Gerrymandering fears

[Echotrail]

Gerrymandering, whereby parties and incumbents choose their voters instead of being chosen by voters, is the reason crazy Bachmann got in.

Criminal InJustice Kos posted in-depth on this last week.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/27/913216/-Criminal-InJustice-Kos:-Michele-Bachmann-is-Stealing-from-Me

[ramapo]

1. It is the same almost everywhere

My CD is even wackier. It supports Scott Garrett who is just as crazy as Bachmann, just not as loud. Oddly enough (or maybe not so odd), his office is just a couple of doors down from hers in the Congressional office building.

Garrett won 65-35 against a former Republican turned Democrat to support Obama in 08. The challenger got zip help from the national party and barely much more through local fund raising.

Gerrymandering is one of the roots of our problems. I think a measure passed yesterday in Florida requiring districts to be redrawn in a logical and cohesive manner. So there is a glimmer of hope.

[Echotrail]

2. There was a referendum on gerrymandering in Calif

not sure how it turned out.

Besides gerrymandering, we also have to contend with the Electoral College which should have been done away with in 1944 when polled Americans favored eliminating it. We have that to look forward to again in 2012. Sigh.

[happyslug]

3. That district is almost compact, look at Southwestern PA to see some wild districts

Here is the 18th, designed to make it winnable by a Republican in a heavy Democratic Rural Area:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania%27s_18th_congressional_district

And just East, North and South (and is some parts West) of the 18th, is the 12th, which PA GOP controlled House and Senate made by throwing in every Democratic District they could to make the 18th as pro-GOP as they could (And even then the Democrats in the 18th outnumber the Republicans, but it is by a very slim margin):



Now, the center of Western Pennsylvania is the City of Pittsburgh and the 14th District covers it and most of the older, heavily democratic, suburbs: