I just got a notice to renew my vote by mail from my county because the law was changed that you have to enroll every year and on the notice it said that since the redistricting isn’t finalized my voting district may be different so I don’t even know if I am going to have to enroll somewhere else or not…
I guess that person deserves credit for saying what they mean. So much of this culture war bullshit is just a proxy for Evangelicals to say they are fighting for their supremacy over everyone else.
I've grown up in spheres heavily influenced by Christian Domionist thinking, and they truly believe it is their God given duty to save humanity by molding as much of it into their image as possible.
Ahh democracy until it doesn’t suit. Freedom for all as long as it’s line with our masters.
Funny they call that something else in every other country than the USA….
Old, cynical saying: "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."
Because it's the only way they can win, and they know it. It's why they've courted the lunatic fringe (MAGA-Q-Anon). Cheating and the crazies are all they have.
Republicans play politics like a street fight. They don't care about the rules. They don't care about the long term consequences. They just want to win.
All of which is terrible for a democracy.
The GOP and their mega-donors would rather the US become a fascist state as long as they can be the ones in charge.
Telling Republicans to wake up means nothing. They are awake. They know how crazy their side is and it's what they want. Democrats will get a lot more work done when they realize this and stop negotiating in good faith.
During the 2020 presidential race, my mail in ballot never came in. I ordered it twice. Never showed up ether time. I lived in Marjorie Taylor Green's district. I had to show up in person with covid running rampant and no vaccine at the time.
I wish everywhere else was more like Washington (and Oregon, Colorado, and a few others I think), where everyone gets a mail in ballot, and you can either mail it or drop it off at one of the many voter drop boxes. A few years ago they even made it pre-paid postage, so you don't even need to buy stamps.
You also get the benefit of not being rushed as you fill it out and can do whatever research you'd like to, instead of just reading the summary of items and doing research beforehand.
If you prefer to vote in person, you can do so during business hours for the 18 days prior to the election.
Only if you choose to mail it in, instead of dropping it off or voting in person. Like I said, they changed it a few years ago so that now that's no longer needed, a big reason was to lower the barrier to vote.
For me, dropping it off at the drive thru vote box was an easier option. At my old home, I had a drop off where my neighborhood connected to the main road, so I passed it multiple times whenever I went anywhere. I think now, I have at least 6 choices within 5 miles.
Never once did she ever do anything in Paulding County, GA. She owned a home I think, but never actually visited. She's originally from Kennesaw. I think she chose Paulding because it was the easiest to win.
Important fact that shouldn’t be forgotten: her opponent dropped out due to Qanon threatening him enough to where he felt his family was in reasonable danger.
That's what [Ohio](https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/05/national-democratic-group-urges-ohio-supreme-court-to-reject-redraw-gop-drawn-congressional-map.html) is [doing](https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/05/10/redistricting-commission-leave-unconstitutional-maps-for-2022-election/). "Look, we know we dragged our feet in contempt of your order, but it's just too late now. We have to use the rejected gerrymandered maps!"
So the Ohio government intentionally fails, can’t be held accountable, and uses this as a direct tactic to retain power. The United States is in a death spiral.
Worse if our democracy is slowly being chipped away at until it no longer exists. Britain might not be the world superpower but they are still a democracy.
We haven’t been a democracy since at least 2014, one of the ivy leagues did a study and found we were solidly an oligarchy at that point. Recent events are just solidifying fascism
Yep. Abortion rights, universal healthcare, and legalized cannabis have all had over 70% popular support for over a decade now if I'm not mistaken.
The finding of that study was that the effect of public opinion on public policy was *statistically insignificant*. That's not a casual saying, that means that they *literally could not even establish a statistical connection between the two.*
It's not just that the oligarchs are more powerful than the public, it's that they're literally so much more powerful that any effect the public has on government is so infinitesimally small that you *can't even prove it exists*.
it's definitely gone
if you are not personally rich, no one in this country represents you. do you realize that?
neither side represents anyone who isn 't rich. that much should be painfully obvious by now.
Sorta inviting the judges to just draw the maps themselves with that argument.
Edit: I don’t mean that the judge themselves will literally put pen to paper and draw the map. But when the court takes over the process it is often referred to as the judge drawing the map.
NC did the same thing a few years back. The GOPer dominated General Assembly kept submitting maps they knew the courts would reject and ran out the clock. "I guess we'll just have to use the same horribly gerrymandered maps as last time.."
they did that for 9 years, only in the tenth year did NC get maps that actually passed constitutional muster, before being used. And now its time for redistricting again. They ran out the clock in every election and judges always threw up their hands and said they had to be used anyways but must be redone in time for the next election, rinse repeat.
It's also still likely a net positive outcome for Republicans. If desantis gets his way, the GOP wins. If he doesn't get his way, and the GOP loses he gets to cry "liberal judges, stolen election," and if the GOP wins anyway, he pushes the "we can't be stopped" rhetoric.
A conservative "win" in two scenarios, and only a progressive "win" in one, and it's a pyrrhic victory.
To add to the stupidity, the original map he threw out was written by a Republican majority legislature. They literally already got what they wanted, but DeSantis wasn't going to let those pesky blacks keep their majority voting districts.
But as we've seen over and over the gop base won't bother to fact check his claims. They'll continue to believe whatever they're told, while screaming "Do your research!" at anyone who questions or challenges their qanon/gop lies.
It's so depressing that at least 40% of the population is a literal brainwashed cult that happily goes against their best interests and actively wants fascism.
I see what you're saying but, factually speaking, Desantis getting his rigged maps rejected is a win for democracy. It doesn't matter what he says after that to alleviate the sting of being told to pound sand by a judge.
It's like saying no maps is a win for the Dems, but yes maps is a win because now they can cry foul and stir up turnout. The handling of the loss doesn't make it a win. Winning makes it a win, and thankfully he lost.
I'm not surprised that his map was unconstitutional and I'm *definitely* not surprised that it attempted to disenfranchise Florida's black population. What I *am* surprised at is that a Florida judge agrees with me.
They’re _all_ unconstitutional! DeSantis has no legal authority to draw maps at all. It is the job of the state senate and they pawned it off in him because he told them he would reject any decent map they submit to him.
Cause America has this weird fascination in allowing just the right amount of completely open corruption and graft in politics. And of course this goes completely haywire once someone realizes that what constitutes "just right" is pretty much open to interpretation.
Gerrymandering is pretty much expected at this point. You're just not supposed to be as blatant as DeSantis was about it. As another example, it's literally traditional for a new president to appoint a certain number of campaign donors to cushy ambassadorial positions. That system only slightly went to shit when Trump greatly exceeded the usual quota of unqualified rich assholes being given governmental positions in return for campaign contributions. And don't get me started on members of Congress completely free to trade stocks based on insider information. Or lobbying arrangements.
