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HeyFrogMan t1_iubgf9d wrote

Reply to comment by throwaway_5863 in Democratic Rep. Jahana Hayes, Republican challenger tied in heavily blue Connecticut: poll by jr_reddit

No, and I think that’s bad.

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CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH t1_iubzizu wrote

I agree 100%.

Red states gerrymander, while blue states constrain themselves. I would prefer a nationwide ban on gerrymandering so that red state Democrats were represented and blue state republicans were represented. But the only way to get a nationwide ban is for Democrats to get large majorities as Republicans uniformly oppose these reforms.

Blue states constraining themselves while Red states gerrymander is creating a system where Republicans can win the house of representatives while losing the popular vote by millions, as we saw in 2012.

We need to gerrymander to ban gerrymandering nationwide. Without it we condemn ourselves to being ruled by Republicans in perpetuity even if they get millions fewer votes.

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[deleted] t1_iud88dz wrote

[deleted]

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CANOODLING_SOCIOPATH t1_iudlj9d wrote

NY gerrymander was incorrectly thrown out by their supreme court which decided the text of the statute did not matter and that they should be able to draw a Republican favoring map.

Blue states do gerrymander, and should gerrymander to counter Republican gerrymanders. But far fewer blue states gerrymandered compared to red states. If only red states gerrymander then Republicans could win the house even if Dems get 53% of the vote.

The only blue state gerrymanders that are actually the maps this year are in Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, and Massachusetts (where it is nearly impossible to draw an R district anyway). That accounts for 41 seats in the House. There are 173 seats that are gerrymandered by Republicans.

The big blue states of California, New York, Washington, Oregon, Colorado and New Jersey all were either drawn by independent commissions, both parties, or were drawn by courts.

If New York's gerrymander had gone through, as it should have, there would only be 4 Republican seats, while there will now likely be 7-10 Republican seats. And they didn't even go for a full gerrymander, they could have gone for a fairly absurd looking 2R map.

It would not be difficult to draw a California gerrymander that has 0 Republican seats and is VRA compliant (although most D drawn gerrymanders would likely have 5 Republicans). But because they have an independent commission there will likely be 10-12 Republicans elected in California.

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