Brenton Mock has a must-read article in The Atlantic’s CityLab exploring how state-level gerrymandering consistently short-changes the priorities of people who live in cities. It is an important point, but while we worry about the unfairness of it all, we might also pause to worry about how this might be hampering America’s economic growth. Continue reading
Gerrymandering, Cities and Economic Growth
Barack Obama and Eric Holder take on Gerrymandering
One of the intriguing sub-themes to emerge from the 2016 elections is the news, first reported by Politico, that President Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder intend to focus their future political efforts on a broad-based Democratic Party program to right the perceived wrongs of Republican Congressional gerrymandering. The donors have been lined up, Super PACs are taking shape, and some new web sites have been soft-launched that highlight the evils of gerrymandering. It’s early days, but the signs point to this being a missed opportunity for American governance. Continue reading
How could anyone say that? Here’s how…
Robert Pittenger’s 9th Congressional district, drawn to skirt the urban core of Charlotte. The area of the police shooting and rioting is shown in red.
Asked by the BBC today why there was unrest in Charlotte after the police shooting of Keith L. Scott last Tuesday, Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger said…
“The grieving in their mind is the animus, the anger. They hate white people because white people are successful and they’re not.” Continue reading
Gerrymandering causes Global Warming
The portrait of Lamar Smith that really matters
I could post a picture of Lamar Smith, the Republican chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, but suffice it to say he’s an old white guy with glasses. Since that also describes me, I prefer to believe that tells you little about the person and so I’ll post the portrait of Smith’s congressional district in Texas instead, whose contorted shape tells you most of what you need to know. Continue reading
Posted in Politics of Redistricting, Texas
Tagged climate change, congressional district 21, gerrymander, global warming, lamar smith, Texas
3 Comments
How do we get rid of Gerrymandering?
A new follower of this blog from Texas wrote me recently asking what he could do to help get rid of Gerrymandering. It is a really good question- one that I wish I could answer better. But let me take a stab at it…. Continue reading
Gerrymandering results in dismal turnouts – Richmond Times-Dispatch
Very persuasive Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial with examples from Virginia’s experience that gerrymandering leads to a vicious cycle of low voter turnout and congressional races that are uncontested even at the party level. This is a good, quick read…
Posted in minority rights, Politics of Redistricting, Virginia
1 Comment
Can single-member districts ever be truly fair?
Recently I’ve been challenged in a very forceful but thoughtful way by a WordPress user who uses the handle realrepresentation. This reader advocates Proportional Representation as the system the United States should use to select its delegates to the House of Representatives.
I lived in Germany for a couple of years and watched a variant of proportional representation in action there, and I have to say I was impressed Continue reading