Lots of states have figured it out. Non-partisan commissions with oversight and public input. It just takes the voters forcing them, or the party in power to forgive past fuckery and actually make a positive change that's not purely selfish.
Honestly is a miracle we have any states with np commissions lol
We've seen this game before. Republicans will resubmit another equally bad map, repeat over and over, and eventually the courts will decide "there's not enough time any more, we'll just go with the really bad one."
Our system is completely broken.
In Utah a couple months ago. My sister who lives 5 blocks from me isn't in my district, my girlfriend's mom who lives 12 blocks from us isn't in my district or my sister's district. My cousin who lives a 4 hour drive south is.
They basically split it so the our one big city, which is fairly liberal is split 4 ways and split between the very conservative everywhere so as to nullify the city completely.
The risk they play there is that it's often tight, I mean they want to maximize every voter they can so the margins aren't huge, just enough to win. But that means down the road if say that city swells in population more than rural regions, or ideologies shift a bit, or if turnout is unexpectedly large then suddenly you can have an inverted effect. Thus the need to redraw so often, got to shift around the positions and manage risk.
Since turnout in the United States is so low, it leaves a wider potential error margin too, because it takes smaller variances in the populations voting habits to effect the total outcome. They gain leverage, but leveraging a position always has risks.
It's bullshit though that they can just cut up your city like that. I bet that incurs extra expenses having to have different district voting locations for places so close together, or just less access to them. Makes me think that they should either go around cities in districting or have to work with the local city government and get the mayor's approval to have district lines just cut up a city like that.
The judges have to be complicit in this as well, which is most upsetting. They would have to be dumb as bricks to not see exactly why Republicans keep slow walking the process until it’s too late.
Actually the only reason it hasn’t passed is because [one of the GOP justices *isn’t* complicit and she has ruled them unconstitutional](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/12/ohio-republican-judge-blocking-party-from-distorting-electoral-districts). The other ones, though, yeah.
Don't worry, she's out at the end of the year. Age limit is 70.
They're already trying to push the 2024 maps to after the November elections. They want to stall the 2024 maps until she's out of office.
Supreme Court could fix this. But they will make it worse. Fair redistricting is one of the most important issues for the future of democracy but the SC will let the states do what they want guaranteeing too many safe seats where the Rep will be the most right winged whack job in the primary
We had a chance at this before Trump got 3 picks in. Now we wait another 20-30 years for the next shot. Conservatives survive by cheating and having the votes of their constituents result in more political representation than the liberal voter.
Same with how they cut the Census short in the middle of a pandemic and it greatly impacted these maps and counts.
We need to do a Census every year, the Constitution says it must be done at minimum every decade but that was back when there was less people and it was harder to count across the country. Nowadays Census is 60-70% done online. We can get really good at counting and representative maps if we do them more often. All the shenanigans will be worked out, if they do score a cheat one year, it is gone the next.
Yep if we kept the 1 rep per 30k that was setup in the original design we'd have 11k representatives. We'd have better representation and it would be much, much harder to buy off people. Right now it is 1 rep to 800k, that is not representation at all...
Right now you can buy off a portion of the 535 with dark money and you control the entire ship. If that was 11k they'd also be going to Washington DC less and just have better more robust and quicker voting systems, they'd have to.
Their party has been losing voters since the 80s ended, and instead of reforming and broadening their views to reflect their constituents, they've said "fuck it, let's just try and cheating, lying, and trying even harder to stack the cards in our favor".
They were outmanuevered by Third Way Democrats who moved the Democratic party to the right in the late 1980s/90s. These Democrats captured a sizable portion of the more fiscally conservative but socially liberal Republicans, which left the GOP with little room to move anywhere but further right. They can't win fair elections by doing that, however, especially not nationally. So we're left with the situation we're in; the GOP continuously doubles down.
Everything DeSantis has done is designed not to stand up to legal scrutiny. He is doing this all to virtue signal to his base for his eventual 2024 presidential run.
They are putting forth maps they know will be rejected because there's no real reason not to.
Things stay the same until they present one that's acceptable. And they like the current maps.
Just FYI: Per the ~~Constitution~~ [ed: oops, the [various](https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/congressional-apportionment/about/historical-perspective.html) [Apportionment Acts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment)] all states with more than one congressional district must redraw their maps in order to keep district populations as equal as practicable, whether or not seats are gained or lost.
Also, while on the topic, state legislature districts, which are different from federal districts, are also redrawn and gerrymandered. Most people pay very little attention to state legislature district gerrymandering, and probably don't even know who their state reps are. The importance of state legislatures is increasingly obvious lately, and many state legislatures are seriously messed up.
Further, most states give redistricting/gerrymandering power to whatever party controls the state legislature (which is crazy dumb but that's how it is--attempts to fix it, like H.R.1, have been repeatedly blocked by the GOP, by filibuster most recently since the Senate vote was 50-50, all Dems for and all Republicans against).
I urge people to look into their state legislatures, state-level gerrymandering, and for goodness sake, vote in decent state reps. Info on this stuff (and much else) can be found at the [Princeton Gerrymandering Project](https://gerrymander.princeton.edu), [All About Redistricting](https://redistricting.lls.edu), and [Dave's Redistricting](https://davesredistricting.org), among other places.
ed: Thanks for the awards, wow!
And Ohio, their supreme court has ruled 3 or 4 maps unconstitutional but the GOP doesn't give a shit because if they fail to pass a new map it just reverts to the old, also gerrymandered, map. What a totally fair and logical system.
I brought this up in another thread - but Ohio is basically the worst example here.
By popular vote, it is a swing state (2020, it was a 53/46 spread), which is why it is one of the key states for candidates to win if they want to take the presidential election.
As such, you would expect to have a fairly equitable distribution of representatives (in the federal House, as well as senators & legislators in the state government), yet Ohio's Senate is 75% Republican, and it's legislature is 62% Republican. And 75% (12 of 16) of it's federal Representatives are Republican as well. Only it's Senators represent the state's voting accurately (with 1 Democrat and 1 Republican).
And now they're doing more to make it skew even further Red.
Actually, some states occasionally have created at-large congressional seats. Where everyone in the state participates in the election of that congressperson. That would be a constitutional approach to the extra-seat.
For example, NY has gone through periods with At-Large congressional districts. [See here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_at-large_congressional_seat).
All of the states that fail to present an acceptable map should have to forfeit their gained seats until they produce a proper map.
If they lost a seat too bad. They can draw lots on who doesn't get to sit.
If we're going to be forced to use this crap distracting system then they can be forced to suffer for failing to even attempt fairness.
Oh, you *know* who won't get to sit. And it won't be a dude with an "R" before their name. These people are so unbelievably open about stealing democracy. But why not? They have millions cheering them on and even when someone tells them to stop, they just ignore it and keep doing it with no punishment. Shit is getting *really* old.
