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Duckbag posted:People kept moving to get more promising districts. One year, three Republican legislators found themselves squeezed into the same North San Diego district. That must have been awkward. Mad Hacks: Beyond Thunderdistrict. Three candidates go in, one legislator comes out.
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Feb 26, 2015 13:58
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:The former congressman from a region which looks like it'll never vote D again (southeast Ohio)? The former guy that won statewide in 2006 pretty easily and got caught in the same wave that got literally everyone? Yeah, let's get loving Kucinich to turn out Ohio's latent leftist majority.
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Feb 26, 2015 23:36
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De Nomolos posted:The former guy that won statewide in 2006 pretty easily and got caught in the same wave that got literally everyone? Yeah, let's get loving Kucinich to turn out Ohio's latent leftist majority. I...never said anything about Kucinich, though?
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Feb 27, 2015 01:20
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:I...never said anything about Kucinich, though? Who's the more electable progressive option on the Ohio bench. This is a criticism of the state party, not anyone here.
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Feb 27, 2015 16:57
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Majorian posted:But then how could they tell women to stop being such whores? Make sure they get pregnant by limiting access to birth control, make sure they carry the baby to term by banning abortions, and then don't give the mother any assistance because that would be socialism. 
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Feb 27, 2015 19:08
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Constituent districts are stupid anyway, being from the same state is a good enough district for me. California has 53 representatives. Hold a statewide vote under party list with a seat threshold of 1.89% and boom, done. This system gets less representational as you move down the states in order of population, but for states at the Connecticut population level and above (90% of the US pop.) this still only leaves a 20% threshold for representation. IMO this is the quickest, most constitutional way to achieve some semblance of PR in the House. Obviously kill the Senate, but that's more difficult. You'd need a constitutional amendment, and that process heavily involves both the Senate and rural states, go figure.
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Feb 27, 2015 19:50
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Aliquid posted:You'd need a constitutional amendment, and that process heavily involves both the Senate and rural states, go figure. Not only that, but you'd either have to win a SCOTUS case or get unanimous ratification from the states.
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Feb 27, 2015 20:01
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Not only that, but you'd either have to win a SCOTUS case or get unanimous ratification from the states. I was just about to post this  Comedy option is an amendment that reduces every States' Senate slots to zero and removes the VPs role as PotS, giving it to the Speaker of the House
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Feb 27, 2015 20:03
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Rygar201 posted:I was just about to post this That would basically be the SCOTUS case you'd need to win ("Does having no representation from any state constitute equal suffrage for the purpose of amending the Constitution?")
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Feb 27, 2015 20:10
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The other question is "does removing the provision that prevents an amendment from altering the equal representation in the Senate" count as altering the equal representation in the Senate. Because if not (and there's no good reason it would be) then you just do it as two amendments.
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Feb 27, 2015 20:19
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evilweasel posted:The other question is "does removing the provision that prevents an amendment from altering the equal representation in the Senate" count as altering the equal representation in the Senate. Because if not (and there's no good reason it would be) then you just do it as two amendments. That's what I always think every time someone brings this up.
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Feb 28, 2015 02:29
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Another option that's vanishingly unlikely but would be really interesting from a map-making point of view would be to reform the states so they're all roughly the same size. You could theoretically do this by breaking up the big states, but you'd have to break them up quite a lot to achieve parity with the smallest states. You'd have to break California up into more than 60 equal-sized states for those states to be as small in population as Wyoming and Vermont are. Likewise, you could condense all the little states, but there are limits to how well that would work as well. The combined population of all six New England States, for instance, is only 14.4 million. Still 5 million less than New York and Florida and less than half the population of California. Figuring out how to divvy up all the geographically large, but sparsely populated states in the Plains and Mountain West is an even thornier issue and don't get me started on non-contiguous territories like Alaska and Hawaii. If we tried to preserve existing state borders (IE no breaking up and recombining them) while making every state have roughly the population of California, we'd wind up with eight or nine states. I'm going with nine because it seems easier. Let's try it. California would be California, obviously (38 million), a combined New York and New England would be a fairly obvious one that wouldn't be that much smaller (34 million). Texas could eat a few of its neighbors (Texas + Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma = ~38 million). Florida could gobble up Georgia, Alabama, and Mississipi for about 37.5 million. But with the big four states accounted for, we have to start getting a little more creative. Pennsylvania +New Jersey + Ohio+ Delaware + West Virginia (I know, I know) makes a plausible Rust Belt State with about 36 million. That leaves the Midatlantic. Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and DC obviously belong together, but combined they're still just shy of 30 million, which is too small, so I'm going to go ahead and give them Tenessee and Kentucky, making a state with a little more than 40 million people, the largest so far. Note that even when the states are loving enormous, Appalachia still gets split three ways. Next I'm going to put the four states around Lake Michigan together Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin makes 35 million. All right, fantastic, I've got seven of my nine states: California, New EngleYork, Greater Texas, Greater Florida, Rustbeltia, The Chesapeake-Appalachian combine (well, what do you want to call it?), and the People's Republic of Lake Michigan. That just leaves two states, we're almost done! There's just one problem, we still have about half the country to cover. Suddenly, California, the model for this little project, becomes our greatest obstacle. We don't want to make it any bigger, but it's hard to make viable states with it splitting things up the way it is. Let's try putting all the Plains States together. Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas add up to... 21 million. Hmmm. We can give them some Mountain states, how about Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, that puts us up to... 28. Goddammit! Screw it, let's give them New Mexico, Arizona and Utah too. That puts them up to 39 millionish. Perfect, except it's an abomination. That just leaves, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska... oh, and Hawaii. Let's see, that's... 17.5 million. Goddammit, I guess we needed NM, AZ, and UT after all. OK, so Great Plainsia goes back down to 28 and The Great Western Amalgamation goes up to 28.5. Which is... still 10 million shy of California. Oh well, I guess it's back to the drawing board.
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Feb 28, 2015 06:45
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Duckbag posted:Another option that's vanishingly unlikely but would be really interesting from a map-making point of view would be to reform the states so they're all roughly the same size. You could theoretically do this by breaking up the big states, but you'd have to break them up quite a lot to achieve parity with the smallest states. You'd have to break California up into more than 60 equal-sized states for those states to be as small in population as Wyoming and Vermont are. Likewise, you could condense all the little states, but there are limits to how well that would work as well. The combined population of all six New England States, for instance, is only 14.4 million. Still 5 million less than New York and Florida and less than half the population of California. Figuring out how to divvy up all the geographically large, but sparsely populated states in the Plains and Mountain West is an even thornier issue and don't get me started on non-contiguous territories like Alaska and Hawaii.     It's been thought of before.
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Feb 28, 2015 06:49
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e: how could I possibly avoid being beaten on thisDuckbag posted:Another option that's vanishingly unlikely but would be really interesting from a map-making point of view would be to reform the states so they're all roughly the same size. You could theoretically do this by breaking up the big states, but you'd have to break them up quite a lot to achieve parity with the smallest states. You'd have to break California up into more than 60 equal-sized states for those states to be as small in population as Wyoming and Vermont are. Likewise, you could condense all the little states, but there are limits to how well that would work as well. The combined population of all six New England States, for instance, is only 14.4 million. Still 5 million less than New York and Florida and less than half the population of California. Figuring out how to divvy up all the geographically large, but sparsely populated states in the Plains and Mountain West is an even thornier issue and don't get me started on non-contiguous territories like Alaska and Hawaii.  
woke wedding drone has issued a correction as of 07:10 on Feb 28, 2015 |
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Feb 28, 2015 06:49
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Duckbag posted:Another option that's vanishingly unlikely but would be really interesting from a map-making point of view would be to reform the states so they're all roughly the same size. You could theoretically do this by breaking up the big states, but you'd have to break them up quite a lot to achieve parity with the smallest states. You'd have to break California up into more than 60 equal-sized states for those states to be as small in population as Wyoming and Vermont are. Likewise, you could condense all the little states, but there are limits to how well that would work as well. The combined population of all six New England States, for instance, is only 14.4 million. Still 5 million less than New York and Florida and less than half the population of California. Figuring out how to divvy up all the geographically large, but sparsely populated states in the Plains and Mountain West is an even thornier issue and don't get me started on non-contiguous territories like Alaska and Hawaii. or you could just, like, amend the constitution to remove the Senate?
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Feb 28, 2015 06:51
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Exactly. I hate the map-changing ideas people float like we're the UK or France and have reconstituence via normal means. Our borders are pretty drat solid, and any potential reform should at least be grounded in feasibility. There would have to be major political upheaval (greater than the Civil War, which what, only split Virginia?) for this to take place. If the House is roughly proportional and it's the only legislative body, do state borders matter enough to change?
