Republicans Brag They Won House Majority Because Of Gerrymandering

[Galraedia]

In a classic Kinsley gaffe, the Republican State Leadership Committee released a report boasting that the only reason the GOP controls the House of Representatives is because they gerrymandered congressional districts in blue states.

The RSLC’s admission came in a shockingly candid report entitled, “How a Strategy of Targeting State Legislative Races in 2010 Led to a Republican U.S. House Majority in 2013″. It details how the group spent $30 million in the 2010 election cycle to sweep up low-cost state legislature races in blue states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Their efforts were so successful, in fact, that Republicans went from controlling both legislative chambers in 14 states before Election Day to 25 states afterward.

In turn, the new Republican majorities would be tasked with redrawing congressional districts for the 2012 election. “The rationale was straightforward,” the report reads. “Controlling the redistricting process in these states would have the greatest impact on determining how both state legislative and congressional district boundaries would be drawn.”

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/17/1459991/rslc-gerrymandering-house/

[WCGreen]

1. They did the same thing after both the 2000 and 1990 census..

Remember, Newt took over the House in the 1992 election.

[Demo_Chris]

2. How do we get it back?

[Dark]

3. You don't.

Not until 2022, at least.

That's why gerrymandering is so bad. It's designed to create safe districts that cant be changed until the next census. And because it's at the fed and state level, it WON'T be changeable through the legislative process (state pols are safe too). Maybe, MAYBE, a ballot in some places.

This is why the midterms were so important, and why I was so depressed when many on the left washed their hands of that election.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. So, I guess that they don't really have any sort of "mandate" like they claimed?

Not even a "co-mandate" with President Obama. People wanted UN-divided Democratic-controlled government back after the 2010 debacle but the Republicans cheated and thus deprived we the people of our voice.