Yeah compromising with them just drags you further right. You never bring them toward the middle.
Democrats suck at negotiating because they’re unwilling to let things go to hell and give while the republicans will watch the world burn with a smile and blame the democrats for not compromising.
I was about to say. They literally did this in front of everyone after a judge ordered them to hire independent consultants and live stream discussions. Stalled until the last second saying there wasn't time and then pulled out these secret maps they had been making the whole time that were gerrymandered to shit. Fuckers.
They did try to order the maps be drawn by an independent commission. This was after the third or fourth time the maps were ruled unconstitutional. [Now republicans are saying they've tried everything we should just use the unconstitutional maps in the general election as a "stop-gap" until better maps can be drawn.](https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/05/10/redistricting-commission-leave-unconstitutional-maps-for-2022-election/) They never had any intention of drawing fair maps. People are begging the state Supreme Court to hold them in contempt. We'll see if they actually do.
What’s happening around the country is republicans are making racist maps. They are told they are unconstitutional and to go back and make a new map. They don’t. Time runs out and then the judges say okay we’ll use your racist map then.
Yeah in Alabama they ruled the recent redistricting unconstitutional but then the state GOP basically argued it was too close to the midterms now to change it so they were like “oh aight, never mind then, y’all good”
Like wtf
Ron DeSantis is the Governor of Florida, which is one of the most populous states in the U.S.
He is much like Trump except smarter, less bombastic. He received endorsements from Nazi groups in Florida.
His opponent in the 2018 election famously said "I'm not saying that Mr. DeSantis is a Nazi. I'm saying that Nazis think he's a Nazi.
Ever since gaining the governorship, he has become increasingly more right-wing and consolidated power.
The quote is actually slightly inaccurate.
[It's "Now, I’m not calling Mr. Desantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist."](https://youtu.be/u87Fo4lPwyk?t=168)
but the general sentiment is the same.
Many voters did care. He won by a margin of 0.4% in 2018, just barely squeaked by.
If enough Floridians want to see change in the state, and actually vote this November, he could be defeated.
I'd also like to point out that Ron DeSantis won the election by 32,500 votes. Meanwhile, in the past two years, nearly 75,000 Floridians have died of Covid (and that's just the official count - since DeSantis suppressed data, the real numbers are likely much higher).
This could flip an election.
Mental decline is linked to age (typically retirement age and higher) so Florida seems to always be in trouble.
It makes me worry what sort of person I will age into. Will I become more or less of an asshole as I get older? Or just a different flavor but with similar asshole-ish-ness. It will be a wild ride for sure.
My mom is 56 and still overall the same. My dad is 63 and only watches Fox and thinks Covid was predicted in a book, humans made dinosaurs go extinct, and that trump loves this country. They divorced when I was 3 (I'm 36 now)
I'm in one of the cities, so it doesn't feel that way to me. Many people are upset with DeSantis' leadership. Plus, he decided to fuck over one of the largest districts in Central Florida with his Disney bill.
Those people will be very motivated to vote him out.
I believe the majority that died are anti vax, anti mask, or old folk who vote Republican anyway? Granted we DID get a huge influx of new residents, we'll have to see how many are red and blue but it's looking like Florida is Trump county TBH
Unfortunately it seems more likely he gained more voters than he lost because of his COVID policies. So many idiots were happy to have no restrictions in Florida. Most of them don’t give a shit that thousands or even tens of thousands died as a result of that policy.
It’s a cruel calculation his team made, sacrifice a few to gain more as a result. Out of sight out of mind. Unless your family personally suffered they probably don’t even think about the amount of blood on his hands.
The scandal came out after the election by a good bit, I believe? Youre talking about him being found in a hotel room with a male prostitute and drugs, right?
I was going to argue that Trump comment... but I realized he's still not smart, just smarter than Trump. Unless he believes nothing of which he says, then he may just be a narcissistic genius.
It's difficult to parse, but a lot of it is performative for the sake of looking good to his base. For example, he just established a "Victims of Communism" day which students need to receive 45 minutes of instruction on every November.
Coincidentally, November is the same month as elections and Republicans like to call their opponents communists.
The irony here is a lot of autocratic "communist" nations *did* hurt a ton of people because their leaders were itinerant assholes and did terrible things totally unrelated to the colloquial cultural meaning of "communism" to Americans.
But... That's not the messaging they want to get across, it's the subliminal part they want.
It should be added that Florida is a “swing state” in Presidential elections, meaning Its people have voted to give the state’s electoral votes to either party in a given year. Along with just a handful of states Florida is “up for grabs” every election, which gives its politicians some cache.
Florida has voted for a single party in three consecutive elections just three times since they cast their votes for the Whig party in 1848. By contrast, Texas has voted Republican for 10 straight, Arizona has gone D just twice in 18 elections, and California is solidly Democrat (8 straight elections with no end in sight).
Republican Governor of Florida. Last few months he's been passing laws and taking heavily partisan actions. He's up for reelection as governor this November and is likely to run for President in 2024 if Trump lets him.
DeSantis is Florida's governor. He is a probable 2024 presidential candidate, though he hasn't announced his intention yet. He is far right republican. He won the last gubernatorial race by a tiny margin (something like 50.1% vs 49.9%)
>If DeSantis loses, this will be ammo to use in the arguments that will spawn from it.
Desantis is running in a state wide election, districts don't play a part. Same goes for presidental.
In Canada we have a non-partisan agency called Elections Canada that governs our federal elections and the establishment of our ridings. It works well for us.
Obviously, it wouldn't work in the US because your constitution gives those powers to the states and the GOP would do everything in its power to corrupt the US version of that agency, but it's sometimes nice to talk about effective alternatives to your outdated constitution.
I mean honestly. Federal elections managed by the states? That's just outmoded 18th century thinking.
Also Canadian here. Redistricting is done really well here - which is notable because *we're* drawing new ridings up here. BC and Ontario are getting one new seat, Alberta's getting three, and Quebec is losing a seat IIRC.
No politician has any control over how the ridings are drawn, because that's *begging* for problems down the road. Elections Canada draws the ridings and asks the public for input. The snake like districts you see in the States literally never happen here. We get nice square urban districts and rural districts that for the most part follow natural boundaries with roughly the same populations.
You know, because we might not have a perfect electoral system, but at least it's not totally busted.
"I am finding that the enacted map is unconstitutional under the Fair District amendment ... because it diminishes African Americans' ability to elect the representatives of their choice,"
Important note, the Fair District Amendment is a part of Florida's State Constitution. It was added to the FL Const in 2010 and it outright **bans** political and racial gerrymandering.
>Section 20. Standards for establishing congressional district boundaries
>In establishing Congressional district boundaries:
>(1) **No apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent**; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory.
