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PoliGAF 2013 |OT2| Worth 77% of OT1
- Thread starter The Librarian
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Is this trying to say majority rule no longer exists because democrats control senate + presidency and can't get anything done or that it no longer exists because republicans control the house and can't get anything done?
bodyofanamerican
Member
I think you're over thinking it
A minority is preventing a clear majority from executing their will.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
Wolf Blitzer was awoken from his slumber. It was pretty crazy.
That is so awesome.
Shao Kahn on the Lawn
Member
It's not even a problem with the House as they have the votes to pass a clean bill. Boehner and the Tea Party faction will not allow a vote to be put up because they know it will pass and they don't want something to pass without concessions from the Democrats.
Our government is being held hostage by a minority of the House.
When was this? Can I catch it anywhere?
The Librarian
Banned
Huh. I know gerrymandering has been thrown around a lot here, but here are two good articles on it.
Nate Cohn
John Sides
Nate Cohn
You don't have to look far to find people diagnosing gerrymandering as the source of all of our nations woes, including (but surely not limited to) the shutdown. From this perspective, Republicans are gerrymandered into districts so conservative that the GOP is held hostage by ultraconservative primary electorates. Even President Obama has blamed the GOP "fever" on gerrymandering. These concerns are not totally misplaced. Gerrymandering is undemocratic, and it did help consolidate the GOPs House majority in 2012. But, as Ive written before, the significance of gerrymandering is exaggerated. Republicans are in safe districts for an incredibly simple reason: Most of the country just isnt competitive.
Take Texas, a famously gerrymandered state. If you want to create competitive districts, you dont have many great options. Of the states 254 counties, 244 were won by either Obama or Romney by at least 10 points. That's not how it used to be: Back in 1996, 92 counties were within 10 points. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these non-competitive counties tend to be extremely Republican. A whopping 176 of Texas 254 counties voted for Romney by more than a 40 point margin (at least 70-30). 81 of those counties voted for Romney by at least 60 points (ie 80-20). So, even a fair map would create plenty of incredibly red, safe, ultraconservative districts.
As a result, its very difficult to draw competitive districts that retain geographic and demographic coherence. In fact, one would need to gerrymander Texas to make competitive districts, connecting heavily Democratic cities with large minority populations to the deeply conservative countryside. And even that strategy might be struck down under the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority-majority districts.
Take Texas, a famously gerrymandered state. If you want to create competitive districts, you dont have many great options. Of the states 254 counties, 244 were won by either Obama or Romney by at least 10 points. That's not how it used to be: Back in 1996, 92 counties were within 10 points. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these non-competitive counties tend to be extremely Republican. A whopping 176 of Texas 254 counties voted for Romney by more than a 40 point margin (at least 70-30). 81 of those counties voted for Romney by at least 60 points (ie 80-20). So, even a fair map would create plenty of incredibly red, safe, ultraconservative districts.
As a result, its very difficult to draw competitive districts that retain geographic and demographic coherence. In fact, one would need to gerrymander Texas to make competitive districts, connecting heavily Democratic cities with large minority populations to the deeply conservative countryside. And even that strategy might be struck down under the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority-majority districts.
John Sides
In a recent interview in The New Republic, President Obama said this about the politics surrounding gun control:
Obama expressed a common view: that gerrymandering has created a bunch of safe seats for each party, making representatives responsive only to their partisan base and unwilling to forge bipartisan compromises.
It would be nice if this view were true, because it would suggest a clear solution to our polarized politics: draw more competitive districts. But unfortunately it is not true. The most important influence on how members of Congress vote is not their constituents, but their party. This makes them out-of-step not only with the average American -- the "broad-based public opinion" that Obama mentioned -- but also, and ironically, with even their base. Members are more partisan than even voters in their party.
The easiest way to see how little constituency matters is to compare how representatives vote to the partisanship of their constituents. Here is what the 113th House looks like so far, based on calculations (pdf) by Stanford political scientist Simon Jackman
The vertical axis is a measure of candidate ideology based on roll call voting. Higher numbers indicate more conservative views, and lower numbers indicate more liberal views. The horizontal axis captures how well Obama did in that district in 2008. The red dots are Republican House members and the blue dots are Democrats. All of the red dots are higher than all of the blue dots. Polarization in the 113th Congress is already evident.
