Texas Redistricting

[SpankyMcFarland]

On 8/5/2025 at 7:39 PM, Shady said:

The Texas redistricting is far less partisan than states like Illinois.  You never hear that in the mainstream media though.

Do you agree that gerrymandering is innately bad no matter who does it? 

[Aristides]

Both sides gerrymander. Just one more thing that makes the US electoral system a joke.

[LinkSoul60]

1 hour ago, Aristides said:

Just one more thing that makes the US electoral system a joke.

I think more fitting is you omitted "electoral system'....  Better suited to read 'Just one more thing that makes the US a joke' 

[Moonlight Graham]

On 8/15/2025 at 1:34 PM, Shady said:

You're ignoring blue states that have gerrymandered even worse.  I agree that there should be a standard way of redistricting that takes politics out of it.  But currently that's not the case, and blue states have gerrymandered their states even worse, as well as had illegal immigrants counted as part of their population that's resulted in them having more elector votes, and more house seats than they otherwise should.

Democrats also gerrymander but the GOP are worse.   I asked Grok.

Edited August 16, 2025 by Moonlight Graham

[CdnFox]

16 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Do you agree that gerrymandering is innately bad no matter who does it? 

It's not innately bad. I don't think it's a good idea but it is not in and of itself bad. An argument could be made that it is appropriate to group like-minded people together.

As long as it's consistent, as long as it's baked in for both sides then it's not inherently evil or good, it just becomes part of the game of politics and doesn't favor one side or another

 

[LinkSoul60]

Yes.  By its definition, it's innately bad....

ger·ry·man·der

/ˈjerēˌmandər/

verb

gerund or present participle: gerrymandering

1. manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favor one party or class.

   • achieve (a result) by manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency.

     "a total freedom to gerrymander the results they want"

[Aristides]

1 hour ago, CdnFox said:

It's not innately bad. I don't think it's a good idea but it is not in and of itself bad. An argument could be made that it is appropriate to group like-minded people together.

As long as it's consistent, as long as it's baked in for both sides then it's not inherently evil or good, it just becomes part of the game of politics and doesn't favor one side or another

 

It favours those in power at the time. It's a shit system that no self respecting democracy would touch with a barge pole.

[LinkSoul60]

4 minutes ago, Aristides said:

It favours those in power at the time. It's a shit system that no self respecting democracy would touch with a barge pole.

lol... That's why Trump and his pathetic republican cronies are touching this.  They don't care about democracy, only themselves.

[SpankyMcFarland]

On 8/16/2025 at 6:33 PM, CdnFox said:

It's not innately bad. I don't think it's a good idea but it is not in and of itself bad. An argument could be made that it is appropriate to group like-minded people together.

As long as it's consistent, as long as it's baked in for both sides then it's not inherently evil or good, it just becomes part of the game of politics and doesn't favor one side or another

 

No. It is innately and obviously bad. Redistricting should NEVER be in the hands of somebody who can benefit from it. Firstly, it affects the voters in the districts that are changed. Secondly, it brings all politicians into disrepute. Saying the other side does it is utterly irrelevant if it is intrinsically wrong which it clearly is. Would fixing hockey games be OK with you if every team could do it? Democracy in America is being destroyed. 

Edited August 17, 2025 by SpankyMcFarland

[CdnFox]

6 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

No. It is innately and obviously bad.

That's code for "I don't like it but can't really explain why so i'm big mad  "   It's not bad just because you disapprove of it. 

Quote

Redistricting should NEVER be in the hands of somebody who can benefit from it.

Why. As long as it's equal for both parties it will balance out.  I PREFER our method but that doesn't' make theirs illegal. 

6 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Firstly, it affects the voters in the districts that are changed.

So does any redistricting regardless of bias or politics. I have family that used to live in a riding that voted one way and after redrawing the boundries the new population was such it voted another way. Hell Polievre was just affected by that. 

So your first one is out. 

6 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Secondly, it brings all politicians into disrepute.

