Republicans move to strengthen GA House gerrymander in mid-decade redistricting

[Virginiá]

http://www.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/democrats-cry-foul-house-republicans-redraw-district-lines/sOOXVi3vMCWJCB7gpAntTN/

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[Torie]

What disgusting HOGS. And it's like waiving a red bandana in front of the increasingly restive judicial bull. So to amend my statement, what disgusting stupid HOGS.

[Virginiá]

What disgusting HOGS. And it's like waiving a red bandana in front of the increasingly restive judicial bull. So to amend my statement, what disgusting stupid HOGS.

Allowing legislatures to freely redraw maps at will seems like one of the bigger mistakes of our system that really should have been rectified a long time ago. Combined with powerful gerrymandering capabilities, it presents a situation where the majority power can continuously redraw their legislative maps to compensate for any places the minority party appears to be making gains. What is the point of even having elections if we allow this behavior?

All of this is so frustrating to me!

[Nyvin]

It's not like their majority was in jeopardy anyway,  I doubt even the super-majority was in much trouble....this is just straight up greed.

[muon2]

Many state's constitutions allow redistricting only once per decade. The fix would be to get that language in all state's constitutions, but that would be difficult. Maybe there's a federal case to be made that by mid-decade the Census counts are far enough away from reality that legislative changes to the map not ordered by the courts would likely violate limits imposed by OMOV.

It's not like their majority was in jeopardy anyway,  I doubt even the super-majority was in much trouble....this is just straight up greed.

Never underestimate the desire for incumbents to protect themselves, even ahead of their party.

[Skill and Chance]

What disgusting HOGS. And it's like waiving a red bandana in front of the increasingly restive judicial bull. So to amend my statement, what disgusting stupid HOGS.

It really doesn't make any sense.  If they spread themselves too thin and things go south for Trump, they get a Dem Gov and get stuck well below 2/3rds.  This bill alone measurably increases their odds of losing the governorship.

[Adam Griffin]

It's not like their majority was in jeopardy anyway,  I doubt even the super-majority was in much trouble....this is just straight up greed.

Possibly, this is about the next round of maps. Their ability to function as a veto-proof supermajority has disappeared over the past couple of years - they had exactly two-thirds (120/180 votes) when including the conservative-leaning independent Rusty Kidd, meaning they only needed 1 Democrat to side with them on anything to override or put constitutional amendments on the ballot. As of now, they have 118 seats. There are 14 districts that the GOP holds in the State House that Clinton carried in 2016 (meaning 76/180 voted for Clinton and/or State House Dems). By the time 2021 rolls around under the current set of maps, they may very well lose another half-dozen seats or more.

Shoring up a couple of the most vulnerable seats might at minimum make it possible for them to be in a position (with a few selfish Democratic votes) to override a veto from a potential Democratic Governor during the next round of maps. It's not just HDs 111 and 40 that are being targeted here - though they are the most obvious and immediate targets - but the precinct boundary movements in 34/35/36 and 47/49/53 also suggest that they're trying to shore up the 1 in each of those groupings that Hillary came somewhat close to winning (even though I think those are not likely to be vulnerable before 2021, and there are in fact other districts left untouched that are much more vulnerable).

[KingSweden]

It's not like their majority was in jeopardy anyway,  I doubt even the super-majority was in much trouble....this is just straight up greed.

Possibly, this is about the next round of maps. Their ability to function as a veto-proof supermajority has disappeared over the past couple of years - they had exactly two-thirds (120/180 votes) when including the conservative-leaning independent Rusty Kidd, meaning they only needed 1 Democrat to side with them on anything to override or put constitutional amendments on the ballot. As of now, they have 118 seats. There are 14 districts that the GOP holds in the State House that Clinton carried in 2016 (meaning 76/180 voted for Clinton and/or State House Dems). By the time 2021 rolls around under the current set of maps, they may very well lose another half-dozen seats or more.

Shoring up a couple of the most vulnerable seats might at minimum make it possible for them to be in a position (with a few selfish Democratic votes) to override a veto from a potential Democratic Governor during the next round of maps. It's not just HDs 111 and 40 that are being targeted here - though they are the most obvious and immediate targets - but the precinct boundary movements in 34/35/36 and 47/49/53 also suggest that they're trying to shore up the 1 in each of those groupings that Hillary came somewhat close to winning (even though I think those are not likely to be vulnerable before 2021, and there are in fact other districts left untouched that are much more vulnerable).

So IOW, they're not just being petty and greedy, but also stupid

[Adam Griffin]

It's not like their majority was in jeopardy anyway,  I doubt even the super-majority was in much trouble....this is just straight up greed.

Possibly, this is about the next round of maps. Their ability to function as a veto-proof supermajority has disappeared over the past couple of years - they had exactly two-thirds (120/180 votes) when including the conservative-leaning independent Rusty Kidd, meaning they only needed 1 Democrat to side with them on anything to override or put constitutional amendments on the ballot. As of now, they have 118 seats. There are 14 districts that the GOP holds in the State House that Clinton carried in 2016 (meaning 76/180 voted for Clinton and/or State House Dems). By the time 2021 rolls around under the current set of maps, they may very well lose another half-dozen seats or more.

Shoring up a couple of the most vulnerable seats might at minimum make it possible for them to be in a position (with a few selfish Democratic votes) to override a veto from a potential Democratic Governor during the next round of maps. It's not just HDs 111 and 40 that are being targeted here - though they are the most obvious and immediate targets - but the precinct boundary movements in 34/35/36 and 47/49/53 also suggest that they're trying to shore up the 1 in each of those groupings that Hillary came somewhat close to winning (even though I think those are not likely to be vulnerable before 2021, and there are in fact other districts left untouched that are much more vulnerable).

So IOW, they're not just being petty and greedy, but also stupid

I mean, presumably with all of their advanced demographic data/software access, they're doing this for a reason. I still don't get why they're leaving all of the Gwinnett districts untouched, though: them touching 40 & 111 made it obvious to everybody what they're doing, so why not go for the gold? Maybe I'm too legally ignorant here, but I don't see how it'd be any more likely that a blatant racial/partisan gerrymander for a couple of seats survives a court case than one that goes after a dozen seats.

[Nyvin]

This is probably just testing the waters to see if they can get away with it.   If nobody raises concerns and they lose GA-6 later on, they'll re-gerrymander the Congressional districts too.