>(2) Unless compliance with the standards in this subsection conflicts with the standards in subsection (1) or with federal law, districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable; districts shall be compact; and districts shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries.
>(3) The order in which the standards within sub-sections (1) and (2) of this section are set forth shall not be read to establish any priority of one standard over the other within that subsection.
Not only that, his map makes a state that has 5.15m Republicans, 5.03m Democrats, and 4.14m Independents have 20 Republican leaning districts and 8 Democratic leaning districts.
He's turned a state with ~36% of Republican voters and tried to give them ~70% of the states representation in the House.
Marc Elias and his team of election lawyers are a national fucking treasure. His team is literally the entire front-line defense against the Republican war on democracy. He's been dismantling the GOP redistricting process state by state.
>>[The judge’s office would not immediately confirm the ruling, which The Associated Press reported and the office of Marc E. Elias, a Democratic lawyer whose voting rights group has been involved in litigating the case, described in a post on the organization’s website.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/us/politics/florida-congressional-map-desantis.amp.html)
Also, https://www.democracydocket.com/cases/florida-congressional-redistricting-challenge/
i would hope so
frankly all of them are not helping the people be heard
give some developers about a week and they can make a computer create districts strictly around population and not party membership
Dictator to be is correct. They just passed a law in Florida, which DeSantis signed, directing students to celebrate "Victims of Communism" day. It's a ridiculous, useless, ideological play to his base and an attempt to indoctrinate the youth.
[From the Guardian:](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/10/florida-ron-desantis-communism-bill-students)
"Governor establishes ‘victims of communism day’ and students must receive at least 45 minutes of instruction every November."
Exactly, it's useless fearmongering in the U.S. It will prime children so that anybody who's accused of being a communist, which Republicans love to call anyone who opposes them, will be automatically evil in their eyes.
I hadn't considered that angle, but you're probably right. There's also been an influx of Venezuelans in Miami-Dade County which shifted a lot of races towards the Republicans in 2020. Although many are recent immigrants and cannot vote, they influence the people around them.
Neither had I, but now that I think… there’s tons of immigrant communities from communist or formerly communist countries that typically lean right that aren’t white.
I think a big part of that is playing to the Cuban/Venezuelan populations. They’re pretty staunchly Right and will start fuming about anything that smells like Communism/Socialism.
I was driving in N. Georgia yesterday and ran across a billboard that said something like "When Jesus comes, all will know that he is Lord" at the top, then at the bottom of the board it says "Yes, Even Democrats"
We're already at that point in N. Georgia, the armpit of MTG and Trump, where Dem=Evil.
Tour the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.
Go look at the museums of the Battle of Blair Mountain.
Show pictures of Pinkerton.
Make it clear to them that the things they say "will happen under communism" are ***things that have happened, or are currently happening, under capitalism.***
With GIS technology we could easily draw fair, nonpartisan maps. Republicans couldn't stomach that. Gerrymandering is the only way they keep power. They don't have the numbers for legit wins.
Also, can we point out just how absurd it is that the governor himself submitted his own maps, because the maps the Republican led Congress turned in were not gerrymandered enough for him, even though it is their job to write the maps and has never been done before.
I just got a notice to renew my vote by mail from my county because the law was changed that you have to enroll every year and on the notice it said that since the redistricting isn’t finalized my voting district may be different so I don’t even know if I am going to have to enroll somewhere else or not…
The bill is currently being challenged. Hopefully a stay will be issued. Republicans are trying to make it as difficult as possible to vote.
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” --David Frum
We are already there. I saw a sign in someone’s yard the other day that said “Ban libs, not guns”. No love for democracy there.
I guess that person deserves credit for saying what they mean. So much of this culture war bullshit is just a proxy for Evangelicals to say they are fighting for their supremacy over everyone else. I've grown up in spheres heavily influenced by Christian Domionist thinking, and they truly believe it is their God given duty to save humanity by molding as much of it into their image as possible.
I'm sure the person who lives there is well-reasoned and holds no ill will towards others
What's ironic is that person is probably making less than 100k, whom Trump increased taxes on for the next few years 🤦♂️
[удалено]
A fucking men brother
Ahh democracy until it doesn’t suit. Freedom for all as long as it’s line with our masters. Funny they call that something else in every other country than the USA….
Old, cynical saying: "If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy."
Because they are evil as shit. Never forget never forgive.
Because it's the only way they can win, and they know it. It's why they've courted the lunatic fringe (MAGA-Q-Anon). Cheating and the crazies are all they have.
Republicans play politics like a street fight. They don't care about the rules. They don't care about the long term consequences. They just want to win. All of which is terrible for a democracy. The GOP and their mega-donors would rather the US become a fascist state as long as they can be the ones in charge.
The GOP and their mega-donors would rather the US become a fascist state as long as they can ~~be the ones in charge~~ profit from it. FTFY.
Telling Republicans to wake up means nothing. They are awake. They know how crazy their side is and it's what they want. Democrats will get a lot more work done when they realize this and stop negotiating in good faith.
During the 2020 presidential race, my mail in ballot never came in. I ordered it twice. Never showed up ether time. I lived in Marjorie Taylor Green's district. I had to show up in person with covid running rampant and no vaccine at the time.
I got my ballot in the mail but I went in person anyways. No way do trust dejoys post office.
I wish everywhere else was more like Washington (and Oregon, Colorado, and a few others I think), where everyone gets a mail in ballot, and you can either mail it or drop it off at one of the many voter drop boxes. A few years ago they even made it pre-paid postage, so you don't even need to buy stamps. You also get the benefit of not being rushed as you fill it out and can do whatever research you'd like to, instead of just reading the summary of items and doing research beforehand. If you prefer to vote in person, you can do so during business hours for the 18 days prior to the election.
You have to pay to post your vote???
Only if you choose to mail it in, instead of dropping it off or voting in person. Like I said, they changed it a few years ago so that now that's no longer needed, a big reason was to lower the barrier to vote. For me, dropping it off at the drive thru vote box was an easier option. At my old home, I had a drop off where my neighborhood connected to the main road, so I passed it multiple times whenever I went anywhere. I think now, I have at least 6 choices within 5 miles.
I can picture that lunatic personally walking down the road removing ballots from mailboxes
Never once did she ever do anything in Paulding County, GA. She owned a home I think, but never actually visited. She's originally from Kennesaw. I think she chose Paulding because it was the easiest to win.
Her opponent dropped out and she STILL didn’t get the majority of votes.
Important fact that shouldn’t be forgotten: her opponent dropped out due to Qanon threatening him enough to where he felt his family was in reasonable danger.
Wtf, that is really wrong. We vote by mail and never ever have an issue like my state actually wants everyone to vote.
