Nebraska senators override governor's veto, repeal death penalty
Source: Omaha World-Herald
LINCOLN — Nebraska has repealed the death penalty following a dramatic vote Wednesday by state lawmakers to override the governor’s veto.
The high-stakes vote to override the veto of Legislative Bill 268 was 30-19. It requires at least 30 of 49 senators to overturn a gubernatorial veto.
The outcome represented a defeat for first-term Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, who made an all-out effort to peel away some of 18 conservative senators who helped pass the repeal bill. Earlier in the session, lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto of a bill that raises the state gas tax.
And it represents a crowning achievement for Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, who has made repeal of the death penalty his top priority during his four-decade political career.
Read more: http://www.omaha.com/news/legislature/nebraska-senators-override-governor-s-veto-repeal-death-penalty/article_32726c27-0ef4-5415-9d07-f90f08707602.html
Ernie Chambers is an interesting fellow: an avowed atheist who was forced out by a new term limits law in 2000; he ran again in 2012 and was re-elected.
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One more State steps out of the dark ages!
GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, Israel votes by parties not individuals. The more votes a party gets, the more members of the Israeli Knesset they can name (Total votes are counted and divided by the total number of seats, then the parties with more then that number gets seats in proportion to the total). This system eliminates gerrymandering for if the country is 33% African American, the party the African Americans support will get at least 33% of the total seats.
The problem is such nationwide voting has its own downside, i.e. small minority parties can win enough votes nationwide to get a seat, and then use the need to get 50% of the seats to support the government to demand outrageous demands. This happens in Israeli all the time, the two main parties need the votes of these smaller parties (and for internal politcal reasons will NOT let into their governing coalition the 25 to 30% of the Seats held by Palestinians who live and are citizens of Israel).
A good system of voting tends to use BOTH systems. An vote from different regions so the interests of those reasons are addressed AND a "proportional" vote in areas where the intermixing of people of different interests are so intermix that a Regional Representation is to easily gerrymander (Clinton's First Choice for EEOC Director advocated this type of voting in certain Urban Areas to preserve Minority racial voting power, she was attack for advocating that method of voting by the GOP and her nomination was withdrawn).
The answer to Gerrymandering may be proportional representation, especially in urban areas.
Side note: A lot of cities in the US has City Council members elected at large, that is NOT the same as Proportional Representation. At large generally have two or more candidates and each voter gets to vote for two, but can NOT vote twice for the same candidate. This has the effect of minimizing minority votes. If a Minority has a favored candidate and votes for that Candidate, and then votes for three other Candidates, the voter has in reality voted three times AGAINST his favored candidate (The top four vote getters get elected in this scenario). Thus to get the voter's favorite Candidate elected, the voter has to NOT vote for anyone else, thus reducing his vote by three quarters (the Voter ends up casting one vote not four votes). This is the problem with at large systems that a proportional system bypasses. In a proportional system the same top four vote getters still get elected, but each voter only votes once, not four times (A variation of this is to permit four votes on one candidate). This type of voting is permitted and done in Corporations all the time, to protect minority interest (in the case of Corporation a minority of investors whose interests are different then the Majority of the investors in that corporations).
Now, proportional representation can be used to control gerrymandering a different way, but adopting a simple rule "Any County, whose population can support ONE election district by its own population, has the option of requiting any and all such election districts that contains any part of said county, to be merged into one election district and that the election results shall be proportional, If two or more counties have such population and share a Election District, either county my opt for the merger of the Election Districts".
In most states, the counties with the population that can support one election district by themselves tend to be urban centers. The above rule would give such urban centers a huge control over gerrymandering. The State Legislature could still gerrymander, but if they are to creative, the urban counties could force these creations into one huge district with proportional representation.
Here is the partisan split in Pennsylvania by US Congressional Districts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania%27s_congressional_districts
The above rule would require, three districts in Western Pennsylvania to vote as one for the State Legislature made Pittsburgh and its older suburbs in a 90% plus democratic District, while doing they best to make the other two district 52% Democratic, which is enough to win those districts with heavy advertising and claiming the Democrats are Anti-coal (You saw this in both of these districts, about the Democrats "War on Coal", both districts have a lot of active coal mining AND a lot of ex coal miners. who except for Coal Equal Jobs would vote Democratic).
In the Philly area, an area I am less familiar with, it looks like just two Congressional districts would be merged under the above rule, but the State Senate and House would be affected and in many ways that is more important for it gives more votes to the people who actually draws up these districts.
You must understand that a Congressional District must have at least 710,767 people in the district (Except if the State has less then that population, then they get one Representative).
At the present time, only three Counties in Pennsylvania exceed $710,767, that is Philadelphia, Allegheny (County Seat Pittsburgh) and Montgomery (A suburban county of Philadelphia).
http://www.us-places.com/Pennsylvania/population-by-County.htm
Each State Senator represents about 250-260,000 people. 15 Counties exceed that number:
Philadelphia......1,548,647
Allegheny.........1,229,912
Montgomery........808,946
Bucks.................7626,377
Delaware.............560,699
Lancaster............526,436
Chester...............506,190
York....................437,411
Berks...................412,948
Westmoreland.......363,233
Lehigh.................354,746
Luzerne...............321,423
Northampton.........299,371
Erie.....................280,823
Dauphin...............269,797
Remember this would be CHECK on gerrymandering, a county would NOT have to opt for it, but it could. Often such a check is enough to keep most thieves honest. If a county exercise it once every 20 to 30 years, that would implant enough fear that the legislature will NOT want to do anything to get one of the above counties mad at them.
So much gerrymandering is expected, you really need to show that you have more then a bare majority if you want to change and gerrymandering does that to a degree. The problem is such gerrymandering has become excessive in recent decades.
Back to Omaha. On a State Wide basis, the State Senate Districts look compact:
The Omaha and Lincoln Area districts look compact (But I am from Western PA, where we have some real strange districts over the years):
State Senate District 27 looks to be the strangest, but compared to Pennsylvania looks compact.
Given the above, and what the US Supreme Court has permitted in Texas and Pennsylvania, this is NOT bad.
