Are Democrats Finally Learning How to Play Hardball?

Eric Medlin

History instructor. Writer. Rising star in the world of affordable housing.

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33 Responses

  1. North says:

    It’s an unpalatable but necessary step. As long as the practice of gerrymandering was considerably less painful for Republicans there would be no incentive to discontinue it. The only way to get a bipartisan (aka the only) solution to gerrymandering will be to for both sides to see it as necessary- not just one.Report

    • Saul Degraw in reply to North says:

      The problem is that Republican politicians have shown themselves perfectly willing and able to ignore referendums and decisions from voters that they do not like. Ohio Republicans did this with redistricting. Florida did this for voting rights for ex felons. Mississippi did it for medical marijuana. Several states have done it for minimum wage hikes.Report

      • North` in reply to Saul Degraw says:

        Yes, that’s my point. The only solution to gerrymandering will be to stick is as hard to Republicans in blue states as Republicans stick it to Democratic politicians in Red states. When a gerrymandering solution is presented that is even handed to both sides it’ll be accepted by both sides only if both sides view its arrival with relief.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to North says:

      “It’s an unpalatable but necessary step.”

      Welp

      I guess “being able to justify abandoning your principles” is a useful skill for the millenarian cultistReport

  2. Jaybird says:

    The problem with Gerrymandering is that it becomes *REAL* easy to go from “not having to campaign for your stuff” to “living in a bubble”.

    And every now and again a wave shows up and the bubbles pop. Heck, how many wave elections have we had in the last two decades? Three?Report

  3. Pinky says:

    This article is hilarious to anyone who has lived in Illinois.Report

    • Kristin Devine in reply to Pinky says:

      I haven’t ever lived in Illinois but I still laughed out loud several timesReport

    • PD Shaw in reply to Pinky says:

      Yeah, nothing has changed for me other than I’ve moved from a Republican sink to a Democrat spread, which probably means that even though the odds will not favor the Republicans, there will likely be more competition on the ballot.

      As Will Rogers noted, a politician is just like a pickpocket; it’s almost impossible to get one to reform. The only thing that’s really changed is that the mainstream media started cheering for pickpockets.Report

  4. …blah blah blah blah blah “The rules for thee and not for me” blah blah blah blah blah…Report

  5. Philip H says:

    New York should not be read as anything in the way of national trend – its been a solidly blue state for some time, and while Republicans do have some representation, Democrats don’t need to gerrymander to keep their majorities.

    That aside, no this isn’t the hardball democrats need to play. Dismantle Republican gerrymandering, win elections through strong and consistent messaging, and deliver for constituents. Its a formula that actually works.Report

    • John Puccio in reply to Philip H says:

      I don’t understand how you can come to that conclusion. This isn’t about a blue state still being blue on the state level. Or a red stay still being red.

      It’s about the power a party can wield on a national level. Local representation is entirely irrelevant as it is sacrificed to increase/preserve a political party’s national power base.Report

      • Philip H in reply to John Puccio says:

        One of them any reasons I detest gerrymandering, including by Democrats. Thankfully, democrats don’t really do it anywhere other then New York state right now, and so its a lot easier to point out, condemn and try to undo. As we are seeing over and over elsewhere, Republicans are using it as an organized practice, and ditching non-partisan and bi-partisan alternatives. The Courts, so far, are calling them out for it.Report

  6. Chip Daniels says:

    “I never thought that politicians would gerrymander MY district!” sobs person who voted for the Politicians Gerrymandering Districts Party.

    While its nice to imagine Dems playing hardball politics, the two parties are still wildly asymmetrical in their composition and viewpoint.

    The Republican Party isn’t “playing politics” hardball or otherwise. They view the Democrats as fundamentally illegitimate holders of power, and have encased themselves in an alternate world of lies to justify their viewpoint.

    Election fraud, vast rings of pedophiles, quack medical beliefs…These are now the Three Legged Stool of Republican ideology and there really isn’t any clever strategy the Dems can use to break them of this. They have to do it for themselves.Report

  7. Saul Degraw says:

    Unilateral disarmament is stupid and deadly. It would be nice to live in a world where everyone agreed that partisan gerrymandering was a moral wrong but this is not the world we live in. Most Americans, Democratic or Republican, generally oppose partisan gerrymandering. However, when red states have laws that prohibit it, we have seen Republican legislatures basically state “who cares about what the voters want?” Look at the recent example in Ohio where the Governor’s own son refused to recuse himself from a case on a hyper-partisan map that went against laws that call for districts to be drawn/created by a nonpartisan/neutral commission.Report

  8. Jesse says:

    If Republican’s dislike what Democrat’s are doing in Illinois, New York, and other states, the good thing is we have a way to fix that problem.Report

  9. Marchmaine says:

    As I’ve said before, I’m in favor of a political solution which negotiates the principles by which districts are drawn and redrawn algorithmically (not by commission).