The important thing in this graph is the black lines that capture the relationship between, essentially, how liberal or conservative the member's constituents are and how liberal or conservative the member is. Those lines should slope downward: the more liberal the district, the more liberal the member. But the lines are mostly flat, with only a slight downward slope among Republicans. No matter whether Obama won 20 percent or 50 percent of their district, Republican representatives have voted similarly -- that is, they have taken conservative positions on average. No matter whether Obama won 50 percent or 80 percent of their district, Democratic representatives have taken liberal positions, on average. Constituency hasn't affected anyone's overall voting behavior that much.
That does not mean that you don't have some real big differences. The House Republican majority is made up mostly of members who are in sharply gerrymandered districts that are very safely Republican and may not feel compelled to pay attention to broad-based public opinion, because what they're really concerned about is the opinions of their specific Republican constituencies.
Obama expressed a common view: that gerrymandering has created a bunch of safe seats for each party, making representatives responsive only to their partisan base and unwilling to forge bipartisan compromises.
It would be nice if this view were true, because it would suggest a clear solution to our polarized politics: draw more competitive districts. But unfortunately it is not true. The most important influence on how members of Congress vote is not their constituents, but their party. This makes them out-of-step not only with the average American -- the "broad-based public opinion" that Obama mentioned -- but also, and ironically, with even their base. Members are more partisan than even voters in their party.
The easiest way to see how little constituency matters is to compare how representatives vote to the partisanship of their constituents. Here is what the 113th House looks like so far, based on calculations (pdf) by Stanford political scientist Simon Jackman
The vertical axis is a measure of candidate ideology based on roll call voting. Higher numbers indicate more conservative views, and lower numbers indicate more liberal views. The horizontal axis captures how well Obama did in that district in 2008. The red dots are Republican House members and the blue dots are Democrats. All of the red dots are higher than all of the blue dots. Polarization in the 113th Congress is already evident.
The important thing in this graph is the black lines that capture the relationship between, essentially, how liberal or conservative the member's constituents are and how liberal or conservative the member is. Those lines should slope downward: the more liberal the district, the more liberal the member. But the lines are mostly flat, with only a slight downward slope among Republicans. No matter whether Obama won 20 percent or 50 percent of their district, Republican representatives have voted similarly -- that is, they have taken conservative positions on average. No matter whether Obama won 50 percent or 80 percent of their district, Democratic representatives have taken liberal positions, on average. Constituency hasn't affected anyone's overall voting behavior that much.
So basically, according to Evangelicals, gays are the root of all evil. Gotcha.
I have to say, I'm a little doubtful about the political wisdom of killing the mini-spending bills in the Senate. I understand the theory that passing them will take the bad publicity off and give the GOP breathing room, but a) I'm not convinced it matters in terms of media coverage, and b) the debt ceiling is coming up, so this'll presumably get resolved one way or another.
cooljeanius
Member
Hey he was a professor at my school! One of my other professors was good friends with him and had him guest-lecture for some of my classes...
Yes, I understand what you are saying... However, if these piecemeal funding bills go through, this just gives more of a horrah for Fox News to drum up and in tern, make the Democrats look bad.
It's all Republican game playing to make themselves look less ignorant and at fault and try to place the blame on someone else.
It is working, too, because Fox News was going on and on about how the Republicans are trying, and the Democrats are just saying "no".
Always strikes me as gross to see people say it doesn't matter... no matter how right they might be. Beneath all this political garbage there are a lot of real people getting hurt.
bodyofanamerican
Member
In this case, I would also consider the source (the WSJ) alongside the lack of any context around this quote before thinking the WH is celebrating too early.
PhoenixDark
Banned
How many would you approve though? The obvious point of this is to fund the "good" parts of government and thus defuse the crisis, then keep Obamacare/"bad" parts of government shuttered. I agree with paying the troops obviously, but I wouldn't support opening any other piece of government in a piecemeal approach.
This is a crisis, and should remain a crisis until it is completely resolved.
Agreed. It just looks foolish. Obama saying "It's my way" wasn't the brightest idea either. He could have phrased it differently.
Agreed. I think fighting the precedent that the government can be piecemeal funded is just as important a fight as the fight against taking hostages in order to keep the government funded.