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Feb 28, 2015 06:56
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Nintendo Kid posted:
Somebody with waaaaaaaaaaay too much time on their hands please overlay the 2012 election county map and figure out the new electoral college TIA.
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Feb 28, 2015 07:08
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You guys forgot this one
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Feb 28, 2015 07:58
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comes along bort posted:You guys forgot this one Albuquerque citizens will be glad to know they are neither a part of Texas nor of California. Those folks out in Santa Fe and Torrance County will be less pleased.
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Feb 28, 2015 08:23
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Nintendo Kid posted:
SedanChair posted:e: how could I possibly avoid being beaten on this Yeah I've seen all that poo poo before. This isn't a project I just now wandered into or anything. The problem with all of these is that, in addition to generally being completely asinine, they seemingly go out of their way to ignore existing state borders. That's because they're idealizations -- an excuse to draw fun maps with no regard to practical considerations. Now, I'm not saying my suggestion isn't mostly just a silly thought experiment (it is), but it's at least something that could conceivably happen without a complete dissolution of every existing state. Hell, most of these maps are just smooth lines, without even county boundaries being considered (the Freeman map at least gets this one right). What I have in mind is more of a superstructure that could be applied over the existing states, not negating them, but creating a common framework that could be used for Federal elections -- essentially multi-state senate districts that could possibly be used for the electoral college and perhaps the House as well. Whether these superstates would have any sort of internal legislative body or enforcement authority over their constituent members (they could maybe govern things like interstate commerce or water rights) isn't something I've really settled on. I know the whole idea seems rather unlikely, but ask yourselves this, is it really any less feasible than abolishing an organ of government that has been meeting continuously since 1789?
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Feb 28, 2015 11:51
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comes along bort posted:You guys forgot this one This map really annoys me, mostly because Appalachia is comprised of mostly not the Appalachians.
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Feb 28, 2015 15:09
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Duckbag posted:Yeah I've seen all that poo poo before. This isn't a project I just now wandered into or anything. The problem with all of these is that, in addition to generally being completely asinine, they seemingly go out of their way to ignore existing state borders. That's because they're idealizations -- an excuse to draw fun maps with no regard to practical considerations. Now, I'm not saying my suggestion isn't mostly just a silly thought experiment (it is), but it's at least something that could conceivably happen without a complete dissolution of every existing state. Hell, most of these maps are just smooth lines, without even county boundaries being considered (the Freeman map at least gets this one right). What I have in mind is more of a superstructure that could be applied over the existing states, not negating them, but creating a common framework that could be used for Federal elections -- essentially multi-state senate districts that could possibly be used for the electoral college and perhaps the House as well. Whether these superstates would have any sort of internal legislative body or enforcement authority over their constituent members (they could maybe govern things like interstate commerce or water rights) isn't something I've really settled on. I know the whole idea seems rather unlikely, but ask yourselves this, is it really any less feasible than abolishing an organ of government that has been meeting continuously since 1789? Yeah, those other guys who want to redraw the United States are just dreamers. I on the other hand am on the cutting edge, and should be invited to speak at TED.
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Feb 28, 2015 16:07
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Nth Doctor posted:This map really annoys me, mostly because Appalachia is comprised of mostly not the Appalachians. And yet New Jersey is its own subculture.
