{"id":13506,"date":"2014-08-20T00:08:09","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T07:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13506"},"modified":"2014-08-20T00:08:09","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T07:08:09","slug":"help-they-mandered-my-gerry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/20\/help-they-mandered-my-gerry\/","title":{"rendered":"Help! They Mandered My Gerry!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Title humor aside, this nation desperately needs help to restore the value of government of by and for the people.  This article clearly shows just how broken the system has become, and why change is so necessary.  Neither party should have the power to draw a dishonest election map, but Republicans have reached an unprecedented high in subversion of the peoples\u2019 will.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"0820keystone-gerrymandered-2-ways\"<\/p>\n

In the original conception of our Constitution, the House of Representatives was to be the branch of government that best reflected the will of the people. House members cannot serve without being elected \u2014 vacancies are not filled by appointees \u2014 and they must face the voters every two years. Notably, the House holds pride of place as the first branch of government to be described in the Constitution. The framers move directly from \u201cWe the People\u201d to the House, underlining the notion that, for our Constitution (and our government) to function, representatives must be accountable to the people.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as we near the 2014 midterm elections, the reality of House races today clashes with that goal.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the connection between votes and seats. In 2012, we faced a major choice between the major parties and a mandate on President Obama\u2019s first term. In the presidential race, Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the national popular vote by almost three percentage points<\/a>, and Republicans suffered the worst performance in Senate elections by any major party in a half-century<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In House races, Democratic nominees overcame incumbent advantages for Republicans and won the national popular vote by more than 1.1 million votes<\/a>. By those numbers, Americans painted the Capitol royal blue. Shockingly, though, Republicans won 54 percent of the House seats, establishing for themselves a 33-seat majority<\/a>. And looking ahead, analysts estimate that Democrats may need as much as 55 percent of the popular vote<\/a> in November to secure a majority.<\/p>\n

Such a disconnect between voters and those who are installed as their congressional leaders goes far beyond any distortion we\u2019ve seen in the Electoral College in presidential elections. It\u2019s absolutely unacceptable in House elections, and it deserves far more debate than it has received<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Washington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n

Photo Credit: Hands Off Redistricting<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

Now the bottom map in the above graphic is hypothetical, but the top map how Republicans are actually stolen 72% of the Representatives in a state where the majority of the voters voted for Democrats.  Part of the problem is that the scheme favors incumbents from both parties. The five Democratic candidates in PA have so many Democrats packed into their districts that they don\u2019t have to work to keep their jobs, making them less likely to fight to change the system.  As a rule, progressives and even most corporate Democrats favor reform.  A few Corporate Democrats and Blue Dogs do not.  Republicans favor reform, but only in those states where Democrats control redistricting.  They consider any attempt to return their states to representing the people a Kenyan, Socialist conspiracy.  That\u2019s why reform must be national<\/font><\/p>\n

There are no easy answers here, but the next time America does major redistricting will be after the 2020 Elections.  How can we be ready?<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Title humor aside, this nation desperately needs help to restore the value of government of by and for the people.  This article clearly shows just how broken the system has become, and why change is so necessary.  Neither party should have the power to draw a dishonest election map, but Republicans have reached an unprecedented […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}