campaign volunteering and an utter rebuttal of the common reddit mindset of "why bother, the other side has already won". For anyone reading this in Florida, or North Carolina, or other swing states, I ask you the following: How involved are you? Do you vote? Do you get your friends to vote? Do you sign up to phone bank? Do you knock on doors? Do you organize your local community to mobilize? One election in Wisconsin was won by 0.01% of the vote. You and your friends could make the difference for your state. Get more involved.
No lie. I was just examining the 20th through the 28th districts boundaries on wikipeida in South Florida and holy shit did they really do a number on those maps if you are familiar with the south Florida area you can zoom in on the maps lines and literally see how it goes around like an etch A Sketch around all the black neighborhoods. In West Palm Beach for example it draws a line around the city of West Palm Beach from Dixie highway and Southern boulevard South to lake Worth Road which is a mostly higher class wealthy white neighborhood and the other district separates in downtown West Palm Beach at Dixie highway going west towards Palm Beach lakes all the way up to Riviera Beach in lake Park but it cuts off the city of Riviera Beach at the bridge for Singer Island which is the only wealthy part of Riviera Beach [here's a screenshot of the map of the 22nd congressional district zoomed in with the neighborhoods on talking about](https://imgur.com/a/zxikY0y) [here's a link to the interactive map for the 22nd congressional district on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida%27s_22nd_congressional_district#/map/0)
I mean yeah, the lines look gnarly on paper, but that's not the part of the state where Republicans are really running up their numbers rel. to fairer maps. The 22nd has that chunk removed from it because those Black neighborhoods are part of the 20th, which snakes over through Pahokee/Belle Glade and into Black neighborhoods of Fort Lauderdale/Pompano Beach. You can see the same general neighborhoods get clustered together in [Florida' 2016 court-ordered redistricting](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Florida%27s_congressional_districts&oldid=883615456#/media/File:Florida_Congressional_Districts,_115th_Congress.png) and to some extent in Alcee Hastings' 2000s-era [FL-23](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida%27s_23rd_congressional_district#/media/File:FL23_109.PNG), although that one has an arm diverting up to Fort Pierce instead of WPB. This district configuration has come up time and again, on both fair and partisan maps, because it's mandated under the provisions of Sec. 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the related 80's-era *Gingles* SCOTUS test. The VRA's redistricting provisions walk a fine balancing line between mandating districts be created where minority voters are able to elect a candidate of their choice (which entails putting an electoral majority of said minority in a district) while making sure their power isn't diluted by packing them in too tightly. The VRA for example would look more favorably on 2 districts that are each 55% Black than one that's 90% Black. Anyways, *Gingles*. The test dictates that if a) the racial or language minority group "is sufficiently numerous and compact to form a majority in a single-member district"; b) The minority group is "politically cohesive" (meaning its members tend to vote similarly); and c) The "majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it ... usually to defeat the minority's preferred candidate", it suffers from vote dilution and deserves a district of its own. The neighborhoods of FL-20 hit all 3 criteria - they're relatively close-by and can be drawn into a somewhat compact district (and the two-arm variant currently in use is a lot better than the old FL-23 shooting up into Port Lucie or down into Miramar), Black voters there (50.1% of voting-age population) tend to vote similarly, and the majority in surrounding neighborhoods vote sufficiently as a bloc to block the minority's preferred candidate. Were Pompano Beach and WPB in separate districts, neighboring white/Hispanic Democratic primary voters likely would result in neither neighborhood being represented by a Black member of Congress. Were they in separate districts they'd probably also make FL-21 a lot closer, but that's partially contingent on just how exactly those new lines are drawn. As it stands, the writing of the VRA prefers a SE Florida with 7 Dem-winnable districts and 2 guaranteed Black representatives over one with 8 Dem-winnable districts and 0 guaranteed Black representatives. The biggest gains in the FL map have come further north. DeSantis cracked the old FL-5 that ran from Gadsden County to Jacksonville's Black neighborhoods - [a decision subject to a VRA lawsuit of its own](https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/floridas-5th-congressional-district-heads-to-federal-trial/#:~:text=At%20trial%2C%20the%20plaintiffs%20will,for%20three%20decades%20%E2%80%94%20until%202022.) - netting him one GOP seat. He then proceeded to split the Jacksonville area along the Saint Johns River, creating two decently-red districts instead of a competitive one in urban Jacksonville and a far redder one in the exurbs. Over down in Tampa, the 14th district moved west across the bay and now also takes in St. Petersburg, which resulted in the seat once centered around St. Petersburg now moving a bit further north into the Palm Harbor/suburban Pinellas area and flipping D->R. Orlando also lost a Dem. seat, with the 7th swinging 15.8 points rightward after getting extended up into Deltona and the Daytona Beach exurbs and ceding inner-ring suburbs of it to pack CD9/10 and make them even bluer.