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Feb 28, 2015 17:49
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Nth Doctor posted:This map really annoys me, mostly because Appalachia is comprised of mostly not the Appalachians. you can make a decent argument for linking appalachia and the ozarks together, as the ozarks were settled from appalachia and are ~kinda similar, culturally. Then you give em western tuckasee to make it contiguous, even though western tuckasee is largely indistinguishable from the white parts of dixieland. I know when I'm in highland arkansas there is a distinct vibe of "hey, these are my people!", though it's not quite all the way there. I don't know why they lumped all of north texas, southern indiana, illinois and ohio in there, though. PupsOfWar has issued a correction as of 18:03 on Feb 28, 2015 |
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Feb 28, 2015 17:59
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I know when I think of Appalachia, I think of Travis County, TX and the Rockies foothills
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Feb 28, 2015 18:03
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Duckbag posted:Yeah I've seen all that poo poo before. This isn't a project I just now wandered into or anything. The problem with all of these is that, in addition to generally being completely asinine, they seemingly go out of their way to ignore existing state borders. That's because they're idealizations -- an excuse to draw fun maps with no regard to practical considerations. Now, I'm not saying my suggestion isn't mostly just a silly thought experiment (it is), but it's at least something that could conceivably happen without a complete dissolution of every existing state. Hell, most of these maps are just smooth lines, without even county boundaries being considered (the Freeman map at least gets this one right). What I have in mind is more of a superstructure that could be applied over the existing states, not negating them, but creating a common framework that could be used for Federal elections -- essentially multi-state senate districts that could possibly be used for the electoral college and perhaps the House as well. Whether these superstates would have any sort of internal legislative body or enforcement authority over their constituent members (they could maybe govern things like interstate commerce or water rights) isn't something I've really settled on. I know the whole idea seems rather unlikely, but ask yourselves this, is it really any less feasible than abolishing an organ of government that has been meeting continuously since 1789? The point of them is that forcibly merging two states in any way is already going draw just as much pushback as completely abandoning current state borders, both legislatively and even constitutional. So given the fact you'd need massive support to do it, why wouldn't you go full speed ahead and do things attempt to eliminate all cross-state-lines metro areas by turning them into single state areas, massively adjust borders to ensure more equal population distribution (admittedly the 38 state one chopping up Alaska into two states fucks that up), and so on? Because your idea of a superstructure that does things like supersede states' rights to elect Senators and handle electoral votes and even rep districts? That's unconstitutional, although it can be done with a constitutional amendment. And those are hard as gently caress to get support for. Telling the state borders to go gently caress themselves entirely could be done without a constitutional amendment, though still needing nearly as much support, but you'd frankly get better results.
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Feb 28, 2015 18:09
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Yeah, I said myself it wasn't terribly likely (it would certainly take an amendment, possibly a convention), but I do think saying "let's get some states to work together" is a completely different and far more reasonable suggestion than "lets abandon our existing state structure and create a new one from scratch." If you're just going for a neat counter-factual to demonstrate your demographic research, the latter is fine, but it would never fly in the real world (unless the country had basically collapsed).
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Feb 28, 2015 21:30
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Duckbag posted:Yeah, I said myself it wasn't terribly likely (it would certainly take an amendment, possibly a convention), but I do think saying "let's get some states to work together" is a completely different and far more reasonable suggestion than "lets abandon our existing state structure and create a new one from scratch." If you're just going for a neat counter-factual to demonstrate your demographic research, the latter is fine, but it would never fly in the real world (unless the country had basically collapsed). You can't get states to work together in the electoral college or senate, at least not in any way that wouldn't let them skip out on their obligations at any time. That's against the constitution. Plus making new states does not abolish our state structure, it simply morphs it around a bit. They would still vote in the electoral college, elect senators etc just the same as before.
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Feb 28, 2015 21:37
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Like I said, it would take an amendment. I also said existing state structure. Sure we could get some shiny new states with stupid names like Bitterroot, but what happens to existing state law? Do they have to start over from scratch, or do they borrow from the various scraps they're made up of? Which ones? What about legislatures? Governors? State officials of all stripes? Do they just get thrown out and have to hope there's a place for them in a new state? What about state employees? Do they lose their jobs? How do you even go about building a new state from scratch? Who draws the new states, some demographer using survey data? What if people like being an Ohioan or a Pennsylvanian and the idea of breaking up the states offends them. Personally, as a Californian, I recognize that my state is far too large in many respects (if anyone's interested I could show you how it works if you split it in two and go for 16-20 states), but I get a little sad every time people talk about breaking it up. Anyway my point is that redrawing states is an incredibly thorny proposition, much thornier than what I suggested, and my approach wasn't exactly uncontroversial.
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Feb 28, 2015 22:03
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Nintendo Kid posted:You can't get states to work together in the electoral college or senate, at least not in any way that wouldn't let them skip out on their obligations at any time. That's against the constitution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
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Feb 28, 2015 22:46
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Dancer posted:The legislative and executive branches of 11 states seem to believe that they have a constitutional case for working together when it comes to the electoral college. You'll notice that they gave themselves the convenient out that they don't have to do jackshit until they have a majority of electoral votes.
