Expert Says Florida Election Map Heavily Biased

[babylonsister]

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2014/05/28/expert_says_florida_election_map_heavily_biased.html

May 28, 2014

Expert Says Florida Election Map Heavily Biased

Jonathan Katz, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, testified in court that Florida's congressional map "was heavily biased toward electing Republicans despite the state's Democratic-edge in voters," the Orlando Sentinel reports.

"His analysis suggested that the pro-GOP bias using 2010 voter-turnout data was 15.9 percent. Intuitively, that means Republicans could expect to capture 58 percent of the congressional seats to Democrats' 42 percent of the seats, even if voter turnout was perfectly balanced at 50 percent GOP and 50 percent Democrat."

"Katz concluded they were the most biased he had ever examined -- easily twice as pro-Republican-leaning as Texas maps drawn by the chair of that state's Republican Party."

[pansypoo53219]

1. 2010 mattered.

[AndyTiedye]

2. Gerrymandering is the GOP's Magic Bullet that Makes Demographic Shifts Irrelevent

There has always been gerrymandering, but it's different this time --

It is different in magnitude, giving the Rapeuglicans a solid majority in the House despite a near-landslide vote for Democrats in the House in 2012. Most state legislatures are gerrymandered even worse.

It is no longer restricted to census years. The Supreme Court ruled that a state may re-redistrict at any time, thus allowing them to nullify the effects of any demographic changes that would otherwise favor Democrats.

Taking back the House and the state legislatures will be a very long struggle. In the meanwhile we MUST hold the Senate, and take as many governorships as possible to limit the damage that the Rapeuglicans can do in the legislatures they control.