I’m a Democrat, but this is wrong

Democrats in New Jersey Have a Firm Grip on Power. They Want Even More.  
https://nyti.ms/2zZNYPU?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Very hypocritical. Surely there must be some politics-proof way to draw these districs.

Yeah - it's always a quandary as to how to act in response to blatant rule breaking by the other side. Do you respond in kind and escalate, or do you take the high road, and get your butts beaten in every election?

I would say you have to take it on a case by case basis, and in this case, the Dems pushing this plan look to be clearly wrong. It's good to see powerful Dems like Gov. Murphy and Eric Holder speaking out against it.

You know, like Mitch McConnell speaks out against the assassination of democracy in Wisconsin.  

From the sounds of it, based on the article, it looks like the proposal has a lot of opposition, so hopefully it will fade away.

Hey! NJ Legislature! Focus on something important, like cannabis legalization! 

We can't be against GOP messing with our democracy and then do it ourselves too.

Its a problem that requires a national solution.  Trying to solve it on a state by state basis will just result in the disempowerment of those seeking a solution.

The NJ Democratic Party is completely dysfunctional.  Murphy and Sweeney and others can't even pass legislation on issues where they are broadly in agreement.  The only thing saving the Democrats is the inability of Republicans or anybody else to offer palatable alternatives.

Perhaps benchmarking? 

Are there any states that do this fairly and well? 

drummerboy said:
Yeah - it's always a quandary as to how to act in response to blatant rule breaking by the other side. Do you respond in kind and escalate, or do you take the high road, and get your butts beaten in every election?
I would say you have to take it on a case by case basis, and in this case, the Dems pushing this plan look to be clearly wrong. It's good to see powerful Dems like Gov. Murphy and Eric Holder speaking out against it.

You know, like Mitch McConnell speaks out against the assassination of democracy in Wisconsin.  

From the sounds of it, based on the article, it looks like the proposal has a lot of opposition, so hopefully it will fade away.
Hey! NJ Legislature! Focus on something important, like cannabis legalization! 

 it's terrible and it's probably also a waste of time. Does anyone really think the voters will approve it?

ml1 said: it's terrible and it's probably also a waste of time. Does anyone really think the voters will approve it?

They don't care whether voters will approve. What will their voters do, vote Republican?

You can affect them through primaries. But primaries are sparsely attended, mostly by die hard party people selecting the usual hacks.

There are exceptions such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez winning her primary against the party insider. But those exceptions are very rare.

You would think that one of these on line companies like Facebook that is collecting stunning amounts of data could create and sell a mapping algorithm that fairly created districts.  Something where a committee from each state was appointed to oversee results but each committee was randomly assigned to different states.

It really cuts the legs out from under all the progressives who oppose these kinds of tactics in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and so on. 

And even then, who's to say that it's always going to rebound to the Dems advantage? A few scandals, a few crappy candidates, a few lucky wins and before you know it the GOP has the advantage. 

Voter registration and party affiliation should be invisible to the people in charge of redistricting. Use natural boundaries and municipal or county borders to draw the lines. Group people by their interests. 

FilmCarp said:
You would think that one of these on line companies like Facebook that is collecting stunning amounts of data could create and sell a mapping algorithm that fairly created districts.  Something where a committee from each state was appointed to oversee results but each committee was randomly assigned to different states.

What is "fair".  Why wouldn't you have computers create districts that are as compact as possible?

I think if we want fair, we need some sort of proportional representation so that people with minority political views can have a least some representation.

BG9 said:

ml1 said: it's terrible and it's probably also a waste of time. Does anyone really think the voters will approve it?

They don't care whether voters will approve. What will their voters do, vote Republican?
You can affect them through primaries. But primaries are sparsely attended, mostly by die hard party people selecting the usual hacks.
There are exceptions such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez winning her primary against the party insider. But those exceptions are very rare.

 the voters will have to approve a constitutional amendment in order for them to do this

BG9 said:

ml1 said: it's terrible and it's probably also a waste of time. Does anyone really think the voters will approve it?

They don't care whether voters will approve. What will their voters do, vote Republican?
You can affect them through primaries. But primaries are sparsely attended, mostly by die hard party people selecting the usual hacks.
There are exceptions such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez winning her primary against the party insider. But those exceptions are very rare.

 I think ml1 was referring to the fact that it's being proposed as a constitutional amendment, so voters have to approve it.

BG9 said:

ml1 said: it's terrible and it's probably also a waste of time. Does anyone really think the voters will approve it?

They don't care whether voters will approve. What will their voters do, vote Republican?

 It's subject to a referendum. 

I see others said that already. Sorry for the redundancy.

tjohn said:

I think if we want fair, we need some sort of proportional representation so that people with minority political views can have a least some representation.

 That has always seemed fair to me but it can lead to chaos as in Australia. As far as I know, no State has proportional representation for Legislative Elections.

I believe Nebraska may actually have non-partisan elections.

I was correct:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Legislature

But I did not know this:

After a trip to Australia in 1931, George W. Norris, then U.S. Senator for Nebraska, campaigned for reform, arguing that the bicameral system was based on the non-democratic British House of Lords, and that it was pointless to have two bodies of people doing the same thing and hence wasting money. He specifically pointed to the example of the Australian state of Queensland, which had adopted a unicameral parliament nearly ten years before. In 1934, voters approved a constitutional amendment to take effect with the 1936 elections, abolishing the House of Representatives and granting its powers to the Senate. The amendment was based on a bill to establish a unicameral legislature that had been introduced years earlier by Nebraska legislator and later U.S. Congressman John Nathaniel Norton.

That's very interesting research. 