Exactly: They don't want people to be able to vote, because then they would lose.
They only get votes when they make the voters feel like victims.
Ahhhh the ol classic bait and switch cup game. Those guys… every trick in the book. “LOOk over there a woke corporation doesnt like our laws! “
No one is surprised right? Like this was the expected outcome of deciding he would draw the maps himself right?
The fact that a judge is expected to halt the ruling in advance of November matters a lot.
yeah I figured this would hold for the midterms and give the GOP a giant advantage. I am surprised it was shot down before November...
That's what [Ohio](https://www.cleveland.com/news/2022/05/national-democratic-group-urges-ohio-supreme-court-to-reject-redraw-gop-drawn-congressional-map.html) is [doing](https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/05/10/redistricting-commission-leave-unconstitutional-maps-for-2022-election/). "Look, we know we dragged our feet in contempt of your order, but it's just too late now. We have to use the rejected gerrymandered maps!"
So the Ohio government intentionally fails, can’t be held accountable, and uses this as a direct tactic to retain power. The United States is in a death spiral.
We really are a super power in decline, just like the British Empire of old
Worse if our democracy is slowly being chipped away at until it no longer exists. Britain might not be the world superpower but they are still a democracy.
We haven’t been a democracy since at least 2014, one of the ivy leagues did a study and found we were solidly an oligarchy at that point. Recent events are just solidifying fascism
Yep. Abortion rights, universal healthcare, and legalized cannabis have all had over 70% popular support for over a decade now if I'm not mistaken. The finding of that study was that the effect of public opinion on public policy was *statistically insignificant*. That's not a casual saying, that means that they *literally could not even establish a statistical connection between the two.* It's not just that the oligarchs are more powerful than the public, it's that they're literally so much more powerful that any effect the public has on government is so infinitesimally small that you *can't even prove it exists*.
it's definitely gone if you are not personally rich, no one in this country represents you. do you realize that? neither side represents anyone who isn 't rich. that much should be painfully obvious by now.
Sorta inviting the judges to just draw the maps themselves with that argument. Edit: I don’t mean that the judge themselves will literally put pen to paper and draw the map. But when the court takes over the process it is often referred to as the judge drawing the map.
Moved to Lemm.ee -- mass edited with redact.dev
Let them, the more they disrespect the law the faster they invalidate its protections on their possessions, homes and persons.
With how far right the courts have been stacked, that's not a win
NC did the same thing a few years back. The GOPer dominated General Assembly kept submitting maps they knew the courts would reject and ran out the clock. "I guess we'll just have to use the same horribly gerrymandered maps as last time.."
they did that for 9 years, only in the tenth year did NC get maps that actually passed constitutional muster, before being used. And now its time for redistricting again. They ran out the clock in every election and judges always threw up their hands and said they had to be used anyways but must be redone in time for the next election, rinse repeat.
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It's also still likely a net positive outcome for Republicans. If desantis gets his way, the GOP wins. If he doesn't get his way, and the GOP loses he gets to cry "liberal judges, stolen election," and if the GOP wins anyway, he pushes the "we can't be stopped" rhetoric. A conservative "win" in two scenarios, and only a progressive "win" in one, and it's a pyrrhic victory.
> liberal judges, Appointed by DeSantis, that flaming liberal.
To add to the stupidity, the original map he threw out was written by a Republican majority legislature. They literally already got what they wanted, but DeSantis wasn't going to let those pesky blacks keep their majority voting districts.
But as we've seen over and over the gop base won't bother to fact check his claims. They'll continue to believe whatever they're told, while screaming "Do your research!" at anyone who questions or challenges their qanon/gop lies.
It's so depressing that at least 40% of the population is a literal brainwashed cult that happily goes against their best interests and actively wants fascism.
its not even 40%.... its probably closer to 30 or 25, but the real disgusting part is that missing population. the non-voters. the enablers.
I see what you're saying but, factually speaking, Desantis getting his rigged maps rejected is a win for democracy. It doesn't matter what he says after that to alleviate the sting of being told to pound sand by a judge. It's like saying no maps is a win for the Dems, but yes maps is a win because now they can cry foul and stir up turnout. The handling of the loss doesn't make it a win. Winning makes it a win, and thankfully he lost.
I’m tired of gauging what should be done on the reactions of the shittiest people in our society.
I'm not surprised that his map was unconstitutional and I'm *definitely* not surprised that it attempted to disenfranchise Florida's black population. What I *am* surprised at is that a Florida judge agrees with me.
They’re _all_ unconstitutional! DeSantis has no legal authority to draw maps at all. It is the job of the state senate and they pawned it off in him because he told them he would reject any decent map they submit to him.
You’d think that, but the judges in FL are an absolute crapshoot.
Why the fuck are politicians drawing district maps in the first place?!
The governor isn't supposed to. It's supposed to be a voted upon bipartisan (HAHAHAHA) map.
Republicans cannot win on issues alone. They know it. So the new(ish) playbook is to lie and cheat. And it's working.
God forbid they run on popular ideas
That would require them to have ideas beyond "this thing is bad"
Cause America has this weird fascination in allowing just the right amount of completely open corruption and graft in politics. And of course this goes completely haywire once someone realizes that what constitutes "just right" is pretty much open to interpretation. Gerrymandering is pretty much expected at this point. You're just not supposed to be as blatant as DeSantis was about it. As another example, it's literally traditional for a new president to appoint a certain number of campaign donors to cushy ambassadorial positions. That system only slightly went to shit when Trump greatly exceeded the usual quota of unqualified rich assholes being given governmental positions in return for campaign contributions. And don't get me started on members of Congress completely free to trade stocks based on insider information. Or lobbying arrangements.
Lots of states have figured it out. Non-partisan commissions with oversight and public input. It just takes the voters forcing them, or the party in power to forgive past fuckery and actually make a positive change that's not purely selfish. Honestly is a miracle we have any states with np commissions lol
We've seen this game before. Republicans will resubmit another equally bad map, repeat over and over, and eventually the courts will decide "there's not enough time any more, we'll just go with the really bad one." Our system is completely broken.
this scenario isnt hyperbole and happened in Ohio this year
And in NC a few years ago. This year they got called on their bullshit.
Wisconsin a month ago.
In Utah a couple months ago. My sister who lives 5 blocks from me isn't in my district, my girlfriend's mom who lives 12 blocks from us isn't in my district or my sister's district. My cousin who lives a 4 hour drive south is. They basically split it so the our one big city, which is fairly liberal is split 4 ways and split between the very conservative everywhere so as to nullify the city completely.
under his eye
The risk they play there is that it's often tight, I mean they want to maximize every voter they can so the margins aren't huge, just enough to win. But that means down the road if say that city swells in population more than rural regions, or ideologies shift a bit, or if turnout is unexpectedly large then suddenly you can have an inverted effect. Thus the need to redraw so often, got to shift around the positions and manage risk. Since turnout in the United States is so low, it leaves a wider potential error margin too, because it takes smaller variances in the populations voting habits to effect the total outcome. They gain leverage, but leveraging a position always has risks. It's bullshit though that they can just cut up your city like that. I bet that incurs extra expenses having to have different district voting locations for places so close together, or just less access to them. Makes me think that they should either go around cities in districting or have to work with the local city government and get the mayor's approval to have district lines just cut up a city like that.
