Author explains why Democrats have zero chance of winning the House until 2030

[Imperialism Inc.]

Typically when the subject of the gerrymandering of 2010 come up there are a couple responses. One is to claim it is nothing new, everyone does it. The other is to claim that the problem is self-segregating, the idea that it is just due to the natural movement of people. Daley does a decent job of dispatching those claims in his book Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy.

Author explains why Democrats have zero chance of winning the House until 2030
http://www.vox.com/conversations/2016/10/5/13097066/gerrymandering-redistricting-republican-party-david-daley-karl-rove-barack-obama

...The more consequential election would follow in 2010, however, and a handful of savvy Republican strategists figured this out. They realized they could use the gerrymander in a completely new way. They used it to lock in political control at the state level and at the congressional level. And they did it really inexpensively, for roughly $30 million, which is the amount of money invested in REDMAP.

...2012 is the first election run on these new maps. Democratic congressional candidates got 1.4 million more votes nationwide, but Republicans kept control of the House 234-201. Very rarely in our history does the party with the most votes not come away with control of the chamber.

...The technology has gotten so good that partisan mapmakers these days have access to volumes of census data, voting records, reams of consumer preferences, and these amazingly powerful computer programs that can just instantly calculate the likely results of moving a district line a block in any direction.

...So take a state like North Carolina, where the polls now show Hillary Clinton with a lead. They show an incumbent Republican senator behind by a couple of points. They show a Republican governor down by 8 or 9 points. There is not one congressional seat considered close.

And that’s not an accident.

[CrispyQ]

1. Another good article about the uphill fight we have to get our government back.

Look at all that red! There was an article this morning that said the dems might take the House, but I don't see how.

The Trouble For Democrats That’s Not Spelled With a Capital T-R-U-M-P
While the party has been making history at the national level, it's losing ground in the states.

BY KATHY KIELY | JULY 27, 2016

http://billmoyers.com/story/trouble-democrats-thats-not-spelled-capital-t-r-u-m-p/



snip...

Since 2010, in contests for state House and state Senate seats, Democrats have racked up a net deficit of 913 seats. Republicans now control 68 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers, a historic high. Of the 31 states where one party enjoys a “trifecta” — holding the governor’s office and majorities in both state legislative chambers — Republicans are in charge in 22.

snip...

“In 2010, we gave away the House of Representatives for a decade,” Rathod said, referring to the congressional redistricting maps, redrawn after every new Census. In most states that’s done by legislators, and in most states Republicans controlled the process. The result are district lines that are so favorable to Republicans that many experts believe it will take another redistricting for Democrats to even have a prayer of regaining the House speakership.

snip...

In Rathod’s opinion, Democrats have only themselves to blame. Even though both President Obama and outgoing Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz started out as state legislators, “The Democratic Party has effectively ignored down-ballot races,” he says. The situation has become so dire that Politico reports the president will campaign for state legislative candidates this fall. He has a lot of catching up to do. Republicans “have made smart and large investments in both state races and infrastructure building that has allowed them this historic control of state legislative chambers and policymaking at the state level,” Rathod says.

Prior to the 2010 cycle (the elections that would determine which party had the upper hand in the redistricting of state legislative and congressional lines that followed that year’s census), Republicans launched an effort to target state legislative races that would maximize the party’s control over the redrawing of district lines, a process overseen (and now bragged about) by the Republican State Leadership Committee.

From the interview you posted:

David Daley
The technology has gotten so good that partisan mapmakers these days have access to volumes of census data, voting records, reams of consumer preferences, and these amazingly powerful computer programs that can just instantly calculate the likely results of moving a district line a block in any direction.

David Daley
When our democratic institutions cease to be responsive to the ballot box, they cease to be democratic institutions. These district lines were drawn so as to suppress the general will of voters in these states. Look, we are 40 days out from a presidential election and there is zero chance that the Democrats can take back the House. That has everything to do with the way in which voters have been strategically packed into districts.

Here's another good article on the chances of the dems taking the House.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-gops-house-majority-is-safe-right/

Good post. After we take out the Trump trash we still have a lot of work to do.

[Imperialism Inc.]

6. Thanks. Good read.

I had never heard of SiX before. I'm glad someone is thinking about that kind of thing for our side.

[CrispyQ]

8. I'm still just blown away by this line:

...can just instantly calculate the likely results of moving a district line a block in any direction.

[BlueCaliDem]

2. I sure do hope President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, and other Dem BigWigs

have read this piece. If ever they want majorities in the House again, they better start working to undo the disastrous gerrymandering the RW moneyed interests have caused or they'll get worse no matter how many Democrats are signed up to vote.

When already Dems got 1.4 million more votes nationwide than Repubs, and Dems still lose the House, that should have been a red flag in neon for the Democratic Party. Hopefully something is being done - if they truly care about democracy.

[Exilednight]

5. Nothing has been done because we have had 6 elections since

and we are still the minority. The DNC chairwoman now has an uphill battle to fix what her predecessor severely screwed up.

[napkinz]

4. Trump is going to lose BIGLY

buh bye!

[csziggy]

7. Yes - the Red Map Strategy is how they have controlled state legislatures since 2010

And why the gerrymandering has been so egregious that those legislatures have been taken to court so many times.

The field organizer I have been working with is a political science major. I told him he needs to research the Red Map Strategy and get the Democratic Party to do the same in the next few cycles. There is another census due in 2020 - if Democrats can somehow get control of state legislatures - and a stunning loss by Trump could help with that - then we could at least get FAIR re-districting in most states.

[librechik]

9. " the GOP has basically used this technology to erect a firewall against the popular will."

A two pronged attack.: gerrymandering and writing state laws which disadvantage the poor, minorities, women etc. The problem is so complex, so widespread. and they have rigged it so efficiently that I really don't think we will ever recover.

The other problem is, if you try to tell people about this they just laugh and say you are crazy.

[Imperialism Inc.]

11. That's very true.

I've found most people remember learning about gerrymandering in school and so they think it is nothing to worry about, not realizing the technology has taken things to a whole different level.

[Wounded Bear]

10. Some hope, though...

several states have had their gerrymandering overturned in court. It's a slow process, but it brings things to light.

Thankfully, I live in a state where it is harder to gerrymander. I feel for those in the states with some of the worst abuses.