The Hill: Van Hollen targeting N.J. seats, but state GOP officials unafraid

[Sam Spade]

B

We have to wait until redistricting to pick up NJ seats, but we almost certainly will after that.

Why do you say that?

Because the Dems will likely control redistricting and undo the egregious GOP gerrymandering plan. If  NJ loses 1 seat, the new delegation could be 9-3 in favor of the Democrats.

I can't wait till the Democrats get greedy and squeeze out all those worthless NE Republicans.  The GOP plan in the South was to get rid of white Democrats in order to convince anglo voters that the Democrats are the "weird sex and minority party" to quote Grover Norquist. My plan is to get rid of ALL Northeast Republicans.

Chris Shays,  besa mi culo!

No, the GOP plan in the South was to trick blacks into creating majority-minority districts that packed all of the black(read 95% Democratic) voters into one district, leaving the adjecent districts whiter and heavily Republican.  This is a big part of why Republicans took control of the House in 1994. 

In Alabama in 1992, they created a 70% black district which is AL-07(now its 61% black).  The old AL-07 was about 35% black and elected blue dog Democrats.  By packing so many blacks into AL-07, they took blacks out of AL-06 which was once 40% black(now only 7%) in to defeat an incumbent Democrat.  It also took blacks out of AL-02 so the Democrat would fall short in the open seat race in November.  The Democrats lost two House seats in Alabama aloe because of this.

In Georgia in 1992, they created two heavily black districts GA-02(57%) and GA-11(64% black).  GA-02 had previously been 32% black and elected blue dog Democrats and GA-11 was new district.  Well all of this led to a drop in the black percentage in GA-01, GA-03, GA-04, and GA-08 which had all been Democratic seats.  Between the 1992 and 1994 elections, Democrats lost all five seats to Republicans as a result.

Similar situations occured in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida denying Democratic victories in another five seats.

 

Yes, operation rat, as Ben Ginsberg called it. The plan was to pack black voters into heavily black districts, thus diluting the Democratic vote in other non minority majority districts. It worked.

I think my earlier description was apt. No need to jump on a turtle that's already on its back.

I like your conspiracy plan gentlemen, except Democrats drew all those minority-majority seats in the South in the states you're referring to in the early 1990s, with the implicit push of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

[Sam Spade]

Just a couple of facts here:  Back in the early 1990s, the Republicans didn't have enough clout in most Southern state legislatures (certainly not Texas and Georgia) to implement any plans.  The number of Democratic state legislators who were minorities were much smaller as well.

Democrats like Martin Frost pushed through these plans to create three basic types of seats:  packed urban black CDs that were safe for minority Democrats, packed rural white CDs that were safe for the incumbent white Democrats, and packed suburban white CDs that were safe for Republicans.

Of course, 1994 came along and most of these rural seats got taken over in the wave.  Then the South started expanding and many of these rural areas became suburban and more GOP naturally.

I don't see what DeLay has to do with this:  DeLay's plan was essentially to create as many suburban-majority seats as possible while keeping the minority-majority ones, and secondly it was about 10 years after.

[Sam Spade]

B

We have to wait until redistricting to pick up NJ seats, but we almost certainly will after that.

Why do you say that?

Because the Dems will likely control redistricting and undo the egregious GOP gerrymandering plan. If  NJ loses 1 seat, the new delegation could be 9-3 in favor of the Democrats.

I can't wait till the Democrats get greedy and squeeze out all those worthless NE Republicans.  The GOP plan in the South was to get rid of white Democrats in order to convince anglo voters that the Democrats are the "weird sex and minority party" to quote Grover Norquist. My plan is to get rid of ALL Northeast Republicans.

Chris Shays,  besa mi culo!

No, the GOP plan in the South was to trick blacks into creating majority-minority districts that packed all of the black(read 95% Democratic) voters into one district, leaving the adjecent districts whiter and heavily Republican.  This is a big part of why Republicans took control of the House in 1994. 

In Alabama in 1992, they created a 70% black district which is AL-07(now its 61% black).  The old AL-07 was about 35% black and elected blue dog Democrats.  By packing so many blacks into AL-07, they took blacks out of AL-06 which was once 40% black(now only 7%) in to defeat an incumbent Democrat.  It also took blacks out of AL-02 so the Democrat would fall short in the open seat race in November.  The Democrats lost two House seats in Alabama aloe because of this.

In Georgia in 1992, they created two heavily black districts GA-02(57%) and GA-11(64% black).  GA-02 had previously been 32% black and elected blue dog Democrats and GA-11 was new district.  Well all of this led to a drop in the black percentage in GA-01, GA-03, GA-04, and GA-08 which had all been Democratic seats.  Between the 1992 and 1994 elections, Democrats lost all five seats to Republicans as a result.

Similar situations occured in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida denying Democratic victories in another five seats.

 

Yes, operation rat, as Ben Ginsberg called it. The plan was to pack black voters into heavily black districts, thus diluting the Democratic vote in other non minority majority districts. It worked.

I think my earlier description was apt. No need to jump on a turtle that's already on its back.

I like your conspiracy plan gentlemen, except Democrats drew all those minority-majority seats in the South in the states you're referring to in the early 1990s, with the implicit push of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Democrats did not draw these seats.  Republicans tricked black Democrats into drawing these seats.  Also, the Bush 41 Justice Department decided to wrongly interpret the VRA as having to create majority-minority districts in order to help Republicans win a majority.

The creation of minority-majority districts did not create a Republican majority.  Please look at the numbers and tell me whether things would have been any different.