Catastrophe 2014: How the GOP gerrymandered its way to Congressional invincibility

[pinto]

Hyperbolic AP editor's tag line, but a good read. Cross posted from DonViejo's Politics 2014 thread ~ pinto

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=359009

Catastrophe 2014: How the GOP gerrymandered its way to Congressional invincibility

2012 was just a preview: Even if the GOP loses at the ballot box, it'll still likely come away with the House.

Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press

Even if Democrats recruit great candidates, raise gobs of money and run smart campaigns, they face an uphill fight to retake control of the House in this year’s congressional elections, regardless of the political climate in November.

The reason? Republican strategists spent years developing a plan to take advantage of the 2010 Census, first by winning state legislatures and then redrawing House districts to tilt the playing field in their favor. Their success was unprecedented.

In states like Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina, Republicans were able to shape congressional maps to pack as many Democratic voters as possible into the fewest House districts. The practice is called gerrymandering, and it left fertile ground elsewhere in each state to spread Republican voters among more districts, increasing the GOP’s chances of winning more seats.

Geography helped in some states. Democratic voters are more likely to live in densely populated urban areas, making it easier to pack them into fewer districts.

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/31/catastrophe_2014_how_the_gop_gerrymandered_its_way_to_congressional_invincibility/

[JEFF9K]

1. Republicans are the party of election fraud . . .

gerrymandering, swiftboating, fraudcasting ...

[daybranch]

2. Not enough focus on Gerrymandering in the media

I like a lot of others hate SB 205 and SB 238, the vote restricting bills in Ohio the Governor recently signed. But in 2014 , it probably does not change much . The state is so Gerrymandered that if we ever want to get representational democracy we cannot expect to win anything in the upcoming Republican rigged elections.
The Republicans have a boot on our neck preventing us from affecting the 2014 election outcomes. Meanwhile they heap injustice after injustice on Ohio citizens unafraid because they are unaccountable to the voters. I like many others will do what we can but we are working under a tremendous and totally unfair handicap instituted to allow corrupt Republicans to disregard their responsibility to represent the people and avoid any penalty.
We hear about how great it would be if we gave President Obama a Democratic majority in the House to work with and if the make up of our Ohio members of the US House of representative mirrored the distribution of votes, then we would contribute 4 more D emocrats for that majority. But although we saw voting split pretty evenly in 2012 between Democratic and Republican candidates, you got 12 Republicans and only 4 Democrats. I expect about the same in these rigged elections in 2014 and again in 2016 and even 2018 if we do not eliminate Gerrymandering.
Eliminating Gerrymandering in Ohio helps democracy the country over. We urgently need you to go to MoveOn and pledge to stand with us to fight this scourge, Gerrymandering. The link is http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/gerrymandering-in-ohio?mailing_id=21176&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=99591 .

Benjamin Franklin said it is up to us to keep our democracy. Our Ohio Republican legislators took that democracy from both Republican and Democrat supporters. By getting others to pledge to fight Gerrymandering, we can start to get democracy back for all our citizens, regardless of party. Please get others to pledge. Ohio democracy depends on you.