Not as long as it's equal and done above board and not hidden.  Trump has been VERY vocal about EXACTLY what they're doing.  And seeing as it's been going on in the states for 250  years now ("Gerry" was in power in 1812 and it predated him). So if it's going to bring disrepute, it's a little late to worry about it    And if it does the voters can punish the party appropriately. 

So that's strike two. 

6 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Saying the other side does it is utterly irrelevant if it is intrinsically wrong which it clearly is.

Saying that something is intrinsically wrong without being able to explain why doesn't make it clear. In fact what's clear is that you don't have a logical objection, you just have a deep dislike of it and that's not the same as immorality

Like I said, I get where you're coming from. It's not a method I would choose. I believe ours is better. But you have not made an argument as to why it's inherently evil or something you're various. In a democratic process as long as both sides benefit or are disadvantaged approximately equally by a process it's hard to look at it as being anti democratic

For example, we don't allow advertising outside of a polling booth. I think that's the best. However if we allowed all parties to advertise outside the booth even though I think that would be wrong it certainly wouldn't be immoral. If we let just one advertise that would be immoral and anti democratic

This seems to be something in the same vein. Not the way I would do it but I don't see it benefiting one side versus another

[TreeBeard]

The Democrats should certainly play by the Republican’s rules, or they will lose. 
 

The most populist states are generally Democratic ones, so they have a lot more to gain by gaming the system. 

[Legato]

59 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

The Democrats should certainly play by the Republican’s rules, or they will lose. 
 

The most populist states are generally Democratic ones, so they have a lot more to gain by gaming the system. 

You mean like the Republicans are playing by the Democrat's rules?

 

[CdnFox]

1 hour ago, TreeBeard said:

The Democrats should certainly play by the Republican’s rules, or they will lose. 
 

The most populist states are generally Democratic ones, so they have a lot more to gain by gaming the system. 

The democrats have been setting the rules not the republicans

The democrats have gerrymandered for years, the republicans have in the past as well and they're continuing to do so because the democrats certainly aren't stopping. The democrats introduced lawfare into the political sphere now the republicans are choosing to do the same. The democrats weaponized the intelligence agencies against their political opponents and I'm sure that trump will do the same. The democrats grossly overstepped presidential powers so it's hardly shocking that trump is equally eager

You can't expect others to play by the rules if you won't

Edited August 18, 2025 by CdnFox

[gatomontes99]

2 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

The Democrats should certainly play by the Republican’s rules, or they will lose. 
 

The most populist states are generally Democratic ones, so they have a lot more to gain by gaming the system. 

They already have. They are pretty much tapped out.

[TreeBeard]

1 hour ago, Legato said:

You mean like the Republicans are playing by the Democrat's rules?

 

Didn’t the Democrats have a bill that Republicans killed that would have made gerrymandering  illegal?   

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, TreeBeard said:

Didn’t the Democrats have a bill that Republicans killed that would have made gerrymandering  illegal?   

Yes, after the democrats Severely gerrymandered in the 2010 go around they put forward a bill to make sure republicans couldn't do it in 2021. 

Didn't really 'wow' anybody. It would have still allowed for gerrymandering anyway just not so called "extreme" examples. 

[Aristides]

Trump didn't win the popular vote in either of his wins. If you can't win the popular vote, your only alternative is gerrymandering and winning the electoral college and Congress.

Edited August 19, 2025 by Aristides

[gatomontes99]

7 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Trump didn't win the popular vote in either of his wins. If you can't win the popular vote, your only alternative is gerrymandering and winning the electoral college and Congress.

Trump won the popular vote in the second win: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election

[TreeBeard]

14 hours ago, Aristides said:

Trump didn't win the popular vote in either of his wins. If you can't win the popular vote, your only alternative is gerrymandering and winning the electoral college and Congress.

Presidential votes can’t be gerryrigged;  electors are selected by state results. No ridings/districts.   Although, they can change some of the systems on how electors are assigned to favour a particular candidate.  

