It is the former for me. I know that in the real world, redistricting IS gerrymandering. I am upset that they are wasting my money in a year that redistricting should be off the table.
You seem to think that this whole process is justified as payback. You may not mind your money being spent on revenge, but I can barely afford my health insurance now that the rates have gone up because of the budget cuts this year.
And yet it is never done just once per decade since the courts always have a problem with what comes out. Now since the courts made the current plan, it had a better chance of staying put for the duration. But where would be the fun in that?
I've said it is not justified and that the Republicans shouldn't be doing this now at all. I just want the Democratic leadership and those who are up in arms that the Republicans would gerrymander to acknowledge that the Dems were severely guilty of the same things for decades and admit that if it's wrong now, it was wrong then, too. And I like noting that there really is a huge SUDDEN interest in fairness that didn't exist just a few years ago when it was others who were being treated unfairly. But that's not your beef. Your beef is the timing. So that doesn't apply to you.
You might be having fun, but all of the kids who had their CHIP benefits cut off aren't. I'm not having fun with the hike in my insurance rates and the wage freeze. You are right that since the courts came up with this plan (the one currently in place), it has a high probability of staying in place. This is one reason that the ploy being used now is a waste of money.
It's considered interfering with voting rights when districts are gerrymandered to dillute minority voting. Why is that not true when it dillultes the voting power of a region? I guess African Americans didn't have a true beef, either. No, what's silly is closing an air base because the population of the area didn't vote a certain way. Yet, that's what happened. My solution was not a serious one. It was just an example of how petty the Democrats were in treating what was then the only Republican area in the state and how they went out of their way to hurt those people personally. That was incredibly vindictive. But we don't know that the Democrats wouldn't have done the same thing had the roles been reversed. It just never came up before in Texas because the Democrats controlled the Legislature since Reconstruction. Forget treating each other well then, try treating the citizens of the state well. Or at least acknowledge that they systemacally disenfranchised a region of the state for a long time.
Yeah, we didn't have fun when the Amarillo economy severely tanked thanks to the vindictive closing of the air base, either. But I'm sure LBJ and his cronies took great joy in punishing the city for voting for Goldwater. And I'm not really having fun, to be honest. You won't hear me arguing that this isn't a waste of money.
By the way, I was reading an article that said Texas is the first state to take up redistricting mid-decade in 50 years. It didn't say who did it 50 years ago or where, but I'd be interested to find out. Just out of curiousity.
Actually, I think many districts were created and cannot be touched to guarantee minority representation. Where did this come from? I don't know anything about the base you mentioned, but if it happened that way, I agree that it was vindictive. I STILL think that there is no justification for this redistricting. The true point is that it is the GOP that is trying to get around the law by wasting MY TAX MONEY on this effort. Since it is also unlikely, IMO, that it will stand up in court, it is REALLY a waste of my money. I agree, treat the citizens of the state well by not wasting money on a purely political ploy that is not supposed to happen for 7 more years.
So, you support redistricting, even though it is a waste of money, because of an air base closing decades ago? What was that, the 60s?
Why could we not be given the same consideration? Why did the 13th district stretch to Denton? To specifically make sure we couldn't elect a Republican that reflected the views of the region. If the district was designed the same way but the result was to make sure the minority vote was dilluted in the same way, it would've been widely considered to be wrong. To do the same thing based on the prevailing political opinion is considered to be fine and dandy. I say it isn't fine and dandy. It wasn't then, and it isn't now. But the people who thought it was fine and dandy then are the ones so loudly saying it isn't fine and dandy now. It's not meant to be a justification. It's meant to show that those who so loudly cry for fairness were not interested in fairness when they were the ones screwing others. It's pointing out the hypocracy in the issue, as well as noting that these political games have been hurting people for quite some time. It didn't start here with this redistricting plan. They're not getting around the law. Getting around the law implies that there is something in the law that says they can't do it. There's nothing there that says they can't, and the Texas Supreme Court has said the Legislature is allowed to do whatever isn't prohibited. It may be wrong and a waste, but there's nothing to suggest that it's not legal (which is what is implied by saying that they're trying to get around the law). As for what the courts will do in the future. We don't know. As of right now, there's nothing that says this process is not legal. If a court decides otherwise later, it will be a change from the current guidance given by various courts. My point is that if the Democrats would admit that they were the masters of this kind of crap, perhaps they would have a more solid leg to stand on in terms of opposing this sort of thing. It is because the Democrats spent years being vindictive and gerrymandering to the extreme that Republicans can claim that this is just how politics works. Come out and make an honest effort to make up for your wrongs, and maybe there's more sympathy for their position.
