He's not the Staten Island rep though, he represents southern Nassau County.
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PoliGAF 2014 |OT2| We need to be more like Disney World
- Thread starter Aaron Strife
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He's not the Staten Island rep though, he represents southern Nassau County.
JesseEwiak
Member
I got Long Island a-holes confused with Staten Island a-holes. My bad.
He's still got the same basic supporter base. White ethnics who fled the city or were never there in their in the first place who loved Rudy, and don't trust brown people.
I got Long Island a-holes confused with Staten Island a-holes. My bad.
He's still got the same basic supporter base. White ethnics who fled the city or were never there in their in the first place who loved Rudy, and don't trust brown people.
I know a whole lot of teachers who live out in Nassau due to housing prices so his 60% support sort of blew my mind, I suppose they live further north.
Looking it up I think I may be right, Steve Israel represents the area just North of King's district.
Wait, MOTHERFUCKER when did I get redistricted? They extended the NY-3rd, I used to be part of the NY-6th. I could have sworn the last time I voted for my house rep it was for Greg Meeks, not Steve Israel.
Aaron Strife
Banned
I'd add Alaska to that. If Democrats win IA, CO, AK and NC they have 50 in the Senate regardless of who Orman caucuses with (or if he even wins).
And that helps Landrieu as well. If she's not the deciding vote she'll win.
benjipwns
Banned
New York redistricted in 2012.
It looks like they were trying to draw much more cohesive districts.
EDIT: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/03/20/nyregion/new-york-redistricting.html
lol at the old 22nd making that jog out to Ithaca
The difference is I live in the city limits but my House rep represents Northern Long Island. Looks like they gave a few parts of Queens to Israel's district.
Shit, I guess I didn't remember it off-hand since it didn't really change much.
EDIT: Goddamn, that old 22nd district is amazing. They tried to throw as many college towns as possible in there looks like.
Aaron Strife
Banned
NBC/Marist released three Senate polls today. Ernst leads by 2 (blah), Hagan by 4, Orman by 10.
C'mon Braley. He does have a 1 pt lead among all registered voters.
C'mon Braley. He does have a 1 pt lead among all registered voters.
zero shift
Banned
Gerrymandering wouldn't be anywhere near as much of a problem as it is now if we had more representatives.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
How are the two related?
The Librarian
Banned
I have a question.
And this goes out to all of PoliGAF.
How shall I gloat about calling Kay Hagan's seat over a year ago? Mild amusement? Rub it in?
zero shift
Banned
Wouldn't more representatives result in smaller districts thus fewer options to play with when creating districts? Or am I thinking about it wrong?
Aaron Strife
Banned
As someone who was mocked relentlessly for saying Democrats could win Wisconsin and Indiana's Senate races in 2012
Yes gloat the shit out of that
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
Well, we could test that theory by looking at state legislators to see if any of them are gerrymandered, but that'd take more work than I'm willing to do right now.
cooljeanius
Member
It also wouldn't be a problem if states just didn't use Congressional Districts as a method of dividing up their representatives in the first place. Nothing in the Constitution prevents states from just using at-large elections for all of their representatives. In fact, in states with only a single representative, this already happens.
Lord Fagan
Junior Member
Considering how hard the pendulum swung for those folks in November '12, the anticipatory swing back doesn't really surprise me.
http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/
http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/
RustyNails
Member
Open eyes, full bladder, cant lose.
I mean why not Romney? The Republican field is a mile wide and an inch thick, everyone is either a Junior Senator of 2 years with no stature and accomplishments, or they're under indictment. Except Jeb, whose "maybe, but maybe not" waffling is deeply unattractive. Fan favorite Ben Carson hasn't even been a city Alderman and if you get him, Santorum, and Bachmann back on stage it will feel like the 2012 clown show all over again.
See guys?! The GOP DOES care! You're all just being heartless bastards.
Won't someone think of the poor blastocysts?!
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/reince-priebus-texas-abortion-law-about-gops-compassion/
That's gonna happen anyway. And with more insane candidates like Joni Ernst being elected, a lot more people from the openly teabagger wing of the Republican Party are gonna want a piece of that pie.
I'm really hoping Ben Carson runs, just so Fox News can brag about how they have TWO Black Republicans on stage.
Aaron Strife
Banned
According to this guy, Roberts' internal polling matches the MTP poll released today that had Orman up by 10 points.