    And the more I see ‘fair-ish’ maps drawn by commissions it seems that we can detect a very strong bias in favor of incumbency. The balance might be better (yay) but the districts are safer (boo). Which itself is a political problem.

    The more I think about these things, the more I come down in favor of an algorithm that favors compactness and competitiveness. I don’t like the new model of all the Dems and all the Repubs having ‘safe’ seats with one or two toss ups. I’d rather see the number of safe seats reduced and the number of competitive ones increased.

    It’s ok to disagree with this – its purely prudential – but I have concerns about the incumbency model dominating the commissions (whether intentional or not).

    Here’s the link to the (dated) 528 Map where you can play with simple rules to see how a simple preference can change outcomes… and how we have to decide ‘what’ the rules are more than we need to create ‘independent’ commissions.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/#CompetitiveReport

    • Kazzy in reply to Marchmaine says:

      Years ago there was (and maybe still is) an online simulator that challenges you to draw district lines based on different criteria. With each successful map, there are more and more criteria and/or higher and higher thresholds to meet. It was really eye-opening to how challenging the task is when driven my human interests and demands.

      At the time, it seemed obvious that there had to be an algorithm or some other non-human way to do it. The algorithm will still only do whatever the humans tell it to do, but if the algorithm is set at the national level, it’d seem pretty easy to game. Set your criteria and prioritize them and let the algorithm go to work.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Kazzy says:

        http://www.redistrictinggame.org/

        I think this was it but it seems to use Flash which I guess is no longer with us?Report

      • Marchmaine in reply to Kazzy says:

        “algorithm will still only do whatever the humans tell it to do”

        Agreed… which is why I think this is the real discussion we should have – even if you want human commissions they are still just implementing ‘rules’ – and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the rules they are implementing are favoring safe seats in an effort to remain ‘proportional’.

        That’s a political decision with it’s own consequences.Report

        • Kazzy in reply to Marchmaine says:

          Yes but I imagine the algorithm would clean some of that up.

          How do we define “compactness”? Well, we could set distance parameters within the algorithm. Humans could look at something clearly non-compact and say, “Well, it looks compact TO ME!”Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Marchmaine says:

      I think I like counties enough to want districts to be made up of counties. I was surprised to see that the last new county was created in 2001 (in Colorado, no less). I guess I thought that they merged and split semi-regularly enough to see changes in a year-to-year map.

      As it turns out, they’re pretty static.

      But representative of small contiguous groups to a degree that make some kind of non-partisan (by definitions in the current year, anyway) sense.Report

      • Marchmaine in reply to Jaybird says:

        Sure, there’s an option to ‘prefer’ borders vs. pure algorithmic mapping. I’d be fine with that.

        For me it’s sort of a big picture thing… if you look at the 528 map a few things stand out:
        * Max Gerrymander can only achieve ~ 25 ‘contested’ seats for either party (the goal being 0)
        * Every ‘well you have to understand’ map has ~ 85 contested seats
        * If you just make it competitive: ~242 contested seats (almost half)

        So in the great haggle over how compact vs how much weight to give to other criteria, as long as we’re seeing 200+ competitive seats? I’m probably fine with whatever compromises we made along the way.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to Jaybird says:

        Consider Colorado.

        The ten big Front Range counties (including Broomfield but not Pueblo) have 83% of the state’s population. Trim off the rural areas — eastern Adams, Arapaho, and Weld, the far mountain parts of Jefferson, Boulder, and Larimer — until you get 75%. That’s exactly what you need for six of the eight districts. And they all have the same concerns: unmanageable growth, water, fire. The rural pruning really should be enough to make those six be short on population, because that’s where 80% of the population growth will be for the next ten years. The six districts are obvious: one at the south end centered on Colorado Springs, one at the north end based on Larimer and Weld, Denver, and three metro Denver suburban districts.

        That’s not what the commission did. They preserved the power of the Boulder Democratic mafia, and they kept suburbanite Ken Buck representing the rural Eastern Plains. While the national Democratic Party is treating Joe Neguse as a rising star, I’m hoping that someone like John Kefalas from the northern end of the second district — already dominant in terms of population — primaries him.Report

  10. j r says:

    The premise of the piece appears to be that gerrymandering is a Republican phenomenon in which Democrats are being forced to take part. How accurate is this? I just took a look at the Wikipedia entry on ‘Gerrymandering in the United States,’ which a few examples of the most egregiously gerrymandered congressional districts. These are split pretty evenly between pro-D and pro-R.

    This leads to an obvious question: from where does the inaccuracy spring?

    My observation is that Democrats have committed themselves to the view that they are singularly dedicated to doing the will of the people, placing them in opposition to Republicans, who are singularly dedicated to doing political dirty tricks in furtherance of perpetual minority rule. I understand why people might want to uphold this as a self-image. But this is a recipe for failure and frustration. Why do this to yourselves?Report

  11. Fishing Democrats. It’s like in 2000 when their justices voted in lockstep to count the votes instead of taking the high road and giving it to Bush.Report