I wonder what the end game is for extreme gerrymandering. If every state with a legislative trifecta (and a court who wouldn’t overturn it) suddenly did a partisan redistricting all at once , who would come out ahead?
We are already at the point where most districts are firmly held on one side or another, and control of Congress rests on a tiny handful of competitive districts, maybe 20 out of 435. What happens when that decreases to 5 or 10?
If every state with a legislative trifecta (and a court who wouldn’t overturn it) suddenly did a partisan redistricting all at once , who would come out ahead?
Saw someone do a rough estimate mapped out all states with current trifectas and found that neither side could lock in a majority if that went to the max and could make maps that went 100% one side or another. Republicans in that scenario have a slight edge, but still 84 seats that wouldn’t be decided by gerrymandering alone (how much of a swing district it actually is may vary). It was a rough estimate so take it with a grain of salt. That also assumed that the states with independent legislative committees all remove said committees and that the Voting Rights Act becomes 100% gutted
State and local elections are going to matter a lot even if it doesn’t go to that extreme scenario. Make sure to always vote in them. Virginia and New Jersey have important statewide elections coming up this off-year in November
It’s also important to note that at the edges of gerrymandering you trade certainty in any district for number of legislators. You can play it well to guarantee a victory under normal circumstances, but if you’ve gerrymandered heavily you better hope your base doesn’t crack.
Purely hypothetically, you’d likely get the same kind of split and games that were pulled in the leadup to the Civil War with the whole Mason-Dixie line thing. With likely the same resulting consequences.
Just now nuclear and biological and chemical weapons exist and weapons are incomparably more dangerous
I wonder what the end game is for extreme gerrymandering. If every state with a legislative trifecta (and a court who wouldn’t overturn it) suddenly did a partisan redistricting all at once , who would come out ahead?
We are already at the point where most districts are firmly held on one side or another, and control of Congress rests on a tiny handful of competitive districts, maybe 20 out of 435. What happens when that decreases to 5 or 10?
it ain’t gonna be ‘the people’, that’s for sure.
–from ballotpedia
Saw someone do a rough estimate mapped out all states with current trifectas and found that neither side could lock in a majority if that went to the max and could make maps that went 100% one side or another. Republicans in that scenario have a slight edge, but still 84 seats that wouldn’t be decided by gerrymandering alone (how much of a swing district it actually is may vary). It was a rough estimate so take it with a grain of salt. That also assumed that the states with independent legislative committees all remove said committees and that the Voting Rights Act becomes 100% gutted
State and local elections are going to matter a lot even if it doesn’t go to that extreme scenario. Make sure to always vote in them. Virginia and New Jersey have important statewide elections coming up this off-year in November
It’s also important to note that at the edges of gerrymandering you trade certainty in any district for number of legislators. You can play it well to guarantee a victory under normal circumstances, but if you’ve gerrymandered heavily you better hope your base doesn’t crack.
Purely hypothetically, you’d likely get the same kind of split and games that were pulled in the leadup to the Civil War with the whole Mason-Dixie line thing. With likely the same resulting consequences.
Just now nuclear and biological and chemical weapons exist and weapons are incomparably more dangerous
I’m not saying I’d support a nuclear sherman’s march, but it would be one of the less totally awful possibilities.