The Secret of How the GOP Has a Lock on the House for the Foreseeable Future.

[gonzoliberal]

Tens of millions poured into a stealth redistricting project before the 2012 elections kept dozens of GOP Districts safe from Democratic challengers.


Lest the post-election glow leave us complacent.


excerpt;


If somewhere in the recesses of your mind you were wondering how, despite President Barack Obama’s re-election victory and the Democratic Party’s gains in the Senate, Republicans continue to control the House of Representatives, think redistricting.

Redistricting is the process that adjusts the lines of a state’s electoral districts, theoretically based on population shifts, following the decennial census. Gerrymandering is often part and parcel of redistricting. According to the Rose Institute of State and Local Governments at Claremont McKenna College, Gerrymandering is done “to influence elections to favor a particular party, candidate, ethnic group.”

Over the past few years, as the Republican Party has gained control over more state legislatures than Democrats. And, it has turned redistricting into a finely-honed, well-financed project. That has virtually insured their control over the House. “While the Voting Rights Act strongly protects against racial gerrymanders, manipulating the lines to favor a political party is common,” the Rose Institute’s Redistricting in America website points out.

.....

In spite of being a liberal in Maryland, I think the present gerrymandering habit sucks. I'd like to see a fair, National redistricting.

[flyboy56]

Redistricting is happening everywhere and benefitting both parties. This why we are seeing so much stalemate in our congress. The candidates may not be guaranteed their seat but the party's can pretty much predict what seats they will keep after an election. This is killing our democratic system.

[SalisburySage]

I am glad you pointed out that this is done by both aprties and has been for many years. The real question you need to ask yourselves is why so many Governors are Republicans. The people voted for them.

[flyboy56]

I am glad you pointed out that this is done by both aprties and has been for many years. The real question you need to ask yourselves is why so many Governors are Republicans. The people voted for them.

Exactly. The votes governors receive is base on the popular vote by all registered voters in the state. Why can't we elect our congress representatives the same way and trash the districts?

[gonzoliberal]

What California Can Teach America About Stopping Extremist Obstruction

excerpt;


......

In short, the steps to stopping Republican obstruction in California involved changing the rules and changing the electorate:

• Ending a supermajority procedural rule (Prop 25)
• Growing the electorate through massive organizing
• Making it easier to vote (online voter registration, easy access to vote-by-mail)
• Ending gerrymandering (Prop 11 redistricting commission)
• Naming the problem (calling out Republican obstruction)

To stop the extremists in the House GOP from destroying what remains of America's safety net and obtaining their dream of drowning government in a bathtub, a similar path must be followed nationally. David Atkins, now chair of the Ventura County Democratic Party, laid out the rules that need to be changed to stop extremist obstruction. Notice the similarities to the list that worked in California:


The only thing that allows Republicans to take their hostages in the first place is a series of arcane rules that give the minority undue influence. Among those rules are:
• Gerrymandered Congressional districts
• Dysfunctional filibuster rules
• Disproportionate Senate representation
• Corrupt lobbying laws
• Campaign finance laws that give outsized political influence to a few billionaires
• Archaic electoral college rules
• Discriminatory workday elections

.....

Though more relevant to liberals, this piece has ideas that should be of interest to centrists of both sides.

[SemiAuto]

Hostage taking? Only a crazy person would want to emulate what is going on in California. The California government needs more obstruction to save the taxpayers from unmitigated progressive greed.

[BiggSeth]

typical librat projection.....

straight from the alinsky playbook.....

[gonzoliberal]

typical librat projection.....

straight from the alinsky playbook.....

Typical post from you.

Shallow, meaningless, irrelevant...

[gonzoliberal]

In the House, a deck stacked for Republicans

excerpt;


The final results from the November election were completed Friday, and they show that Democratic candidates for the House outpolled Republicans nationwide by nearly 1.4 million votes and more than a full percentage point — a greater margin than the preliminary figures showed in November. And that’s just the beginning of it: A new analysis finds that even if Democratic congressional candidates won the popular vote by seven percentage points nationwide, they still would not have gained control of the House.

The analysis, by Ian Millhiser at the liberal Center for American Progress using data compiled by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, finds that even if Democrats were to win the popular vote by a whopping nine percentage points — a political advantage that can’t possibly be maintained year after year — they would have a tenuous eight-seat majority.

In a very real sense, the Republican House majority is impervious to the will of the electorate.

...


The ultimate Republican bully...

[gonzoliberal]

Gee, I thought that line, "...impervious to the will of the electorate..." was pretty provocative.

Any thoughts on this imbalance of power?

[gonzoliberal]

I don't believe there are no thoughts.

I do believe they would be somewhat predictable.

Anyway, here's a Salon piece on the subject;

The House GOP can’t be beat: It’s worse than gerrymandering

excerpt;

Congress is broken, and everyone knows it. Its approval ratings hover around 10 percent, and a recent poll from Public Policy Polling found that Congress is currently less popular than cockroaches, lice and traffic jams. It has difficulty getting any sort of business done, let alone address our nation’s major challenges, like climate change, immigration, poverty and fiscal policy.

But amidst the partisan fingerpointing and bickering, one core aspect of the way our government works gets a free pass. We hear a lot about campaign finance and gerrymandering, but single-member district elections – that is, having each House member represent one congressional district – are without doubt the single greatest cause of what is broken about Congress. They are the key reason why Republicans easily kept control of the House despite losing the popular vote to Democrats, and why the political center has lost out to partisans on both sides of the aisle. They turn four out of five voters effectively into spectators who have absolutely no chance of affecting their representation in Congress. They help keep women’s representation in the House stalled at less than 18 percent, and grossly distort fair representation by party and race.

....

Oh, but the catterwalling and gnashing of teeth if the shoe were on the other foot...