18 ms·

I fail to see what moderates can do in a two party system where gerrymandering is so heavily done that often Democrats have to win 3-1 to control any majority.

by nus07 4y ago

I fail to see what moderates can do in a two party system where gerrymandering is so heavily done that often Democrats have to win 3-1 to control any majority. At this point I see it as a fight between rich landowners+business owners+religion vs all the rest of the people . For a country where political lobbying and donations to effect legal decisions is common , I do not expect judgements to ever be fair. The battle between union and state rights only muddies the waters for legal speak.

zackees 4y ago
- hackyhacky 4y ago
  This is backwards thinking. It's not a sports game, this is not about "winning" and "losing." The goal is not to have voters choose their representatives, not the other way around. In a contested or closely divided district, the representatives must adapt to appeal to a majority, resulting in a more moderate position. In a gerrymandered district, the politician can do anything they want, because they know they effectively won't lose. You're right that gerrymandering is not new, but it's gotten more aggressive, thanks to new technology and de facto sanctioning by SCOTUS.
  - the_lonely_road 4y ago
    This is blatantly untrue to the level of fear mongering. The politician can’t do whatever he wants. The election simply moves from republican candidate against democrat candidate to the primaries where the top 3 politicians from the dominant party are running against one another for the nomination. If they adopted policies the majority of their party didn’t like they would be replaced by another member of the party in the next election.
  - zackees 4y ago
    This isn’t about winning or losing? Then why do representatives say they “won” a race? Winning and losing appears to be the cornerstone of a democracy.
- liminvorous 4y ago
  Gerrymandering is where you make sure all your districts are 51/49 in favor of you, and all your opositions are 90/10, so you get more representatives
  - zackees 4y ago
    What you are complaining about is actually the exact tactics of the left, which is to expand their city boundaries so that their dense homogenous voters swing elections in the surrounding districts. When the left does it’s called redistributing, when the right does it it’s called gerrymandering.
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  Gerrymandering is an explicitly anti-democratic mechanism to allow for persistent minority rule. Both parties are engaging in this process and benefit in a localized way - but the US population a whole loses.
  - zackees 4y ago
    Someone has to draw the lines. It’s either going to be the representatives which are directly elected by the people or it’s going to be an unelected bureaucrats. Your solution, being the latter, is far far more undemocratic. The framers of the constitution knew this and that’s why they put redistricting into the hands of the ELECTED BODY.
    - germinalphrase 4y ago
      In my home state of Wisconsin, redistricting used to be completed by a panel of elected judges. This process Created competitive districts that both parties grumbled about but lived with. This process was take away from the judges and put in the hands of the elected representatives, but those representatives have a direct personal interest in trying to draw those lines such that the districts are non-competitive in their favor. I’m not sure why you view this outcome as more democratic.
noslenwerdna 4y ago
Where is gerrymandering so bad that Democrats have to win 3-1? This doesn't represent the experience of the median voter.
- slg 4y ago
  Not exactly gerrymandering, but there is a systemic bias against Democrats due to the structure of our government. The most obvious example, Republicans have won the national popular vote once in the last 8 presidential elections.
  - corrral 4y ago
    Those stats might hold regardless, but to be fair one would expect different voting patterns under the current system, versus a direct popular-vote election, so it's not accurate to say that anyone "won" the popular vote in any US Presidential election, since that wasn't the contest and the fact that it wasn't affected how voters and candidates behaved. It's like challenging someone to a foot race, losing, and then deciding afterward that you won on "style points" or something. That wasn't the contest, and the other participant might have done things differently under different rules. The system as it stands makes voting pointless for people who are in districts that reliably go for the "other team". If they could at least influence the Presidential election, more of those voters might show up at the polls. GOTV and other campaign efforts take this into account, which magnifies the effect.
    - slg 4y ago
      Fine, you want another example of systemic bias in our government? The 50 Democratic senators represent 41.5 million more people than the 50 Republican senators.
      - dntrkv 4y ago
        I don't really have an issue with the way the senate is setup, since that was intentional. My issue is with the house, where we are supposed to have equal representation, but don't.
silisili 4y ago
It's important to remember gerrymandering cuts both ways. In my state, the D's just redistricted into a crazy looking map that will effectively give them a clean sweep.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  What choice do they have? It's an arms race.
  - achenet 4y ago
    it shouldn't be. If party loyalty trumps good governance, you messed up somewhere.
    - colinmhayes 4y ago
      Is sitting back and letting you political opponent steam roll you good governance?
      - achenet 4y ago
        The fact that you view this as a fight (using the word "opponent") is the problem. It's not a boxing match. The fact that it has become one means your electoral system is flawed. In a proper system, you have different people with different goals (eg Greens who want less pollution, businesspeople who want lower taxes, socialists who want worker's rights, etc) and they have to compromise (greens cancel the carbon tax is businesspeople accept to ban a certain type of very toxic manufacturing, for example) and WORK TOGETHER.
        colinmhayes 4y ago
        > electoral system is flawed. Obviously this is the problem. But its flaws have lead us to a situation that makes it impossible to fix them. Either we work within the system we have or we're left powerless.
  - 4y ago
kolanos 4y ago
> In New York Democrats want to add four new seats through gerrymandering, to try to retain control of the U.S. House. One district is designed to guarantee the reelection of Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which has held hearings on the evil of — you guessed it — gerrymandering. [0] [0]: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/592968-dismantling-democracy-to-save-it-how-democrats-rediscovered-the-joys-of/ https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/592968-dismantling-demo...
achenet 4y ago
Change to proportional representatin or runoff elections. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
- jamie_ca 4y ago
  Canadian here, I also would like to see multi-member districts of any variety rather than the status quo.
vlunkr 4y ago
If you look at the popular vote then this is clearly wrong in two ways. Rich land and business owners don't make up half the population. And if you're implying that most religious people vote republican, then they should be absolutely destroying the popular vote. This is just the worldview that's been sold to you by social media.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  The religious are in control because you can't win a republican primary without their support.
dang 4y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31864204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31864204.
i5Aj7PXGjUPy 4y ago
> At this point I see it as a fight between rich landowners+business owners+religion vs all the rest of the people Based off of the responses itt, it's clearly not "all the rest of the people". But you know, maybe if you keep insisting that the political coalition in favor of Roe represents "all the rest of the people" it might magically become true > I fail to see what moderates can do in a two party system where gerrymandering is so heavily done that often Democrats have to win 3-1 to control any majority. Ofc democrats don't gerrymander. The Illinois redistricting wasn't a gerrymander, it was a fair process. Wherever the democrats have a hard time winning it's always because there was a gerrymander, and not because the people don't want them in office. /s