He's done. The guy tweeted later that he still thinks Roberts will win because Kansas is a Republican state, but who gives a shit? Their governor is going down and their senator will be going down with him. If his internal polling has him down double digits there isn't much time to make up that big of a disadvantage.
Good news from Florida regarding early voting: At this point in 2010, Republicans had a 12 point advantage in absentee ballots. Now that's down to 3. I think Crist wins this, given Scott only won by a point last time and the number are looking worse.
He's done. The guy tweeted later that he still thinks Roberts will win because Kansas is a Republican state, but who gives a shit? Their governor is going down and their senator will be going down with him. If his internal polling has him down double digits there isn't much time to make up that big of a disadvantage.
Good news from Florida regarding early voting: At this point in 2010, Republicans had a 12 point advantage in absentee ballots. Now that's down to 3. I think Crist wins this, given Scott only won by a point last time and the number are looking worse.
How has no one gotten him to say his name backwards yet?
"We'll do what ever we can to support women. Unless it costs money, of course, then they are on their own."
NYCmetsfan
Banned
I don't see how it would the principles would still be the same. The problem is democrats clump together and the law prevents multi member districts.
You're definitely correct. The Democrats won the House popular vote in 2012 yet lost the House. Imagine a hypothetical where every voter had his or her own representative, you couldn't gerrymander the election to engineer a Republican victory. The closer you get to 1:1 parity to that reality it becomes much more difficult to pack the votes in such a way that Republicans win the House, yet lose the popular vote.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
If you get that low yes but reducing them but a hundred or two hundred thousand doesn't get anywhere close or make it more difficult. Look at state houses.
I feel like there must be a happy medium that's not unattainable (150,000 people per Representative, maybe) that can assure the House popular vote winner wins control of the House to such a prohibitive amount of the time (97.5%+) that Gerrymandering is rendered useless.
Priebus: We're trying to help out these women with the car they need.
Todd: But you closed down almost all the clinics?
Priebus: Like I said, it's about whether we want sluts to use tax payer money for abortions.
And they're the ones who came up with the legislation that would require money spent on upgrading the clinics for an already very safe procedure for women.
As someone who has had a child, let's not forget the massive hospital bill while taking reduced pay, if any pay, after the child is born for any time off to take care of that newborn child. Such compassion from our government indeed.
Bel Marduk
Banned
As a Floridian, there is nothing that I'd like to see more than Rick Scott voted out of office (and imprisoned) but there just doesn't seem to be any kind of enthusiasm for Crist at all even though he was a fairly decent governor.
The only polling outfit (SurveyUSA) that has regularly monitored the race suggests that Crist now has a 6-point advantage over Scott, whereas all the others (except Rasmussen) show Scott leading...
I hope you're right.
Except in the end it still costs tax payers money if it is a woman who is on government assistance and has the child she can't afford.
But that's not any of my business. *sips tea*
benjipwns
Banned
Why does YouGov have to drop all these useless polls at once.
Besides the national popular vote isn't a great barometer considering it's the sum of 435 individual elections.No need to fuck up the House more than it already it is like changing the Senate did.
All of that said, I've already said before that I don't buy their excuse that there's no room to have more than 435 House members.
The "popular vote" loser has only won the House four times in the last 47 elections. (Three of the four in the first election after a census. 1996 is the outlier.) There isn't national popular vote data before then, but that's still 85%, so it's already pretty close to not being much of a big deal.
Besides the national popular vote isn't a great barometer considering it's the sum of 435 individual elections.No need to fuck up the House more than it already it is like changing the Senate did.
All of that said, I've already said before that I don't buy their excuse that there's no room to have more than 435 House members.
Seems like it'd be simpler to just have every voter represent themselves.
zero shift
Banned
NYCmetsfan
Banned
There is no real way to assure this with geographical representation.
Again look to state house gerrymandering where they represent 20,000 people or less and gerrymandering is rampant.
If you are in favor or tolerant of geographical representation then your comments or complaints about gerrymandering are pretty silly. Geography gerrymanders.
The angst liberals have in regards to gerrymandering seems to be a response to the system swinging the other direction. Not the system not working. They system is working as designed landed property owners are stymieing popular change. Thats the essence of most of the constitution.
eBay Huckster
Member
the happy medium is "abolishing FPTP and putting some form of PR into place" if we're talking about ensuring gerrymandering is never a major problem ever again, but that's literally never happening
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
Wait a second. The system is definitely not working as designed in multiple states where gerrymandering is a real problem. What we're seeing now is obviously a problem still. You'd be insane if you said that the house makeup would be the same if democrats won 2010 instead of lost it like they did, and you'd be insane to say these crazy district lines have anything to do with geographical happenstance.