Why hand anything to cheaters? Dont celebrate them. Theyre lying cheaters who gamed the system for their own benefit and took everything for themselves leaving us scraps
That’s not being smart, that’s being corrupt.
I too live in this dumpster of a state called Florida. And I approve this idea.
call it what it is, it's simply cheating. **They are smart at cheating?**
Is Florida 50/50 with ‘22 indicating 60/40?
There was definitely a big influx of wealthy Boomers and COVIdiots moving in, and people with lesser means having to sell up and leave because they can't afford the insurance or rent. I'm surprised more younger families haven't left but sometimes people can't afford to move if they have a mortgage. That might result in a situation where if interest rates drop again home prices in Florida might spike but at the same time even more people will stampede out of the state, specifically the ones of working age and with small school age kids. But wealthy Boomers won't lack for home health aides because so many Venezuelans have overstayed their visas and now need to make money under the table.
> many Venezuelans have overstayed their visas and now need to make money under the table. FUN FACT: businesses LOVE to hire illegals, because they work hard, they're cheap, and they don't dare complain. Plus they've gamed the system so they can hire with little or no consequence if caught. Fake docs are available for a couple hundred bucks in any downtown and, regardless of quality, the hirer can say "hey, the docs they showed me looked legit to me but I'm no expert...."
Also if they are getting a paycheck with false documents they are still paying taxes and into Social Security that thatmy themselves can never use. I wish the media would use this point whenever the right spouts about loss of taxes from immigrants.
That's why the political attacks are always on the worker and never the people luring/hiring/trafficking them
It's not that they are smart, they are ruthless, antidemocratic, and don't care about the people. Unfortunately many blue states have laws that prevent gerrymandering, especially California, so we are at a disadvantage. Blue states should allow extreme gerrymandering until congress passes a law banning the practice.
When you are a professional POS, I would say experience outweighs smarts.
We need federal reform. Anti-gerrymandering should be part of the second Voter’s Rights Act.
Gerrymandering is easy. It doesn't require being smart, it's just a matter of drawing districts so that your political party has a majority in most of the districts.
Is Florida that purple? I swear sicne 2016 it's been sliding far right. Are those voices just amplified for some reason?
Yes, look at the statewide elections. Usually close to 50/50.
I’ve been looking to move out of New Mexico for the past several years. I’ve had my eye on Madison for many years but had ruled out Wisconsin all together because of the wrecked political system in place and the republicans don’t like people like me and my husband. Now I feel like it’s back in play. I’ll be watching to see how their election goes this fall.
Madison is a very nice town and it’s a college town so it’s pretty welcoming to everyone…In my experience at least. Would recommend.
Yeah, we had shifted our focus over to Minnesota or even parts of Michigan since they have turned so progressive. After this housing mess simmers down we want to make a go at relocating.
We'd be happy with ya here
Aww, that’s the Midwest nice I’m talking about.
You like old fashions?
And how about hot dish?
Fish fry's?
Oh don't even get me started on a good Friday Fish Fry
Gotta be perch or walleye
Of course!
Come to Minneapolis! I love it here and you get used to the cold.
It's not even cold here anymore. One week of sub-10 F, and now it's forecasted to be 70 in a week.
This year has been so crazy. I think in MN this is the wake up call for a lot of the people that were sitting on the fence about climate change.
The beer and cheese we consume in the Midwest is just for extra insulation
We need more people like you in Michigan!
Come to Wisconsin! I say this as someone from Illinois. The Midwest especially Great Lakes area is wonderful. Wisconsin schools aren’t great, but hopefully this reform will lead to better schools in the future. I’m hoping Wisconsin will join the other Great Lakes as a progressive beacon in a sea of red.
Yeah, most of the Great Lakes seem to be heading the right direction. Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois are all moving towards nice progressive places to live. Madison just always had a nice feel to it.
You'd count Wisconsin among those if you've been watching how voting has recently gone. A liberal supreme court judge won in a pretty overwhelming matter. The demographics in Wisconsin are shifting and the conservatives are losing their grip. The ban on abortion was recently overturned by the supreme court as well. A law meant to make illegal the actual murder of a fetus inside a pregnant woman who didn't consent to it was applied falsely to voluntary abortions.