by nus07 4y ago

zackees 4y ago

hackyhacky 4y ago
This is backwards thinking. It's not a sports game, this is not about "winning" and "losing." The goal is not to have voters choose their representatives, not the other way around. In a contested or closely divided district, the representatives must adapt to appeal to a majority, resulting in a more moderate position. In a gerrymandered district, the politician can do anything they want, because they know they effectively won't lose. You're right that gerrymandering is not new, but it's gotten more aggressive, thanks to new technology and de facto sanctioning by SCOTUS.
- the_lonely_road 4y ago
  This is blatantly untrue to the level of fear mongering. The politician can’t do whatever he wants. The election simply moves from republican candidate against democrat candidate to the primaries where the top 3 politicians from the dominant party are running against one another for the nomination. If they adopted policies the majority of their party didn’t like they would be replaced by another member of the party in the next election.
- zackees 4y ago
  This isn’t about winning or losing? Then why do representatives say they “won” a race? Winning and losing appears to be the cornerstone of a democracy.
liminvorous 4y ago
Gerrymandering is where you make sure all your districts are 51/49 in favor of you, and all your opositions are 90/10, so you get more representatives
- zackees 4y ago
  What you are complaining about is actually the exact tactics of the left, which is to expand their city boundaries so that their dense homogenous voters swing elections in the surrounding districts. When the left does it’s called redistributing, when the right does it it’s called gerrymandering.
germinalphrase 4y ago
Gerrymandering is an explicitly anti-democratic mechanism to allow for persistent minority rule. Both parties are engaging in this process and benefit in a localized way - but the US population a whole loses.
- zackees 4y ago
  Someone has to draw the lines. It’s either going to be the representatives which are directly elected by the people or it’s going to be an unelected bureaucrats. Your solution, being the latter, is far far more undemocratic. The framers of the constitution knew this and that’s why they put redistricting into the hands of the ELECTED BODY.
  - germinalphrase 4y ago
    In my home state of Wisconsin, redistricting used to be completed by a panel of elected judges. This process Created competitive districts that both parties grumbled about but lived with. This process was take away from the judges and put in the hands of the elected representatives, but those representatives have a direct personal interest in trying to draw those lines such that the districts are non-competitive in their favor. I’m not sure why you view this outcome as more democratic.