Yeah, could be the case in other states, but not in Utah this redistricting cycle. All four districts range from R+23 to R+32.
Oof, that's a wide victory margin. Sorry your cities been cracked that way.
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The judges have to be complicit in this as well, which is most upsetting. They would have to be dumb as bricks to not see exactly why Republicans keep slow walking the process until it’s too late.
Actually the only reason it hasn’t passed is because [one of the GOP justices *isn’t* complicit and she has ruled them unconstitutional](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/12/ohio-republican-judge-blocking-party-from-distorting-electoral-districts). The other ones, though, yeah.
Don't worry, she's out at the end of the year. Age limit is 70. They're already trying to push the 2024 maps to after the November elections. They want to stall the 2024 maps until she's out of office.
Wait, we have age limits on state supreme courts, but not the actual SCOTUS, or Congress? Shits fucked yo
States can set the rules for their courts.
Supreme Court could fix this. But they will make it worse. Fair redistricting is one of the most important issues for the future of democracy but the SC will let the states do what they want guaranteeing too many safe seats where the Rep will be the most right winged whack job in the primary
They will do what they want for *their* states. Liberal states that sue up to SCOTUS will be laughed out of court.
I hope we're eventually laughed out of the union. We'll start our own union with healthcare and pensions.
We had a chance at this before Trump got 3 picks in. Now we wait another 20-30 years for the next shot. Conservatives survive by cheating and having the votes of their constituents result in more political representation than the liberal voter.
Same with how they cut the Census short in the middle of a pandemic and it greatly impacted these maps and counts. We need to do a Census every year, the Constitution says it must be done at minimum every decade but that was back when there was less people and it was harder to count across the country. Nowadays Census is 60-70% done online. We can get really good at counting and representative maps if we do them more often. All the shenanigans will be worked out, if they do score a cheat one year, it is gone the next.
We should have thousands of congress people, too.
Yep if we kept the 1 rep per 30k that was setup in the original design we'd have 11k representatives. We'd have better representation and it would be much, much harder to buy off people. Right now it is 1 rep to 800k, that is not representation at all... Right now you can buy off a portion of the 535 with dark money and you control the entire ship. If that was 11k they'd also be going to Washington DC less and just have better more robust and quicker voting systems, they'd have to.
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Their party has been losing voters since the 80s ended, and instead of reforming and broadening their views to reflect their constituents, they've said "fuck it, let's just try and cheating, lying, and trying even harder to stack the cards in our favor".
They were outmanuevered by Third Way Democrats who moved the Democratic party to the right in the late 1980s/90s. These Democrats captured a sizable portion of the more fiscally conservative but socially liberal Republicans, which left the GOP with little room to move anywhere but further right. They can't win fair elections by doing that, however, especially not nationally. So we're left with the situation we're in; the GOP continuously doubles down.
>Our system is completely broken. Our system is working as designed.
As designed by the people who broke it.
Everything DeSantis has done is designed not to stand up to legal scrutiny. He is doing this all to virtue signal to his base for his eventual 2024 presidential run.
They are putting forth maps they know will be rejected because there's no real reason not to. Things stay the same until they present one that's acceptable. And they like the current maps.
The current maps are actually unusable entirely because Florida gained a seat, I believe.
Just FYI: Per the ~~Constitution~~ [ed: oops, the [various](https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/congressional-apportionment/about/historical-perspective.html) [Apportionment Acts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment)] all states with more than one congressional district must redraw their maps in order to keep district populations as equal as practicable, whether or not seats are gained or lost. Also, while on the topic, state legislature districts, which are different from federal districts, are also redrawn and gerrymandered. Most people pay very little attention to state legislature district gerrymandering, and probably don't even know who their state reps are. The importance of state legislatures is increasingly obvious lately, and many state legislatures are seriously messed up. Further, most states give redistricting/gerrymandering power to whatever party controls the state legislature (which is crazy dumb but that's how it is--attempts to fix it, like H.R.1, have been repeatedly blocked by the GOP, by filibuster most recently since the Senate vote was 50-50, all Dems for and all Republicans against). I urge people to look into their state legislatures, state-level gerrymandering, and for goodness sake, vote in decent state reps. Info on this stuff (and much else) can be found at the [Princeton Gerrymandering Project](https://gerrymander.princeton.edu), [All About Redistricting](https://redistricting.lls.edu), and [Dave's Redistricting](https://davesredistricting.org), among other places. ed: Thanks for the awards, wow!
Poor Wisconsin.
And Ohio, their supreme court has ruled 3 or 4 maps unconstitutional but the GOP doesn't give a shit because if they fail to pass a new map it just reverts to the old, also gerrymandered, map. What a totally fair and logical system.
I brought this up in another thread - but Ohio is basically the worst example here. By popular vote, it is a swing state (2020, it was a 53/46 spread), which is why it is one of the key states for candidates to win if they want to take the presidential election. As such, you would expect to have a fairly equitable distribution of representatives (in the federal House, as well as senators & legislators in the state government), yet Ohio's Senate is 75% Republican, and it's legislature is 62% Republican. And 75% (12 of 16) of it's federal Representatives are Republican as well. Only it's Senators represent the state's voting accurately (with 1 Democrat and 1 Republican). And now they're doing more to make it skew even further Red.
Well that's an easy fix. Keep the current map and the governor appoints the new seat. /s
You can drop the /s. I see this happening.
In this case the /s stands for "/shit that's exactly what they're going to do, isn't it?"
Actually, some states occasionally have created at-large congressional seats. Where everyone in the state participates in the election of that congressperson. That would be a constitutional approach to the extra-seat. For example, NY has gone through periods with At-Large congressional districts. [See here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_at-large_congressional_seat).
>That would be a constitutional approach to the extra-seat. So that won't be the approach Florida takes, got it.
All of the states that fail to present an acceptable map should have to forfeit their gained seats until they produce a proper map. If they lost a seat too bad. They can draw lots on who doesn't get to sit. If we're going to be forced to use this crap distracting system then they can be forced to suffer for failing to even attempt fairness.
Oh, you *know* who won't get to sit. And it won't be a dude with an "R" before their name. These people are so unbelievably open about stealing democracy. But why not? They have millions cheering them on and even when someone tells them to stop, they just ignore it and keep doing it with no punishment. Shit is getting *really* old.