Granted, I'd like it over sooner rather than later since I'm furloughed - but at least this happens at the start of the month right after a paycheck, so I'm good for at least a month before I need to dip into savings of any sort (and that's only because I drop everything in savings and keep my checking balance pretty low).
Still, I need to call some coworkers and see whether any of them actually applied for unemployment during the '96 shutdown that lasted three weeks. If this gets resolved quickly there'd be no need obviously, but months and months? I don't think even GS-15 people could tolerate that (I'm not a GS-15 by the way, haha) - though I can't imagine this going that long . . . I hope . . . better stop . . . I'm going to go-Diablo any minute now.
Those are both very interesting. This part:
This approach is actually endorsed by CGPGrey video in his nice video on gerrymandering to some extent, which is to say that artificially manipulating the district boundaries to be more competitive would make races in those districts more representative of their populations. I'd still prefer the shortest-split line method but it's an interesting thought. I hadn't considered any potential conflict with the voting rights act, though, I'm not sure where that would come into play.
bodyofanamerican
Member
Ok, maybe I spoke too soon about the WSJ quote being meaningless/out of context. I wonder what they're doing?
Vestal
Junior Member
IMO the GOP piecemeal argument can be torn apart by the simple fact that they have not put a clean CR up for a vote on the house floor.
If in fact a clean CR would get voted down on the floor, then the argument for piecemeal legislation would actually make sense.
Then again "making sense" and GOP usually don't go together.
jamesinclair
Banned
Fair enough.
Just read Chait's piece on the debt ceiling from a week ago:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/debt-ceiling-showdown-the-fight-of-obamas-life.html
We're doomed.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/09/debt-ceiling-showdown-the-fight-of-obamas-life.html
We're doomed.
jamesinclair
Banned
The democrats cant be this idiotic.
Theyre already losing the messaging game with the GOP strategy of approving 100 mini budgets
IE:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/l...d-DC-Government-Through-Dec-15-226193921.html
Comments:
Man that senior administration official quoted need to be spanked, and fast. There is no cause for celebration of any kind nor should the phrase "doesn't matter" enter into the equation at any point on this one.
Just be resolute and silent and let your bosses give quotes to the press for the moment, fellas.
Just be resolute and silent and let your bosses give quotes to the press for the moment, fellas.
The Librarian
Banned
This gaffe will cause Obama to lose the shutdown fight just like his gaffes caused him to lose the last election.
cooljeanius
Member
Always relevant: http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he-imagines-c,2849/THE TEA PARTY.
Sounds right. It was just philosophically disheartening; of course it matters how long it lasts. I understand what the source meant but they get quoted on what they say.
God I love The Onion. Thanks, had not had the pleasure of reading this one yet
The Librarian
Banned
Yeah yeah.
We're playing with fire here, it isn't a coincidence that Obama feels as strongly about this as anything else. He knows if it goes south it will have a profound impact on his Presidency and his party.
I'd agree that quote probably won't fuck them over, but given how tense everything is, any little slip someone makes from a PR standpoint is going to be magnified.
jamesinclair
Banned
Seriously.
DEMOCRATS JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Youre the WORST at messaging. The WORST.
How about instead of "hee hee we're winning" you parade around a 75 year old diner owner in Jackson Wyoming who is fucked because all her tourists are gone?
Are you really citing comments? Come on dude, you know better.
Diablos is right that we shouldn't be overconfident, but the Dems are WINNING the messaging war for once. Or have you not been paying attention to anything but FOX?
If this goes on, a campaign to give some anecdotes of the pain caused by the shutdown for actual people with names would be incredibly potent. Numbers don't always get people riled up.
But I will agree that drawing conclusions about whether they're "winning or losing" on the messaging front from web content comment sections is a bit of folly.
Black Mamba
Member
Huh. I know gerrymandering has been thrown around a lot here, but here are two good articles on it.
Nate Cohn
You don't have to look far to find people diagnosing gerrymandering as the source of all of our nations woes, including (but surely not limited to) the shutdown. From this perspective, Republicans are gerrymandered into districts so conservative that the GOP is held hostage by ultraconservative primary electorates. Even President Obama has blamed the GOP "fever" on gerrymandering. These concerns are not totally misplaced. Gerrymandering is undemocratic, and it did help consolidate the GOPs House majority in 2012. But, as Ive written before, the significance of gerrymandering is exaggerated. Republicans are in safe districts for an incredibly simple reason: Most of the country just isnt competitive.