And the system as originally intended had the house growing as population grows. I still think expanding the house would do a lot of good in letting more people in without the need for a big bank account to have a chance of getting a campaign off the ground.
But yeah, it's not surprising to hear that state legislators are gerrymandered as well. It's not like you usually have to go that far geographically to combine a rich neighborhood with a poor one in whatever ratio you want. In some scenarios that's a shift in demographics that is literally separated by a single street.
benjipwns
Banned
Found the post finally, if we had representation that looked like the Bundestag (~130,000 people per seat) this was how many seats in the House each state would have:
Code:
California 298
Texas 206
New York 153
Florida 152
Illinois 100
Pennsylvania 99
Ohio 90
Georgia 78
Michigan 77
North Carolina 77
New Jersey 69
Virginia 64
Washington 54
Massachusetts 52
Arizona 52
Indiana 51
Tennessee 51
Missouri 47
Maryland 46
Wisconsin 45
Minnesota 42
Colorado 41
Alabama 38
South Carolina 37
Louisiana 36
Kentucky 34
Oregon 31
Oklahoma 30
Connecticut 28
Iowa 24
Mississippi 23
Arkansas 23
Utah 23
Kansas 23
Nevada 22
New Mexico 16
Nebraska 15
West Virginia 14
Idaho 13
Hawaii 11
Maine 10
New Hampshire 10
Rhode Island 8
Montana 8
Delaware 7
South Dakota 7
Alaska 6
North Dakota 6
Vermont 5
Wyoming 5benjipwns
Banned
And here was the population per seat in the lower House of some random countries:
So, go up to 870 seats to get us out of the top five, then add say 201 PR seats with a 1% threshold.
If we assumed the doubled seats split 222-213 Republican...
Current House would be:
GOP: 552 (51.6% of seats instead of 53.8%)
DEM: 512 (47.9% of seats instead of 46.2%)
LIB: 3 (0.2% of seats instead of 0.0%)
Undecided: 3 (0.2% of seats instead of 0.0%)
If you did all 435 seats by PR with 0.1% threshold:
DEM: 212
GOP: 207
LIB: 5
GRN: 2
CON: 1
REF: 1
Undecided: 7
excellent...
But knowing The Party they'd set the threshold to like 15% or something.
Code:
Code:
1 India 2268522
2 United States 733085
3 Pakistan 573609
4 Bangladesh 554269
5 Nigeria 492099
6 China 453864
7 Indonesia 452874
8 Brazil 395042
9 Philippines 375151
10 Russia 316601
45 South Africa 120939
46 France 114834
47 Ecuador 114266
48 Canada 113100
49 Netherlands 112516
57 United Kingdom 98066
58 Italy 97905
59 Sri Lanka 97184
83 Belgium 69662
84 Honduras 67176
85 Israel 65182
86 Singapore 63992
112 Switzerland 40308
113 Mongolia 38858
114 Oman 38331
115 Somalia 37920
116 Gambia, The 36331
117 Slovakia 36291
118 Korea, North 36174
119 Greece 35919
128 Denmark 31112
129 Namibia 30533
130 Norway 30460
131 Trinidad and Tobago 29852
132 Croatia 29606
133 Ireland 29113
134 Bulgaria 28853
135 Serbia 28839
136 Sweden 27862
137 Finland 26344If we assumed the doubled seats split 222-213 Republican...
Current House would be:
GOP: 552 (51.6% of seats instead of 53.8%)
DEM: 512 (47.9% of seats instead of 46.2%)
LIB: 3 (0.2% of seats instead of 0.0%)
Undecided: 3 (0.2% of seats instead of 0.0%)
If you did all 435 seats by PR with 0.1% threshold:
DEM: 212
GOP: 207
LIB: 5
GRN: 2
CON: 1
REF: 1
Undecided: 7
excellent...