We've found the unicameral system to be a handicap, and would appreciate a secondary Qld House of Review especially after the last few governments have been found to have conducted questionable business deals (mining, resort development v world heritage parks, public transport disasters etc). Parliamentary review would have allowed a culture of accountability and transparency to grow, rather than the blatant entitlement and almost unquestioned secrecy that's practised now. 

Of course, having only one media owner for the entire State doesn't really help; while people have access to more titles and formats now, most are still owned by the same two or three people. So, not real diversity of views in discussion anywhere, and Qld is a place that is not really welcoming to diversity or change. (FWIW, Pauline Hanson comes from Qld. *shudder*)

ml1 said:

BG9 said:

ml1 said: it's terrible and it's probably also a waste of time. Does anyone really think the voters will approve it?

They don't care whether voters will approve. What will their voters do, vote Republican?
You can affect them through primaries. But primaries are sparsely attended, mostly by die hard party people selecting the usual hacks.
There are exceptions such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez winning her primary against the party insider. But those exceptions are very rare.

 the voters will have to approve a constitutional amendment in order for them to do this

I know.

That doesn't disprove what I said about politicians not caring. They feel safe in assuming they'll be re-elected. Which is why they feel safe pulling crap like this. As I said, what will the voters do? Elect Republicans? Primary them out? Unlikely.'

As for voting for the amendment, we'll see then. That is a long time from now in the world of politics.

BG9 said:

I know.
That doesn't disprove what I said about politicians not caring. They feel safe in assuming they'll be re-elected. Which is why they feel safe pulling crap like this. As I said, what will the voters do? Elect Republicans? Primary them out? Unlikely.'

But I wasn’t even referring to that. 

LOST said:
I was correct:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_Legislature
But I did not know this:
After a trip to Australia in 1931, George W. Norris, then U.S. Senator for Nebraska, campaigned for reform, arguing that the bicameral system was based on the non-democratic British House of Lords, and that it was pointless to have two bodies of people doing the same thing and hence wasting money. He specifically pointed to the example of the Australian state of Queensland, which had adopted a unicameral parliament nearly ten years before. In 1934, voters approved a constitutional amendment to take effect with the 1936 elections, abolishing the House of Representatives and granting its powers to the Senate. The amendment was based on a bill to establish a unicameral legislature that had been introduced years earlier by Nebraska legislator and later U.S. Congressman John Nathaniel Norton.

 John Dingell, House Member from December 13, 1955, until January 3, 2015 (longest tenure on record), recently proposed either abolishing the Senate outright, or combining it with the House.

jimmurphy said:
Perhaps benchmarking? 


Are there any states that do this fairly and well? 

In most states, the legislature does the redistricting, but in four (CA, WA, ID and AZ) it's done by an independent commission (numbers via Ballotpedia).

Several measures tackling gerrymandering were on the ballot this fall, though I haven't followed up on how they succeeded.

A challenge with addressing gerrymandering is that there's not always agreement on what the goal of ideal districts should be. Fivethirtyeight has a nice set of articles and an interactive tool you can play with to see how different criteria make different maps: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/, part of https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/

Thanks PVW!

Sweeney threw in the towel and pulled the bill.  The result of a lot of very public backlash and criticism.

yahooyahoo said:
Sweeney threw in the towel and pulled the bill.  The result of a lot of very public backlash and criticism.

Here's an example of a major difference between Democrats and Republicans.  Democrats can be shamed.  The Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina examples make it clear that Republicans have no shame when it comes to carrying out out a power grab.

ml1 said:

yahooyahoo said:
Sweeney threw in the towel and pulled the bill.  The result of a lot of very public backlash and criticism.

Here's an example of a major difference between Democrats and Republicans.  Democrats can be shamed.  The Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina examples make it clear that Republicans have no shame when it comes to carrying out out a power grab.

 Sweeney shamed?   

What they realize is after all this publicity that continuing is futile. The public will not approve the required referendum.

We are participants in a game of Chess where we follow the rules and the other side uses all of their pawns as queens.  

And we wonder why we lose......

BG9 said:

ml1 said:

yahooyahoo said:
Sweeney threw in the towel and pulled the bill.  The result of a lot of very public backlash and criticism.

Here's an example of a major difference between Democrats and Republicans.  Democrats can be shamed.  The Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina examples make it clear that Republicans have no shame when it comes to carrying out out a power grab.

 Sweeney shamed?   
What they realize is after all this publicity that continuing is futile. The public will not approve the required referendum.

 I dunno. Getting such huge a pushback that he had to withdraw so quickly such a pretty ambitious power grab is kind of the definition of "shame" in politics. I'm sure he's not a happy guy about it.

BG9 said:

 Sweeney shamed?   
What they realize is after all this publicity that continuing is futile. The public will not approve the required referendum.

 The point is that Democratic voters would not support the Referendum.

If the Republicans in Michigan, Wisconsin or NC had to put their nonsense to a public vote how would Republican voters vote?

Of interest to the thread:

http://www.fairdistrictsnj.org/ -- group pushing for redistricting reform in NJ. Their goals:

• Move to an Independent Citizens’ Commission model made up of citizens, not elected officials or political insiders, to put power in the hands of voters.
• Expand the timeline for legislative map creation, allowing for more public input than the current system provides.
• Increase the number of public hearings/meetings for both the legislative and congressional redistricting processes.

Also, regarding the anti-gerrymandering measures I mentioned upthread, looks like they passed. There's a write-up at Slate, among other places.

I'll note that even in states that are more Republican, these measures are passing. While the Republican party, as an institution, is increasingly anti-democratic, I don't think it's fair to say that actual Republican voters are. They may be willing to tolerate, and even support, their delegated representatives acting in anti-democratic ways, but when given a direct choice via ballot measures, for instance, they'll still vote in support of increasing democracy.