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Feb 28, 2015 22:48
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Nintendo Kid posted:You'll notice that they gave themselves the convenient out that they don't have to do jackshit until they have a majority of electoral votes. ... Yes I am noticing that completely unrelated fact. I was talking (because you mentioned) constitutionality. Right now the aggreement is not in effect, but when it does go in effect (whenthe member states control the majority of electors in the electoral college), it will be a legally binding agreement, and the legislative and executive branches of the states in question apparently believe it to be constitutional, else they wouldn't have made it the law of their states. Edit: Yes you are free to point out that it's not quite "working together", and instead it's "abusing the rules of the electoral college to obtain an unexpected (albeit favourable) result". All I'm saying is that states can in fact band together when it comes to the electoral college, and it probably won't require a constitutional amendment. VVVVV Exactly what I meant. You said "electoral college and senators", not "senators". You were wrong. The bit regarding senators is in the 17th amendment, so yes, states can indeed not work together there with the constitution in its current state. Dancer has issued a correction as of 23:01 on Feb 28, 2015 |
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Feb 28, 2015 22:56
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Dancer posted:... Yes I am noticing that completely unrelated fact. I was talking (because you mentioned) constitutionality. Right now the aggreement is not in effect, but when it does go in effect (whenthe member states control the majority of electors in the electoral college), it will be a legally binding agreement, andthe legislative and executive branches of the states in question apparently believe it to be constitutional, else they wouldn't have made it the law of their states. States are free to choose electors in any manner they wish (though remember the national voting compact doesn't have any punishment clause for a state that chooses to betray in order to flip an election). They are definitely not allowed to do the same for Senators, it has to be popular vote within the state.
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Feb 28, 2015 22:58
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Dancer posted:... Yes I am noticing that completely unrelated fact. I was talking (because you mentioned) constitutionality. Right now the aggreement is not in effect, but when it does go in effect (whenthe member states control the majority of electors in the electoral college), it will be a legally binding agreement, andthe legislative and executive branches of the states in question apparently believe it to be constitutional, else they wouldn't have made it the law of their states. Its constitutionality won't be tested until after it's invoked. Then the lawsuits will fly and the election in question will end up being decided by the Supreme Court again. What fun!
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Feb 28, 2015 22:59
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Deteriorata posted:Its constitutionality won't be tested until after it's invoked. Then the lawsuits will fly and the election in question will end up being decided by the Supreme Court again. What fun! In a 5-4 decision the court finds the 22nd amendment unconstitutional and all elections after 2004 invalid.
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Feb 28, 2015 23:54
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The WaPo reports that veteran Maryland Senator Barb Mikulski to retire. Should be an easy hold for the Dems (then again, they just lost the governorship of that state). I wonder if O'Malley will set his sights on this seat instead of a presidential run?
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Mar 2, 2015 15:39
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Franco Potente posted:The WaPo reports that veteran Maryland Senator Barb Mikulski to retire. This would actually be a good place for a Donna Edwards to run. I remember someone saying Mikulski wanted a woman to replace her, and Edwards has the benefit of potentially driving up turnout among AA voters who showed up for Obama in PG County but may not be as inclined to for Hillary. Not that Clinton needs MD, but this is one of those seats that may as well get the most progressive candidate possible. Or they could nominate some garbage Balmer City candidate no one likes that'll win anyway and then end up being a PR disaster.
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Mar 2, 2015 15:46
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De Nomolos posted:This would actually be a good place for a Donna Edwards to run. I remember someone saying Mikulski wanted a woman to replace her, and Edwards has the benefit of potentially driving up turnout among AA voters who showed up for Obama in PG County but may not be as inclined to for Hillary. Not that Clinton needs MD, but this is one of those seats that may as well get the most progressive candidate possible. I work with a guy who is a bigshot in the Maryland Democratic Party and has close ties to John Delaney. I specifically asked him about Edwards today and he said he hadn't heard anything from her, but that he and a couple other fundraisers he knew thought that she was too abrasive and parochial. He also told me that several other major fundraisers (and seemed to include himself) thought that "the blacks had their turn with Anthony Brown and he was a huge disaster. We need someone who appeals to MoCo."
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Mar 2, 2015 20:47
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:she was too abrasive Mikulski set a high bar there.
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Mar 2, 2015 21:01
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De Nomolos posted:This would actually be a good place for a Donna Edwards to run. I remember someone saying Mikulski wanted a woman to replace her, and Edwards has the benefit of potentially driving up turnout among AA voters who showed up for Obama in PG County but may not be as inclined to for Hillary. Not that Clinton needs MD, but this is one of those seats that may as well get the most progressive candidate possible. Yes, but could she - or ANYONE - stand against the juggernaut of a potential Ben Carson Senatorial run? Oh, who am I kidding? It's going to be O'Malley v. Ehrlich V: THE RE-RECKONINGING.
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Mar 2, 2015 21:14
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