But knowing The Party they'd set the threshold to like 15% or something.
benjipwns
Banned
The next 22 parties in terms of popular vote, all received at least 1000 votes, lol:
Code:
Independence Party
Conservative Party
Independent Green Party
Socialist Workers Party
Americans Elect Party
Bednarski for Congress Party
Independent Reform Candidate Party
No Slogan Party
----Seat allocation would stop here if you gave one seat to each remaining party until the seats were gone----
Liberty Union Party
Opposing Congressional Gridlock Party
Natural Law Party
Change, Change, Change Party
We The People Party
Petition Party
Marijuana Party
Politicians Are Crooks Party
Restoring America's Promise Party
Unity Is Strength Party
Constitutional Conservative Party
Truth Vision Hope Party
VoteKISS Partyneurosisxeno
Member
It's easy to rebuff that concern considering it is illegal for tax payer funds to go towards Abortions. It's literally against the law, so any time they claim that it's bullshit. There's also the fact that a majority of the services places like Planned Parenthood offer have nothing to do with Abortion, but lets not allow the facts to cloud are bigoted judgement.
The argument against that kind of change has always baffled me. It basically boils down to "we don't want the actual views of the entire population represented". If California has a massive population, and they tend to swing to the left, maybe it's indicative of how the entire country feels. It's not like their something about being on the West Coast that just inherently makes you liberal. I don't think viewing the Golden Gate Bridge immediately makes you want to have sex with someone of the same sex and pay higher taxes.
With how goofy the system is now can't someone actualy win the Presidency with like 30% of the Popular Vote?
benjipwns
Banned
Actually, our system doesn't have it as bad as the UK and some other countries do in terms of the "executive" being chosen by 30% or so of the voters because there isn't any consistently viable third party.
But yes, that is possible in our system.
In historical order, under 45%:
1824: J.Q. Adams: 30.9% (four candidates and the House decided the election)
1860: Abraham Lincoln: 39.7% (four candidates, Lincoln wasn't on the ballot in the soon to be Confederacy)
1912: Woodrow Wilson: 41.8% (four candidates including former President Teddy Roosevelt, GOP candidate Taft came in third)
1968: Richard Nixon: 43.4% (George Wallace)
1992: Bill Clinton: 43.0% (Ross Perot)
Bill Clinton, Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson are the only two-term Presidents (via election) to never get 50+% of the popular vote.
But yes, that is possible in our system.
In historical order, under 45%:
1824: J.Q. Adams: 30.9% (four candidates and the House decided the election)
1860: Abraham Lincoln: 39.7% (four candidates, Lincoln wasn't on the ballot in the soon to be Confederacy)
1912: Woodrow Wilson: 41.8% (four candidates including former President Teddy Roosevelt, GOP candidate Taft came in third)
1968: Richard Nixon: 43.4% (George Wallace)
1992: Bill Clinton: 43.0% (Ross Perot)
Bill Clinton, Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson are the only two-term Presidents (via election) to never get 50+% of the popular vote.
Theoretically you could win with just 11 votes, provided you win the biggest 11 States with vote tallies of 1 to 0. But of course that won't happen.
In practice as Nate Silver once explained, once you start winning by about 4% or more in the popular vote it becomes extremely statistically improbable that the Electoral College won't come down in your favor.
Based upon the current way the Electoral College favors Democrats though, it's not difficult for them to win the Presidency with an unfavorable popular vote split of say, 48% to 51%, due to favorable demographics in the Hispanic heavy Southwestern States, the Midwest, and Virginia (importantly).
neurosisxeno
Member
Well since the early 20th century we've had veer few instances of legitimate 3rd Party Candidates, so the assumption is that you're voting for a Democrat or a Republican. Throw out 2% for random third parties if you want, that means of the entire electoate you're aiming for that 98%. Assuming a fair distribution you would then have 49% as Republicans and 49% as Democrats. Even a 5% swing is pretty massive.
But I was referring to the lopsided representation of delegates. I remember hearing that if you targeted exclusively over-represented states (a lot of 3 delegate states fall into this area) you could walk away with a majority of the Electoral College Votes but only ~30% of the Popular Vote (with the required 50.1% in all of these states). If you were able to win with 30% of the Popular Vote, that would mean your opponent would have ~68% of the Popular Vote, with random third party candidates taking up the remaining 2%. That means we could legitimately have an elected President that over 2/3 of the population of the entire country didn't want.
That is fundamentally flawed.
But I was referring to the lopsided representation of delegates. I remember hearing that if you targeted exclusively over-represented states (a lot of 3 delegate states fall into this area) you could walk away with a majority of the Electoral College Votes but only ~30% of the Popular Vote (with the required 50.1% in all of these states). If you were able to win with 30% of the Popular Vote, that would mean your opponent would have ~68% of the Popular Vote, with random third party candidates taking up the remaining 2%. That means we could legitimately have an elected President that over 2/3 of the population of the entire country didn't want.
