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I’m in favor of any and all means towards clawing back power from SCOTUS. Discussing what the best mechanisms are is good—there’s a variety of suggestions being made by people who know more about this than I do—all I care about is what’s the best way to get there, the status quo can’t continue

I’ve felt this way for a while. this is a huge wrong, and you will not get a critical mass of black voters to support you if you do not vow to right that wrong.

Eliminating Black participation is the goal.

This is why the shift should be local and state level.

Another priority for the future is to figure out how to spread out into purple and marginally red districts and change the balance.

They are literally trying to cancel the elections.

WE want fair sensible districts. They want to cheat.

I think it is definitely there as a top priority.

If possible, that is. If it can’t be done, move down the list.

Get over your skin color.

Let's do it

I've come around to the idea that it's cleaner to deal with minority representation by switching the U.S. to proportional representation by state. As an example Louisiana has six districts, and Democrats typically get 38%-40%, which would guarantee two seats to the GOP's 6. No districts needed.

This is going on the to-do list right before blowing up his stupid ballroom and arch.

But I think you need to reform the Supreme Court to prevent them from cutting that to ribbons also.

That would be near the top of my list. Let’s reform the SCOTUS, tax the billionaires, protect voting rights, kill Citizens United (public funding of all elections), restore consumer and environmental protections, and Medicaid for all. Methinks that’s a baseline of 60% of the vote with just that.

My worry is that there’s a component of Dem leadership that might be willing to stay the minority party forever if it means solidifying their stranglehold on leadership/power.

When will these ideas get the interest of media, reporters, influencers?

Or go the way NZ did with is Mixed-Member-Proportional system. Of course, that is even harder to explain, even if it rocks as a compromise 😂

So looking through the proposed bill, it’s an improvement, but really isn’t it just kicking the can down the road to more complicated gerrymandering? What real value is gained by having the representative be from your broad area, since national legislation affects the whole country?

Ok so then range voting, and affective voters can include their nuanced ratings and strategic voters can treat it like approval voting, or you can go somewhere in-between.

YES.

There's often this feeling with the Dems where you question if they even want power and how they respond to the existential threat toward the black vote will largely answer that question, because there is no Democrat party without black voters, period.

Top of the list is Vote Blue! And vote Early ! Then the new lists can be made.

I honestly don't know why a democratic candidate would take anything off the table.

Money and redistricting are the roots of all evil

TBH I don't even understand why we have "districts" at all. I'm sure someone can explain, but it seems superfluous. Why can't we just break down voting to City, County, State, and Nation? Districts feel like a way to benefit whites at the expense of everyone else. How is that fair? 🤔

And end the Electorial College.

Yet another boon from black America to whites to which we are virtually blind.

But didn’t SCOTUS specifically rule that partisan gerrymandering is Constitutional?

We need to eliminate the electoral college

It would if Democrats prioritize punishing the corruption in the court and fixing it.

Curious if definecombine.com is getting any traction. First heard it a few years ago, not really since.

Every state gets a number of Reps in Congress, based on population. In the US, these are elected 1 per district, with districts having equal population. How states draw the district lines is where gerrymandering comes in. It’s still 1 vote per citizen, but which district your vote counts in matters.

I certainly hope this is a priority. Though I just wonder what mechanisms they use to setup these maps and what is the process should a map fail to meet criteria in time for elections.

We kinda have to be fixing the Supreme Court at the same time or they'll just knock down whatever remedies to gerrymandering we try to put in place. It's maddening. A hundred things are broken and they all need to be fixed together or shit will just break again.

mattress time for the party

Need to pack the court!! There is no other way.

Wasn't this part of the For the People Act in 2021? I'm not disagreeing. Just curious on your perspective of the failure then on a party line vote.

As part of a broader plan to eliminate racism.

Dems should kill district based representation. Land doesn’t get a vote, people do. State wide proportional representation or something, idk somebody will figure it out.

Why would they have more problems than the current legislature?

I worry that with 3k they fragment into large but not large enough blocks of extreme ideological groups. But maybe that's a good thing.

Why would 3k have any more trouble than 300? They still have the same rules and required vote percentages.

I may have misread this question. Are you asking if non-voting delegates would require a constitutional amendment? I don’t think so, but I could be incorrect. We already have several in the house representing territories, so I think the house can just say they’re allowing them.

and, importantly, would address this issue without having to draft legislation to determine what is a "fair means" of determining districts. Such a qualitative metric will always be open to corruption

Statewide proportional representation with open party lists to an expanded House of Representatives, with size of the House based either on the Wyoming Rule or the Cube Root Rule. Single-member districts weren’t mandated until 1967, and that law can be repealed.

I think we need to find away to get rid of electoral college. I think we could sell this to the American people. All gerrymandering would disappear

💙💙💙💙💙

It’s a good message, but based on their leaders in the house and senate, the Dems are the party of the status quo. The will for change will only come from any progressives they haven’t already p!seed off who think they have a chance in the midterms.

I'm more interested in putting magats in camps.

Dem leadership keeps trying to reach across the aisle to the guy screaming slurs at them while pointing a gun at them. They seem unbothered by the threat or the slurs, but keep glancing at the donors facial expressions for a clue how to respond.

