Redistricting in Historic Perspective

[Independent thinker]

A quick history of gerrymandering. Both sides may find this interesting.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/08/15/redistricting_in_historic_perspective_153180.html

 

[RhodyPatriot]

Respectfully, it's normally one of the most boring subjects there is.

What's made it interesting is Dems getting their asses handed to them.

 

[Rawley]

Respectfully, it's normally one of the most boring subjects there is.

What's made it interesting is Dems getting their asses handed to them.

I find their meltdown particularly informative. Tacit acknowledgement that they only way they have any power is through rigging the census and gerrymandering.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

MAGA is unhappy about gerrymander? Hmmm.

 

[berg80]

A quick history of gerrymandering. Both sides may find this interesting.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/08/15/redistricting_in_historic_perspective_153180.html

From the article.......You should not believe that computers or artificial intelligence have made gerrymandering more sophisticated.

From reality (AI)...........

AI and computers have undeniably brought a new level of sophistication to the practice of gerrymandering.
Here's how:

1. Leveraging big data and algorithms:
   
   • Legislators and redistricting consultants can now utilize vast datasets containing information like voter registration, past election results, demographics (age, race, income), and even social media activity to gain highly granular insights into voting patterns within a state.
   • Sophisticated algorithms can then leverage this data to generate thousands of potential district maps, each optimized to maximize a particular party's advantage, according to Columbia Library Journals.
   • These algorithms can take into account various factors like population equality, contiguity, compactness, county and municipality boundaries, and minority representation, while still achieving the desired partisan outcome.

From the article.........Another signer of the Declaration and member of the Constitutional Convention was Elbridge Gerry, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a state senate redistricting bill that combined a grotesquely shaped group of towns in Essex County into one district, drawn by cartoonist Elkanah Tisdale with the wings and claws of a salamander.

Fun fact.........I used to live in Essex County.

About the author..........Michael D. Barone is an American conservative political analyst, historian, pundit and journalist.

As I was reading the article I got the uneasy feeling it was written from an undeniably biased perspective. But he did get one very important thing right.

In 1787, the Constitutional Convention required the members of the House of Representatives to be apportioned according to population as determined by a census to be conducted within three years and every 10 years thereafter.

The last census was taken in 2020. Making what Dotard asked of Abbott all the more egregiously despicable.

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Go California~

 

[task0778]

The Texas House of Representatives have passed the redrawn congressional districts for the state’s Washington delegation. Note that California, Illinois, and other blue states did that years ago. Democrats in Illinois, for instance, already boast a 14-3 advantage in congressional representation. In other words, they have already drawn the lines with extreme partisan intent. The redrawn Texas map could give Republicans as many as five new seats. That could make a difference in the H of R, no?

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

The Texas House of Representatives have passed the redrawn congressional districts for the state’s Washington delegation. Note that California, Illinois, and other blue states did that years ago. Democrats in Illinois, for instance, already boast a 14-3 advantage in congressional representation. In other words, they have already drawn the lines with extreme partisan intent. The redrawn Texas map could give Republicans as many as five new seats. That could make a difference in the H of R, no?

Not to 52 blue CA seats, no.

That could make a difference in the H of R, no?