That is fundamentally flawed.
benjipwns
Banned
Well, if you assume nobody that actively votes for a candidate doesn't want them for President that happens every election...
Still, because we have only two real parties it's much more rare compared to our fellow English speakers:
To take the UK for example, just since 1970:
Feb 1974: Labour with 37.2% (Tories got 37.9%)
Oct 1974: Labour with 39.2% (won a majority of seats)
1979: Tories with 43.9% (won a majority of seats) - Thatcher
1983: Tories with 42.4% (gained 58 seats!)
1987: Tories with 42.2% (still majority)
1992: Tories with 41.9% (majority)
1997: Labour with 43.2% (418 seats out of 659, gained 145 seats!) - Blair
2001: Labour with 40.7% (413 seats)
2005: Labour with 35.2% (still majority)
2010: Tories with 36.1% (gained 97 seats, needed LD for majority) - Cameron
And our neighbors to the north it happens:
1984: PC's get 50.0% (211/282 seats) - Mulroney
1988: PC's get 43.0% (majority)
1993: Liberals get 41.2% (majority, gain 96 seats...PC's fall to 2 seats) - Chretien
1997: Liberals get 38.5% (majority)
2000: Liberals get 40.9% (majority)
2004: Liberals get 36.7% (minority)
2006: Cons get 36.3% (minority) - Harper
2008: Cons get 37.7% (minority)
2011: Cons get 39.6% (majority)
For a period, the way you described was almost how it was happening in Canada, you had Reform, Alliance, NDP, PQ strong within only select provinces while the Liberals racked up enough wins across the country to gain majorities of seats with 60+% of the country voting for someone else.
Still, because we have only two real parties it's much more rare compared to our fellow English speakers:
To take the UK for example, just since 1970:
Feb 1974: Labour with 37.2% (Tories got 37.9%)
Oct 1974: Labour with 39.2% (won a majority of seats)
1979: Tories with 43.9% (won a majority of seats) - Thatcher
1983: Tories with 42.4% (gained 58 seats!)
1987: Tories with 42.2% (still majority)
1992: Tories with 41.9% (majority)
1997: Labour with 43.2% (418 seats out of 659, gained 145 seats!) - Blair
2001: Labour with 40.7% (413 seats)
2005: Labour with 35.2% (still majority)
2010: Tories with 36.1% (gained 97 seats, needed LD for majority) - Cameron
And our neighbors to the north it happens:
1984: PC's get 50.0% (211/282 seats) - Mulroney
1988: PC's get 43.0% (majority)
1993: Liberals get 41.2% (majority, gain 96 seats...PC's fall to 2 seats) - Chretien
1997: Liberals get 38.5% (majority)
2000: Liberals get 40.9% (majority)
2004: Liberals get 36.7% (minority)
2006: Cons get 36.3% (minority) - Harper
2008: Cons get 37.7% (minority)
2011: Cons get 39.6% (majority)
For a period, the way you described was almost how it was happening in Canada, you had Reform, Alliance, NDP, PQ strong within only select provinces while the Liberals racked up enough wins across the country to gain majorities of seats with 60+% of the country voting for someone else.
I'm going to be very interested in seeing how far Virginia has come over the past four years. The folks over at FreeRepublic talk about the state as though it's gone for them.
If it's true, Virginia being called earlier could make election night a bit more boring. Not that I'd object.
I have my absentee ballot. Haven't mailed it yet, will probably do that this week.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
Exactly though I do like MMP as a better system for federal-type systems
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation
The system is working because its was never designed to allow popular 50% majorities to enact what they want. Madison was pretty explicit about this.. Gerrymandering and protecting the landed is built into the system.
I'm not saying the house would be the same in 2010 if the dems won, it just would be gerrymandered another way with certain people being disenfranchised not others. There is no way to get rid of gerrymandering without abandoning geographically contiguous districts.
I don't think expanding the house does much, you'd have to pretty much double it to see any appreciable difference and even then what are we getting? A more responsive legislature? I doubt it. I think say half a million is a pretty good size for a country of 300,000 ,0000. But again look at state and local elections, it doesn't take much to capture the representatives.
My point is liberals if they want to talk about change should fundamentally rethink many things in the constitution rather than tinker with ultimately meaningless changes (adding more representatives, term limits, non-partisian district drawing). Changes such as senate reform, electoral reform (changing the staggering), finance reform on the constitutional level, etc.
zero shift
Banned
Why not do what France does and have two elections? One for all parties and a second for the top two? Or do what New Zealand does and do MMP? /obvious question
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