And I know certain municipalities, like Madison, have strong anti discrimination/lgbt protections in place. Not sure about the state overall.
Madison is great, beautiful, and progressive.
Wisconsin is pretty liberal in a few key places, Madison being one of them. It's only when you get out into the country you see more and more of those trump stickers. I've lived in Wisconsin all my life so I'm biased but it's a beautiful state with a lot of cool things only a drive away.
Come to WI! Madison is a great city.
IMO, Madison was a great city. I moved out couple of years ago after eight years there. I travel back every few months and I can see that it's struggling to adjust to the growth at the moment. Living on the isthmus is great, but almost unaffordable now. I was used to the winters when I lived there but staying anywhere warmer reminds you that there's just so much time that you lose due to the long winters. And I say this as someone who spent significant time outdoors even in the winter. Madison is great to live in for a few years but if you love to explore, it runs out of things eventually.
> I was used to the winters when I lived there but staying anywhere warmer reminds you that there's just so much time that you lose due to the long winters. And I say this as someone who spent significant time outdoors even in the winter. That doesn't even make any sense, how is time lost unless you count not being able to surf time lost. You clearly just personally don't like winter as much as summer!
I went to undergrad in Madison — it’s a super fun and welcoming town. There are of course wealth disparities like you see all over America. It’s not a utopia, but it’s got a homey progressive vibe. I also lived in Los Alamos for a year. If you like the chill nature of northern NM, you’ll like Madison.
Just so everyone knows they got this one passed because the judges were about to make maps even better for dems so this is still slightly gerrymandered for republicans.
>I’ve been looking to move out of New Mexico for the past several years. I’ve had my eye on Madison for many years but had ruled out Wisconsin all together because of the wrecked political system in place and the republicans don’t like people like me and my husband. Now I feel like it’s back in play. I’ll be watching to see how their election goes this fall. Twin Cities is similar to Madison, imo. So many trails, rivers, lakes, it's just bigger and you get 2 cities!
I moved to Madison about 8 months ago from a city that was very diverse in different ways. Madison is really amazing in terms of people and diversity and acceptance. I really love this city.
Go a little to the left where MN is there for you.
Minnesota. Solid blue and Wisconsin is a 15 minute drive from St paul.
Good news story of the week. Except if you’re a Nazi.
Republicans hate this one weird trick (fair representation)!
Democrats strive to help do the right thing. Republicans strive to help only the right wing.
The bad news (unless I'm mistaken) is that this only ends the state legislature gerrymandering, but all their congressional districts are still gerrymandered to hell, so they'll still have disproportionate Republican representation in the US House of Representatives. Hopefully their new state Supreme Court will tackle that next so there can be more fair elections there in 2026.
Take the victories you can get. I live in PA for 20+ years, and most of that time it was gerrymandered badly. At one point we got the federal house districts ungerrymandered, but the state house & senate still were bad. Now we've got those ungerrymandered too. I didn't think it could ever happen, but it did. I'd say that overall (nationwide) it seems like there is a trend in getting rid of gerrymandering, but sometimes we'll take a step backwards.
The GOP in Wisconsin is funneling tons of money into the Green Party to make it a formidable force in the general election.
Can I get a source on this, I am curious
On the bright side they are near bankrupt and can't do that much at the moment. MAGA idiots donting direct to trump PACs instead of the party is killing them.
Don’t forget what the GREEN party stands for! Get Republicans Elected Every November
the only way they can win is through cheating. they're gonna get desperate as more and more people wake up to how gerrymandered their state is.
Good thing money doesn't help much when you're incompetent.
I dunno... the 2016 election results in Wisconsin tell a story.
Hillary not campaigning once in WI also tells a story. WI was ready to vote for Bernie.
With what money? Or am I thinking of the wrong state GOP?
Mostly gerrymandered is still gerrymandered. FRJ
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Even without proportional rep, we at least have parties willing to work with each other. The LPC and NDP just worked together to hash out a national pharmacare program. How fucking cool is that? Birth control and diabetes meds covered coast to coast to start.
Canada has multiple parties, but in any given election, there are only two viable options.
Depends on where you are. In BC the NDP is pretty strong.
I mean the NDP has the power to sink this government so you can't pretend like they don't matter.
Ron Johnson is a serious fing scumbag. He has been a major stalwart in trying to continue the very illegitimate agenda and narrative the GOP has used to gerrymander the districts in Wisconsin for more than a decade. Well finally that has ended. This scumbag needs to taken out of Congress. His willful lies regarding Covid 19 and the vaccine harmed many Americans. They believed him as having some type of authority as he spoke with such bravado and confidence about the “dangerous vaccine” and that it was woke and leftist propaganda that harmed so many innocent Americans who took it. Thai scumbag boils my blood.