noslenwerdna 4y ago

Where is gerrymandering so bad that Democrats have to win 3-1? This doesn't represent the experience of the median voter.

slg 4y ago
Not exactly gerrymandering, but there is a systemic bias against Democrats due to the structure of our government. The most obvious example, Republicans have won the national popular vote once in the last 8 presidential elections.
- corrral 4y ago
  Those stats might hold regardless, but to be fair one would expect different voting patterns under the current system, versus a direct popular-vote election, so it's not accurate to say that anyone "won" the popular vote in any US Presidential election, since that wasn't the contest and the fact that it wasn't affected how voters and candidates behaved. It's like challenging someone to a foot race, losing, and then deciding afterward that you won on "style points" or something. That wasn't the contest, and the other participant might have done things differently under different rules. The system as it stands makes voting pointless for people who are in districts that reliably go for the "other team". If they could at least influence the Presidential election, more of those voters might show up at the polls. GOTV and other campaign efforts take this into account, which magnifies the effect.
  - slg 4y ago
    Fine, you want another example of systemic bias in our government? The 50 Democratic senators represent 41.5 million more people than the 50 Republican senators.
    - dntrkv 4y ago
      I don't really have an issue with the way the senate is setup, since that was intentional. My issue is with the house, where we are supposed to have equal representation, but don't.

silisili 4y ago

It's important to remember gerrymandering cuts both ways. In my state, the D's just redistricted into a crazy looking map that will effectively give them a clean sweep.

colinmhayes 4y ago
What choice do they have? It's an arms race.
- achenet 4y ago
  it shouldn't be. If party loyalty trumps good governance, you messed up somewhere.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Is sitting back and letting you political opponent steam roll you good governance?
    - achenet 4y ago
      The fact that you view this as a fight (using the word "opponent") is the problem. It's not a boxing match. The fact that it has become one means your electoral system is flawed. In a proper system, you have different people with different goals (eg Greens who want less pollution, businesspeople who want lower taxes, socialists who want worker's rights, etc) and they have to compromise (greens cancel the carbon tax is businesspeople accept to ban a certain type of very toxic manufacturing, for example) and WORK TOGETHER.
      - colinmhayes 4y ago
        > electoral system is flawed. Obviously this is the problem. But its flaws have lead us to a situation that makes it impossible to fix them. Either we work within the system we have or we're left powerless.
- 4y ago

kolanos 4y ago

> In New York Democrats want to add four new seats through gerrymandering, to try to retain control of the U.S. House. One district is designed to guarantee the reelection of Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which has held hearings on the evil of — you guessed it — gerrymandering. [0] [0]: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/592968-dismantling-democracy-to-save-it-how-democrats-rediscovered-the-joys-of/ https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/592968-dismantling-demo...

achenet 4y ago

Change to proportional representatin or runoff elections. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

jamie_ca 4y ago
Canadian here, I also would like to see multi-member districts of any variety rather than the status quo.

vlunkr 4y ago

If you look at the popular vote then this is clearly wrong in two ways. Rich land and business owners don't make up half the population. And if you're implying that most religious people vote republican, then they should be absolutely destroying the popular vote. This is just the worldview that's been sold to you by social media.

colinmhayes 4y ago
The religious are in control because you can't win a republican primary without their support.

dang 4y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31864204 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31864204.

i5Aj7PXGjUPy 4y ago

> At this point I see it as a fight between rich landowners+business owners+religion vs all the rest of the people Based off of the responses itt, it's clearly not "all the rest of the people". But you know, maybe if you keep insisting that the political coalition in favor of Roe represents "all the rest of the people" it might magically become true > I fail to see what moderates can do in a two party system where gerrymandering is so heavily done that often Democrats have to win 3-1 to control any majority. Ofc democrats don't gerrymander. The Illinois redistricting wasn't a gerrymander, it was a fair process. Wherever the democrats have a hard time winning it's always because there was a gerrymander, and not because the people don't want them in office. /s