FatDomDaddy
Posts: 3183
Joined: 1/31/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: dcnovice quote:
If this was done in Maryland, a Bluest of Blue Blue States, as it stands now, the likely make up in US House would be 3 R and 5 D. That is, if the Congressional lines were draw, strictly on population and geographic cohesiveness. How do we know this? Because I live here and we just went through this....The Maryland 3rd is connected in one place by six feet of creek bed to to sure up the numbers! Prior to the last drawing Maryland was 2 R 6 D but the Maryland 2nd was full of Blue Dogs and a Republicans. The Numbers were not good so they had to sure up the second. That created problems in the 3rd, fixed by the a fore mentioned creek bed. quote:
Why on earth would the Democrat powers that be, draw the lines that would favor the opposition party quote:
I imagine that, across the U.S., both parties would resist giving up the ability to gerrymander. I'm sure it's just coincidence that you focused solely on a blue state (which had a Republican governor as recently as 2007). No, I used Maryland because I live here. But here is the thing, even in states where they control the legislature, Republicans generally draw lines on population and geographic cohesiveness (not everywhere of course, but it tends to be a default.). Democrats tend not to favor this approach basically because it cannot guarantee minority seats and representation. And in cases where that was an historically bad problem, "gerrymandering" was deemed a necessary solution. The problem now is, at least in Maryland is how to create Hispanic districts and not take away Black seats? The Hispanic population, while leaning left, just does not break down in voting numbers the way the Black population does. Blacks in Maryland are showing at a 92%-8& split voting towards the Democrats. The new voting Hispanics are just not breaking along those lines.
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