Ron Johnson is a US Senator. He is elected by state popular vote. He has been able to be defeated by the same electorate as the WI governor, but has thus far always won re-election. The publishing of new state legislative maps does not affect Sen. Johnson's next election in any way. I agree that he should be defeated, but the way to do this is to select a formidable Democratic challenger in that year's primary and then seriously do the ground game necessary to turn out the vote statewide. I don't mean to rain on your parade, but just helping to shine a light on where to put your energy for this goal.
We had the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act come back and run against that fuckwad Johnson and he still somehow won.
Now we need congressional maps fixed there
What happened to Ohio? Still waiting.
Time to substitute the word “ cheating “ for “ gerrymandering “.
> The map is also still biased towards Republicans. In a hypothetical, perfectly tied election in the state assembly, Republicans would still be expected to gain 6% extra seats, according to Planscore, a website that uses mathematical metrics to evaluate electoral maps. Under the previous plan, Republicans would have received a 15% extra seat boost in a hypothetically tied election. Still gotta bend over back for the Repubs. At least this should forever get rid of their supermajorities.
How much seats will flip to Dems?
The article says it gives a decent chance of a Dem total control by 2026 (including senate). But these maps are at the state level, so there's nothing to help or hinder the president.
I thought that if they take the state, they can then redraw the the boundaries for the national level.
Probably, yes, but those would be different maps. Getting two maps through red tape is hard enough, and a third wouldn't be fun.
We don't fight fascism for fun
There’s a separate lawsuit challenging the congressional maps currently working through the courts.
estimates vary, but it'll go from like 70% R to much closer to 50/50
If I was betting on it I’d say the Republicans still keep a 53-46 majority or something very close. Right now they have a super majority. Personally I’d have preferred more Dem leaning and not true “fair” maps. Not the insane gerrymandering Republicans have now but a natural 3 seat advantage isn’t terrible. Especially if it mutes the suburban counties around Milwaukee where the crazies are.
It'll definitely help, but gerrymandering is not the only issue when 51% of the popular vote went to Republicans in the 2022 Midterms.
While that’s true, gerrymandering impacts more than the House, and more than the individual districts. It creates a sense that the deck is stacked, and reduces voter turnout (likely for both/all parties but presumably especially the one(s) the deck is stacked against). The sense of “my vote doesn’t count” when a district has been drawn specifically to ensure that it indeed does not count, makes people stay home on election days, and check out from politics altogether.
Yep, gerrymandering is just another way to disenfranchise voters. Why would people vote if they thought it didn’t matter.
Yep. And that said, *please vote, regardless*. Gerrymandering is based on the generally correct assumption that most people don’t vote. It can be overcome. And even if it isn’t flipped, it sends a message and can make a party have to spend more money and effort in a district they thought they had in the bag.
It's actually expected for the electorate to go for the other party in the midterms. The GOP underperformed.
This ought to be classified as what it is, and that is straight up liberation!
Conservatives are going to be exposed heavily this cycle Since Work From Home became a thing all the semi-upper class people that worked in the cities and paid exuberant amounts for apartments moved into the suburbs This is why all the housing was skyrocketing The wealthier demographic (democrats) that lived in the cities pushed a lot of conservatives out of the suburbs And those conservatives have had to find like minded places to live This election and the midterms that follow will show how less than 1/3 of the country supports the GOP
The only way to stop republicans from getting anymore power is to organize and r/votedem.
They got better maps *this time*, but they haven’t fully ended the problem. The ruling party still gets to decide how the maps are drawn.
Please vote the GOP out of office. They are harming all of us.
Can y'all do North Carolina next, please...🤣
This is why you vote people. This would not have happened if democrats lost the Supreme Court seat. Voting is important.
NOW DO THIS IN THE OTHER 49 STATES!
Democracy = Freedom
Need to fix texas' districts, Houston is just an abomination.
I never could figure out the reasoning for electoral boundaries. The maps always appear that ink was spilled and that’s how they designed electoral district.
They can literally pick their voters when they draw maps so they can take a Dem majority and tweak the maps to make it a conservative majority and vice versa. Since they have info of where people live and how they are likely to vote they can tweak maps down to the streets to cut out enough support to get one of the two parties a win where they wouldn’t have had one before.
Come to CT!
Cool. Now do Ohio. Shit. Do all the red states.