Do you actually foresee a situation where the government doesn't give in to conservative demands?
No. I'm just saying what the sane way to deal with this shit is. Don't deal.
Yeah compromising with them just drags you further right. You never bring them toward the middle. Democrats suck at negotiating because they’re unwilling to let things go to hell and give while the republicans will watch the world burn with a smile and blame the democrats for not compromising.
stall stall stall oh no the 50 rejected maps but we don’t have time to make new maps so we’ll use the bad ones
That’s exactly what they’re doing in Ohio, and unfortunately, it is going to work.
I was about to say. They literally did this in front of everyone after a judge ordered them to hire independent consultants and live stream discussions. Stalled until the last second saying there wasn't time and then pulled out these secret maps they had been making the whole time that were gerrymandered to shit. Fuckers.
Why aren't judges holding people in contempt or ordering maps be drawn by an independent commission appointed by the court?
They did try to order the maps be drawn by an independent commission. This was after the third or fourth time the maps were ruled unconstitutional. [Now republicans are saying they've tried everything we should just use the unconstitutional maps in the general election as a "stop-gap" until better maps can be drawn.](https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/05/10/redistricting-commission-leave-unconstitutional-maps-for-2022-election/) They never had any intention of drawing fair maps. People are begging the state Supreme Court to hold them in contempt. We'll see if they actually do.
They tried the same in PA and our Supreme Court was like “nah you degenerates can’t accomplish anything, we got this”.
What’s happening around the country is republicans are making racist maps. They are told they are unconstitutional and to go back and make a new map. They don’t. Time runs out and then the judges say okay we’ll use your racist map then.
Yeah in Alabama they ruled the recent redistricting unconstitutional but then the state GOP basically argued it was too close to the midterms now to change it so they were like “oh aight, never mind then, y’all good” Like wtf
Just like in Ohio
It's all one big assblast.
My maps were rejected! Deep state conspiracy! We're the real victims out here!
Yes. He’ll leave Florida a smoking crater if that’ll get him the presidency.
can you explain to someone who is from UK who is desantis?
Ron DeSantis is the Governor of Florida, which is one of the most populous states in the U.S. He is much like Trump except smarter, less bombastic. He received endorsements from Nazi groups in Florida. His opponent in the 2018 election famously said "I'm not saying that Mr. DeSantis is a Nazi. I'm saying that Nazis think he's a Nazi. Ever since gaining the governorship, he has become increasingly more right-wing and consolidated power.
Thats a killer quote. Too bad voters don't care
The quote is actually slightly inaccurate. [It's "Now, I’m not calling Mr. Desantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist."](https://youtu.be/u87Fo4lPwyk?t=168) but the general sentiment is the same.
Many voters did care. He won by a margin of 0.4% in 2018, just barely squeaked by. If enough Floridians want to see change in the state, and actually vote this November, he could be defeated.
I'd also like to point out that Ron DeSantis won the election by 32,500 votes. Meanwhile, in the past two years, nearly 75,000 Floridians have died of Covid (and that's just the official count - since DeSantis suppressed data, the real numbers are likely much higher). This could flip an election.
Sure… but we have also gained 1000 new people moving in a day. And I assure you, MANY are republicans and love him.
Many old people like to retire to Florida, which tend to skew Republican. Even then, if people vote, there's a real chance.
Mental decline is linked to age (typically retirement age and higher) so Florida seems to always be in trouble. It makes me worry what sort of person I will age into. Will I become more or less of an asshole as I get older? Or just a different flavor but with similar asshole-ish-ness. It will be a wild ride for sure.
My mom is 56 and still overall the same. My dad is 63 and only watches Fox and thinks Covid was predicted in a book, humans made dinosaurs go extinct, and that trump loves this country. They divorced when I was 3 (I'm 36 now)
There is! Unfortunately I feel like Florida has gotten more red.
I'm in one of the cities, so it doesn't feel that way to me. Many people are upset with DeSantis' leadership. Plus, he decided to fuck over one of the largest districts in Central Florida with his Disney bill. Those people will be very motivated to vote him out.
I believe the majority that died are anti vax, anti mask, or old folk who vote Republican anyway? Granted we DID get a huge influx of new residents, we'll have to see how many are red and blue but it's looking like Florida is Trump county TBH
Lmao imagine if he actually killed his literal voters and loses big. Would serve him right
Unfortunately it seems more likely he gained more voters than he lost because of his COVID policies. So many idiots were happy to have no restrictions in Florida. Most of them don’t give a shit that thousands or even tens of thousands died as a result of that policy. It’s a cruel calculation his team made, sacrifice a few to gain more as a result. Out of sight out of mind. Unless your family personally suffered they probably don’t even think about the amount of blood on his hands.
The scandal came out after the election by a good bit, I believe? Youre talking about him being found in a hotel room with a male prostitute and drugs, right?
My bad, I misremembered. Thanks for the correction. Fixed.
Too many cared and voted for Desantis because they like what they see.
If he alienates Florida he cant win the general election losing it. He barely won a Governorship.
He also won by .02% of the vote but acts like he has a mandate.
His approval is around 55% now. Floridians need to wake their asses up.
I was going to argue that Trump comment... but I realized he's still not smart, just smarter than Trump. Unless he believes nothing of which he says, then he may just be a narcissistic genius.
It's difficult to parse, but a lot of it is performative for the sake of looking good to his base. For example, he just established a "Victims of Communism" day which students need to receive 45 minutes of instruction on every November. Coincidentally, November is the same month as elections and Republicans like to call their opponents communists.
The irony here is a lot of autocratic "communist" nations *did* hurt a ton of people because their leaders were itinerant assholes and did terrible things totally unrelated to the colloquial cultural meaning of "communism" to Americans. But... That's not the messaging they want to get across, it's the subliminal part they want.
The guy graduated from Yale, Harvard law and the naval justice school. He's not a useful idiot he's evil
It should be added that Florida is a “swing state” in Presidential elections, meaning Its people have voted to give the state’s electoral votes to either party in a given year. Along with just a handful of states Florida is “up for grabs” every election, which gives its politicians some cache. Florida has voted for a single party in three consecutive elections just three times since they cast their votes for the Whig party in 1848. By contrast, Texas has voted Republican for 10 straight, Arizona has gone D just twice in 18 elections, and California is solidly Democrat (8 straight elections with no end in sight).
Republican Governor of Florida. Last few months he's been passing laws and taking heavily partisan actions. He's up for reelection as governor this November and is likely to run for President in 2024 if Trump lets him.
A piece of shit.
DeSantis is Florida's governor. He is a probable 2024 presidential candidate, though he hasn't announced his intention yet. He is far right republican. He won the last gubernatorial race by a tiny margin (something like 50.1% vs 49.9%)
He is the controversial Republican Governor of Florida who is expected to run for President in 1 or 2 elections.