Take Texas, a famously gerrymandered state. If you want to create competitive districts, you dont have many great options. Of the states 254 counties, 244 were won by either Obama or Romney by at least 10 points. That's not how it used to be: Back in 1996, 92 counties were within 10 points. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these non-competitive counties tend to be extremely Republican. A whopping 176 of Texas 254 counties voted for Romney by more than a 40 point margin (at least 70-30). 81 of those counties voted for Romney by at least 60 points (ie 80-20). So, even a fair map would create plenty of incredibly red, safe, ultraconservative districts.
As a result, its very difficult to draw competitive districts that retain geographic and demographic coherence. In fact, one would need to gerrymander Texas to make competitive districts, connecting heavily Democratic cities with large minority populations to the deeply conservative countryside. And even that strategy might be struck down under the Voting Rights Act, which protects minority-majority districts.
John Sides
In a recent interview in The New Republic, President Obama said this about the politics surrounding gun control:
That does not mean that you don't have some real big differences. The House Republican majority is made up mostly of members who are in sharply gerrymandered districts that are very safely Republican and may not feel compelled to pay attention to broad-based public opinion, because what they're really concerned about is the opinions of their specific Republican constituencies.
Obama expressed a common view: that gerrymandering has created a bunch of safe seats for each party, making representatives responsive only to their partisan base and unwilling to forge bipartisan compromises.
It would be nice if this view were true, because it would suggest a clear solution to our polarized politics: draw more competitive districts. But unfortunately it is not true. The most important influence on how members of Congress vote is not their constituents, but their party. This makes them out-of-step not only with the average American -- the "broad-based public opinion" that Obama mentioned -- but also, and ironically, with even their base. Members are more partisan than even voters in their party.
The easiest way to see how little constituency matters is to compare how representatives vote to the partisanship of their constituents. Here is what the 113th House looks like so far, based on calculations (pdf) by Stanford political scientist Simon Jackman
The vertical axis is a measure of candidate ideology based on roll call voting. Higher numbers indicate more conservative views, and lower numbers indicate more liberal views. The horizontal axis captures how well Obama did in that district in 2008. The red dots are Republican House members and the blue dots are Democrats. All of the red dots are higher than all of the blue dots. Polarization in the 113th Congress is already evident.
The important thing in this graph is the black lines that capture the relationship between, essentially, how liberal or conservative the member's constituents are and how liberal or conservative the member is. Those lines should slope downward: the more liberal the district, the more liberal the member. But the lines are mostly flat, with only a slight downward slope among Republicans. No matter whether Obama won 20 percent or 50 percent of their district, Republican representatives have voted similarly -- that is, they have taken conservative positions on average. No matter whether Obama won 50 percent or 80 percent of their district, Democratic representatives have taken liberal positions, on average. Constituency hasn't affected anyone's overall voting behavior that much.
Bringing up voting patterns doesn't make sense to me because they problem isn't in what has been voted on but rather what isn't getting a vote. Of course the line should be flat as anything that gets a vote will be a compromise in the middle or a political show.
The problem is that a clean cr isn't up for a vote at all! Very disappointing article.
The Librarian
Banned
They're just saying that gerrymandering isn't the *sole* reason we're in this mess, and that it's been given too much weight as to why we're here.
jamesinclair
Banned
Theyve really sucked at showing the real effects.
Fed pay day isnt until next Friday anyway, so no one has actually "not been paid" yet.
They need to walk around DC and find every lunch spot that lost 25% of their customers.
They need to go to the towns around national parks, because "real americans" live there, rent hiking gear, sell sandwiches and run motels.
They need to find kids going hungry because WIC is gone.
The Librarian
Banned
Great debt ceiling primer from Brad Plumer.
theprodigy
Member
what if he works for Exxon and was the one who put it there! *gasp*
tweet stealer!
They need a shot of me slamming my desk every half hour because I rely on the census all the time to be empirical in internet arguments and THIS is pissing me off! They can't even afford their logo image right now :'(
The Librarian
Banned
shhhhhhhhhhh
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