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Post #1108217

Author
darth_ender
Parent topic
Politics 2: Electric Boogaloo
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/1108217/action/topic#1108217
Date created
15-Sep-2017, 2:13 PM

CatBus said:

darth_ender said:

I don’t see a way that a party in power could twist the laws to maintain minority rule. If I am wrong in my information, please correct me.

North Carolina has had a hell of a time with its general assembly district maps regularly having a heavily partisan bias. The current one that hasn’t been struck down yet is awful too. I can’t speak for all states, but my state legislature also periodically redraws its own district maps. Demographic change and population growth make that a necessity, and gerrymandering typically comes with the package.

So if the North Carolina general assembly chooses a Republican Senator and the voters prefer a Democrat, the voters have little recourse. As of the 2016 election, the current North Carolina gerrymander gives the GOP a 10% boost in terms of seats in the Assembly, so unless more than 60% of North Carolinians oppose, they really can’t do anything about it. And that’s with the gerrymander that wasn’t struck down as unconstitutional. And they’re always devising “better” maps, too.

Yes, that does mean there need to be gerrymanders of both state and federal districts to make this happen, but that’s already in place. It is not safe to assume state legislatures represent the will of the voters of the state, or that voters can simply vote them out if they do something the voters don’t like.

Only statewide offices can’t be gerrymandered. Governors, Attorneys General, Secretaries of State, US Senators, those sorts of offices. That’s it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering_in_the_United_States#Remedies

It seems reasonable to me that we can change the laws, such as having non-partisan commissions handle redistricting, which is how we do it in Arizona. It seems to better represent the will of the people and would negate that legitimate criticism of my argument of repealing the 17th Amendment.