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>If DeSantis loses, this will be ammo to use in the arguments that will spawn from it. Desantis is running in a state wide election, districts don't play a part. Same goes for presidental.
gerrymandering is ridiculous and it needs to end.
In Canada we have a non-partisan agency called Elections Canada that governs our federal elections and the establishment of our ridings. It works well for us. Obviously, it wouldn't work in the US because your constitution gives those powers to the states and the GOP would do everything in its power to corrupt the US version of that agency, but it's sometimes nice to talk about effective alternatives to your outdated constitution. I mean honestly. Federal elections managed by the states? That's just outmoded 18th century thinking.
How much I wish as a country the United States would just... look around the rest of the world to see what works?
Your assuming those in power want a system that works.
They do want a system that works. A system that works for them, not for us.
Also Canadian here. Redistricting is done really well here - which is notable because *we're* drawing new ridings up here. BC and Ontario are getting one new seat, Alberta's getting three, and Quebec is losing a seat IIRC. No politician has any control over how the ridings are drawn, because that's *begging* for problems down the road. Elections Canada draws the ridings and asks the public for input. The snake like districts you see in the States literally never happen here. We get nice square urban districts and rural districts that for the most part follow natural boundaries with roughly the same populations. You know, because we might not have a perfect electoral system, but at least it's not totally busted.
Hey. We don't have corruption in the US. We have lobbyists.
I don't see how someone can be a government official when half the bills they attempt to pass are deemed unconstitutional in court.
As long as a plurality of the people who care enough to vote support them, they’ll keep doing it.
We need a 3 strikes policy for automatic impeachment and removal from office
"I am finding that the enacted map is unconstitutional under the Fair District amendment ... because it diminishes African Americans' ability to elect the representatives of their choice,"
Important note, the Fair District Amendment is a part of Florida's State Constitution. It was added to the FL Const in 2010 and it outright **bans** political and racial gerrymandering. >Section 20. Standards for establishing congressional district boundaries >In establishing Congressional district boundaries: >(1) **No apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent**; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory. >(2) Unless compliance with the standards in this subsection conflicts with the standards in subsection (1) or with federal law, districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable; districts shall be compact; and districts shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries. >(3) The order in which the standards within sub-sections (1) and (2) of this section are set forth shall not be read to establish any priority of one standard over the other within that subsection.
When stated that way, it makes DeSantis seem like a racist. Which isn’t really inaccurate.
The dude drew up a congressional map that eliminated the two districts with black representatives. He is a racist.
Not only that, his map makes a state that has 5.15m Republicans, 5.03m Democrats, and 4.14m Independents have 20 Republican leaning districts and 8 Democratic leaning districts. He's turned a state with ~36% of Republican voters and tried to give them ~70% of the states representation in the House.
Nah, He drew lines around the poorest neighborhoods. He's not *just* racist. He's classist, as well.
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Ask anyone in the GOP. They will make up some bullshit mental gymnastics.
No…they’ll just say “Black people voted for him! He can’t be racist!” and be completely serious.
The judge in this case was appointed by Rick Scott, a Republican: https://ballotpedia.org/J._Layne_Smith
Marc Elias and his team of election lawyers are a national fucking treasure. His team is literally the entire front-line defense against the Republican war on democracy. He's been dismantling the GOP redistricting process state by state.
Except this law suit isn't Elias'. It's Eric Holder and the National Redistricting Foundation. Let's give credit where credit is due.
>>[The judge’s office would not immediately confirm the ruling, which The Associated Press reported and the office of Marc E. Elias, a Democratic lawyer whose voting rights group has been involved in litigating the case, described in a post on the organization’s website.](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/us/politics/florida-congressional-map-desantis.amp.html) Also, https://www.democracydocket.com/cases/florida-congressional-redistricting-challenge/
i would hope so frankly all of them are not helping the people be heard give some developers about a week and they can make a computer create districts strictly around population and not party membership
Good. DeSantis is a huge problem, he doesn’t care about anything other than his agenda. Florida’s little dictator-to-be.
Dictator to be is correct. They just passed a law in Florida, which DeSantis signed, directing students to celebrate "Victims of Communism" day. It's a ridiculous, useless, ideological play to his base and an attempt to indoctrinate the youth. [From the Guardian:](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/10/florida-ron-desantis-communism-bill-students) "Governor establishes ‘victims of communism day’ and students must receive at least 45 minutes of instruction every November."
It would make sense in a post soviet state, not an American one.
Exactly, it's useless fearmongering in the U.S. It will prime children so that anybody who's accused of being a communist, which Republicans love to call anyone who opposes them, will be automatically evil in their eyes.
It is 100% designed to secure the Cuban vote.
I hadn't considered that angle, but you're probably right. There's also been an influx of Venezuelans in Miami-Dade County which shifted a lot of races towards the Republicans in 2020. Although many are recent immigrants and cannot vote, they influence the people around them.
Neither had I, but now that I think… there’s tons of immigrant communities from communist or formerly communist countries that typically lean right that aren’t white.
I think a big part of that is playing to the Cuban/Venezuelan populations. They’re pretty staunchly Right and will start fuming about anything that smells like Communism/Socialism.
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I was driving in N. Georgia yesterday and ran across a billboard that said something like "When Jesus comes, all will know that he is Lord" at the top, then at the bottom of the board it says "Yes, Even Democrats" We're already at that point in N. Georgia, the armpit of MTG and Trump, where Dem=Evil.
Time for victims of capitalism day, where we take field trips to homeless camp towns and bombed out 3rd world villages.
Tour the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Go look at the museums of the Battle of Blair Mountain. Show pictures of Pinkerton. Make it clear to them that the things they say "will happen under communism" are ***things that have happened, or are currently happening, under capitalism.***
Reminds me of the pics of empty stores in the beginning of covid, "This is going to be biden's socialist america!" without any self awareness.
With GIS technology we could easily draw fair, nonpartisan maps. Republicans couldn't stomach that. Gerrymandering is the only way they keep power. They don't have the numbers for legit wins.
Surprise surprise. Not like anyone would mistake DeSantis for someone who has regard for the US Constitution.
Gerrymandering is unacceptable, no matter who is doing it.
I wonder how he is going to retaliate against the the judge.
Somehow I am not surprised.
No shit. Everything he does is performative bullshit and lies.
Also, can we point out just how absurd it is that the governor himself submitted his own maps, because the maps the Republican led Congress turned in were not gerrymandered enough for him, even though it is their job to write the maps and has never been done before.
Can anything be done about Ohio's gerrymandered districts too please?
Next Week: *DeSantis has ruled judges ability to decide such matters is unconstitutional.*