A simple national metric for gerrymandering reform Require that the fewest splits be made to cities, counties and towns when equalizing the populations of voting districts This model was enacted in the 2018 gerrymander case, League of Women Voters Pennsylvania v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

What I like about this idea is that it is grand and shows boldness. Everything else being proposed or spoken of sounds like every day bandaid solutions to an existential problem. People are tired of the same, shy, and incremental change approaches.

Sure things like expanding the supreme court. Take money out of politics. Standard size how districts are defined. But number one should be punishing every mother fucker that broke the country. Every single one of them.

We have that algorithm to prove that something is gerrymandered, we just need to implement that as law.

Two pieces that I would add to this are: (1) tripling the size of the house; (2) requiring at least 3 seats per district via proportional representation (cuts down on gerrymander-ability by providing an avenue for minority representation)

protectdemocracy.org/work/how-to-...

I would also like to see an expansion of Congress. Make each seat less valuable. And figure out how to end gerrymandering.

I think even the supreme court would be wary to overrule something that (a) seems like a truly fair, better alternative process and (b) had widespread support from people across the spectrum. At its core, disenfranchisement (or creating that perception) drives so much political engagement.

Yes, but don’t stop there. Do a comprehensive bill Make Gov’t Work 4 the People Act 1. Stop partisan gerrymandering 2. Double size of House to increase voter representation 3. Add DC & Puerto Rico as states 4. Grow size of courts at district, cir appellate, & SCOTUS; & have judicial term limits l

Should we actually believe Roberts would ever consider any standards to be enforceable?

By way of clarification, what is the method you prefer more specifically? I know of a few options including at-large multi-member districts, algorithmic districts & etc. I'm all for ending partisan gerrymandering but I'm unclear on the process to avoid it here.

Would the Senate Dems need to alter the Senate rules to negate a filibuster?

I didn’t say I didn’t have ideas. I said the idea presented is a waste of time. Make Roberts the issue because of his corruption and the shadow docket. Promise to impeach him and expand the court. At a minimum, there will be hearings and scrutiny.

they play Calvinball, ofc, but as I understand their position has been that gerrymandering per se isn’t in violation of anything but that Congress could pass a law to resolve this

I am not so sure I think they want to get courts out of the business of determining “fair districts” Passing a new law to move the districting process to an independent body would be acceptable

Don’t be a wuss.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

absolute loser shit

We make republicans choke on it until they beg for a national ban and work to get it on the ballot on state levels

You might even get a couple Republican votes after the absolute spaghetti we're going to make out of districts over the next couple years

Forget jurisdiction stripping. Move legislation expanding the court at the same time.

The purpose of gerrymandering, for whatever reason, is to make the will of the voters irrelevant. That is antithetical to the entire premise of democracy. This is not rocket surgery. No matter how many séances you hold to divine the “original intent” of long dead forefathers.

It’s not clear they would, so it’s definitely worth trying. And if they did, it’s one more step in building the political coalition needed to expand the Court. Too many people on our side still aren’t sure they’re ready to radically change the court; losing this fight would help build that case.

To put more politely than than person, I think Dem leaders need to start sketching out a plan for if/when openly defying scotus is required

defeatist attitude is core to their DNA at this point

That does seem to be the general Democrat strategy so far 😭

kottke.org/26/05/the-su...

My dream is a bill to end gerrymandering and a switch to Ranked Choice voting instead of first past the post.

Will underscore the co-essential task of SC reform.

Doesn't it depend on acts of Congress? Yes it should absolutely be at the top of a D-majority Congress, right after impeaching the fuck out of Trump's current cabinet and his disgraceful self of course.

Congress could strip JX from lower courts, but ultimately can't one-weird-trick a constitutional protection.

We should add some criminal penalties if they attempt to subvert the law and take the case. 20 years in jail.

Like I've been saying; get rid of the Supreme Court and let DC Federal Judges be the last voice.

But jurisdiction-stripping is the classy, legalistic way to do this, and would almost certainly be less fun than, say, changing the locks in the middle of the night

I'm in favor of this and also interning 6 justices.

Jurisdiction is a load-bearing principle of …. Look out below!!

Injecting it right into the veins of my congressional campaign.

I do think we gotta start with court packing, if only to have something whose legality the guys with guns will have no trouble understanding.

I'm not sure that works here because a State would sue over it, and the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction then. But it would work well with Supreme Court reform in general. Fundamentally, we need to pack the court one way or another anyway.

It's absolutely Congress's job to reform a radical Court if need be. They aren't Gods.

Not to mention at mention two way impeachment for corruption targets. Drag Thomas and Alito as they deserve.

The risk is that you run into a US v. Klein situation, where the court decides it doesn’t agree with your jurisdiction stripping

Maddening lack of imagination going on, FDR was able to beat the Court into shape too, so did the Reconstruction Congress! It’s been done before and can and will be done again.

"We've already tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

I’ve never understood that guy’s point of view. Even if it were true that the court could kill it, MAKE THEM.

Constitutional amendment that overturns Citizens united, protects a woman’s right to choose and ends political gerrymandering.

the court’s NEVER ruled against ANYTHING that later came to pass anyway through lots of effort and persistence

There’s so many people on this site who argue for something along those lines, yeah

I wouldn't call throwing our hands up... doing nothing.

“But you know that” is crazy. Actively casting you in league with what you’ve just described as a movement to disenfranchise Black America