[LinkSoul60]

Republican or democrat... there is something wrong when officials are allowed to choose their voters rather than voters choosing who represents them.  

[User]

17 hours ago, Aristides said:

Trump didn't win the popular vote in either of his wins. If you can't win the popular vote, your only alternative is gerrymandering and winning the electoral college and Congress.

This is like complaining about how Magnus Carlsen couldn't win checkers when we are talking about his being the best Chess player in the world...

The popular vote is not "won" it is a meaningless statistic in how someone becomes President. 

 

[SpankyMcFarland]

On 8/17/2025 at 11:35 PM, CdnFox said:

That's code for "I don't like it but can't really explain why so i'm big mad  "   It's not bad just because you disapprove of it. 

No. It’s bad because it is objectively wrong like fixing a hockey game is wrong, like stealing is wrong. I genuinely can’t understand how you can’t see that. Politicians should not choose their voters. One of many malign consequences of such cheating is that seats become safe for a political party. A consequence of that is that the real competition happens in the primaries where the incumbent is under threat from even more extreme people in their own party if they are not ideologically pure enough. Thus over time the legislative body becomes answerable to a small cadre of fanatical party loyalists rather than the general population, further exacerbating cynicism and apathy among potential voters. 

[SpankyMcFarland]

On 8/19/2025 at 4:58 PM, User said:

This is like complaining about how Magnus Carlsen couldn't win checkers when we are talking about his being the best Chess player in the world...

The popular vote is not "won" it is a meaningless statistic in how someone becomes President. 

One point is to clarify the margin of victory. FPTP elections usually exaggerate the margin of the winning party. Thus in our recent Canadian election no sensible person could say the contest wasn’t close given the popular vote numbers. Likewise Trump’s victory was close in popular vote terms. He didn’t win, like, 70% of votes cast or something. 

[User]

9 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

One point is to clarify the margin of victory. FPTP elections usually exaggerate the margin of the winning party. Thus in our recent Canadian election no sensible person could say the contest wasn’t close given the popular vote numbers. Likewise Trump’s victory was close in popular vote terms. He didn’t win, like, 70% of votes cast or something. 

Again. Victory is not based on the popular vote. 

Victory is based on the electoral college:

312 to 226

That is a significant margin. Trump swept ALL of the traditionally defined "battleground" states. 

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

No. It’s bad because it is objectively wrong like fixing a hockey game is wrong, like stealing is wrong.

Say something is objectively wrong and then just throwing other things randomly out there that are wrong is not an argument. Well I often disagree with you I have come to think of you as being someone that can put together a coherent argument and you're letting me down at the moment

I can explain in clear terms why fixing a hockey game is wrong both morally and practically in the real world I can explain the same about why stealing is wrong.

I don't need to use any other examples. But for some reason you seem to be having a difficult time articulating why this is inherently wrong. That should be a warning sign

2 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Politicians should not choose their voters.

Well they're not choosing their voters. What they're doing is grouping their voters where possible and both sides are doing it. And I fail to see what's inherently wrong about grouping like-minded people together. It would be a different story if they were putting different numbers of people into different writings and giving some people more than the other, it would be wrong if only one party did it on the other party did not, but I'm not seeing the problem here that makes it inherently immoral

Especially since those politicians will still have to answer to the voters

3 hours ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

One of many malign consequences of such cheating is that seats become safe for a political party.

We have the same problem in our country without that. I don't see that as being a function of gerrymandering, that seems to be a naturally occurring phenomenon. If it happens without gerrymandering, then it can't be used as an argument against gerrymandering

 

And I would point something out, do you know what the ultimate example of this would be? Ranked ballot voting. That is literally the ultimate effort to try and condense voter support to favor a party. And all you people on the left voted for that in 2015 and thought it was the best idea ever.

Sorry but you're not making your case here at all. Seems like it's something you don't like when it doesn't work in what you perceive to be your favor but you're all for it otherwise.