Yeah, I guess all the times that I said that I don't support this and think the Republicans are wrong to pursue this are too hard for you to read. I THINK THE REPUBLICANS ARE WRONG TO DO THIS NOW AND SHOULDN'T BE PURSUING IT. I support DEMOCRATS ADMITTING THEY SCREWED US FOR DECADES FOR PURELY POLITICAL REASONS AND THAT, SHORT OF SOME SORT OF REPARATION FOR THAT, THEY SHOULD AT LEAST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT AND APOLOGIZE RATHER THAN PRETENDING THEY ARE BLAMELESS AND SUDDENLY CARE SO VERY MUCH ABOUT FAIRNESS - FAIRNESS THEY CARED NOTHING ABOUT WHEN THEY WERE DOING THE SCREWING.
Again, I am not disputing that gerrymandering happens, I am just pointing out that THIS one shouldn't happen. At least all of the other times we drew the lines since reconstruction, it was done at the proper time and wasn't forced in the middle of a decade. So, going around the process that has been written isn't going around the law? You must be smoking something psychoactive. So this is just a way for the GOP to test the law to see if it CAN be gotten around. It is nice, however, to see that even Republicans find this wrong and a waste. Talk about acting like a child. He stole my lollypop so I pushed him in the mud! WAAAAAAAH! Both sides have acted like children in this, but it is the Republicans who are wasting our tax money on an effort that is wrong and could be found to be illegal in a few years when this winds its way through the court.
If anybody here is ranting about minority districts, just to clarify, many, if not most, majority-minority districts were created by, and are more helpful to, Republicans in the 80's and 90's because they take heavily democratic minority voters out of potential "swing" districts. This was a strategic decision by Republicans on a national level.
Yeah. Noting that a group was treated badly and being amazed at the sudden calls for fairness by people who were notoriously unfair for decades is being a baby. I didn't say it justified the action. I am merely noting the history and saying that I can't feel sorry for people who only recently realized that the process is unfair but who didn't care when others were being treated unfairly. I just can't be sympathetic to those who insist fairness is necessary now but didn't care before, not until they at least acknowledge they were wrong in the past to not support fairness when the unfairness was being done to others. I would think that those who are crying now about how we all need to be nice and fair when they were notoriously unfair in the past are the ones being the babies. But I'm glad you can read my mind and read even more into my position than even I know.
How many of the current Democrats who ran to Oklahoma were in office in 1991? 1981? How about in the 1960s when the base was shut down?
And they managed to get all that accomplished while being the minority party in most state legislatures until fairly recently. That shows the power of the Republican party. But I wasn't ranting about them. I was noting that minority majority districts are designed specifically to make sure the African-American vote is not dilluted. We had two districts in the Panhandle that was specifically designed to dillute the prevailing Panhandle vote. And while the courts would strike down a district that dilluted the African-American vote, they will not strike down a plan that dillutes the vote in situations like that of the Panhandle prior to 2001. To me, even though making a district to dillute the vote of the opposition party is perfectly legal, it's just as wrong as designing a district to dillute minority votes. Like others have suggested, the way it really should be done is by a non-partisan panel that takes only population and those related factors into account rather than politics or whatever. But that was the comparison I was making. I wasn't saying that minority majority districts helped or hurt anyone. I was just noting that dilluting minority votes is not only wrong, but illegal, while dilluting votes based on the political bent of an area is just wrong but still legal.
