CONGRESSIONAL RESULTS MEGA THREAD

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

House Democrats should agree not to seat Hart in exchange for IA-3 being turned into a Safe D seat.

[Tekken_Guy]

Should Democrats do a compromise and agree to seat Miller-Meeks in exchange for Tenney’s concession?

What would be the incentive for Hart and Tenney to agree to this?

Bipartisanship.

[Skill and Chance]

House Democrats should agree not to seat Hart in exchange for IA-3 being turned into a Safe D seat.

There's a commission process that R's could technically mess with if they really wanted to.  Don't give them a reason by seating Hart.  The algorithm favors a compact Des Moines seat and IA-03 will have to shrink, probably by enough to flip it to a Biden win.   

[MarkD]

House Democrats should agree not to seat Hart in exchange for IA-3 being turned into a Safe D seat.

There's a commission process that R's could technically mess with if they really wanted to.  Don't give them a reason by seating Hart.  The algorithm favors a compact Des Moines seat and IA-03 will have to shrink, probably by enough to flip it to a Biden win.   

In forty years, since the passing of the law regarding redistricting, the Iowa state legislature has never rejected the maps drawn by the Legislative Services Agency.
For Paul Mitchell is a FF, redistricting has, for the last forty years, always been done by a state agency called the Legislative Services Agency. This article describes how the process works. As it says in that article, "It is explicit in state law that district lines cannot be drawn 'to favor a political party, incumbent, or other person or group.' " You can read more about the redistricting law here.

[Antonio the Sixth]

What I don't understand about the IA-2 situation is why Hart hasn't taken the matter to state courts before appealing to the House. If she has legitimate reasons to believe the law wasn't properly followed, the courts should be able to offer remedy (and I guess if there's a federal claim she can file in federal court too, though that seems like a reach). If the law was followed, then the House should absolutely NOT seat her. That would be an egregious breach of democratic norms and I don't see how Democrats can advocate that with a straight face given what's happening right now.

[UncleSam]

House Democrats should agree not to seat Hart in exchange for IA-3 being turned into a Safe D seat.

There's a commission process that R's could technically mess with if they really wanted to.  Don't give them a reason by seating Hart.  The algorithm favors a compact Des Moines seat and IA-03 will have to shrink, probably by enough to flip it to a Biden win.   

Wouldn’t that be a bad thing for Dems? I feel like packing IA-3 into a Safe D seat would turn the other three into Likely R at worst, wouldn’t it? I’d think Dems would want a good shot at 2 seats in Iowa.

[Pericles]

Wouldn't Hart being the incumbent reduce the chances of a gerrymander? IA-02 would be a harder race for Republicans in 2022, it's harder to beat an incumbent than re-elect your own incumbent. So they would be less inclined to go 4-0 and risk another 2-2 in the process.

[Roll Roons]

House Democrats should agree not to seat Hart in exchange for IA-3 being turned into a Safe D seat.

There's a commission process that R's could technically mess with if they really wanted to.  Don't give them a reason by seating Hart.  The algorithm favors a compact Des Moines seat and IA-03 will have to shrink, probably by enough to flip it to a Biden win.   

Wouldn’t that be a bad thing for Dems? I feel like packing IA-3 into a Safe D seat would turn the other three into Likely R at worst, wouldn’t it? I’d think Dems would want a good shot at 2 seats in Iowa.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/80edb2be-5014-447a-8745-9428863ce3b8

Managed to create a Des Moines-centered district that only includes 7 counties and even voted for Hillary by over 4 points. It's not completely safe for Democrats, but they would start out favored in most years.

IA-01 and IA-02 don't change a ton. The former becomes slightly more Republican and the latter slightly more Democratic, although it still voted for Trump by just under 3 points in 2016. Rita Hart probably would have won this version of it. Both could still be winnable in a good year for Democrats, though probably IA-02 more so than IA-01.

IA-04 becomes Titanium R, as it loses Story County to IA-03 and takes in all of those very Republican counties in the state's southwest corner.

I feel like this is close to what a nonpartisan commission might come up with. The added bonus is that all four incumbents have a district to run in.

[Skill and Chance]

House Democrats should agree not to seat Hart in exchange for IA-3 being turned into a Safe D seat.

There's a commission process that R's could technically mess with if they really wanted to.  Don't give them a reason by seating Hart.  The algorithm favors a compact Des Moines seat and IA-03 will have to shrink, probably by enough to flip it to a Biden win.   

Wouldn’t that be a bad thing for Dems? I feel like packing IA-3 into a Safe D seat would turn the other three into Likely R at worst, wouldn’t it? I’d think Dems would want a good shot at 2 seats in Iowa.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/80edb2be-5014-447a-8745-9428863ce3b8

Managed to create a Des Moines-centered district that only includes 7 counties and even voted for Hillary by over 4 points. It's not completely safe for Democrats, but they would start out favored in most years.

IA-01 and IA-02 don't change a ton. The former becomes slightly more Republican and the latter slightly more Democratic, although it still voted for Trump by just under 3 points in 2016. Rita Hart probably would have won this version of it. Both could still be winnable in a good year for Democrats, though probably IA-02 more so than IA-01.

IA-04 becomes Titanium R, as it loses Story County to IA-03 and takes in all of those very Republican counties in the state's southwest corner.

I feel like this is close to what a nonpartisan commission might come up with. The added bonus is that all four incumbents have a district to run in.

It's a computer algorithm the commission and legislature have no leeway with unless they throw out the process entirely (the governor and House Speaker named Grassley are on record that they want to keep it).  I think the algorithm will try to make IA-02 and especially IA-01 more compact than that.   

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/tjbarton83/status/1344321939750445056?s=21

[Skill and Chance]

https://twitter.com/tjbarton83/status/1344321939750445056?s=21

Good.

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/tjbarton83/status/1344321939750445056?s=21

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

https://twitter.com/tjbarton83/status/1344321939750445056?s=21

This is a strawman, most dems here want Meeks seated, f#ck off

[BudgieForce]

As I've noted previously, Miller-Meeks can be seated while a house investigation of the IA-2 election takes place.

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/jrosenblatttv/status/1344334596742279171?s=21

[BudgieForce]

https://twitter.com/jrosenblatttv/status/1344334596742279171?s=21

There are still thousands of ballots to go through in court so this won't be decided anytime soon. But if I was a betting man, I'd think democrats are ending up with 222 seats.

[KaiserDave]

This lead is irrelevant, like all leads before it.

There are many many ballots left to go. This will go on well into 2021.

[BudgieForce]

This lead is irrelevant, like all leads before it.

There are many many ballots left to go. This will go on well into 2021.

This is going to turn into the 2008 Minnesota senate race where every challenged ballot will get looked over with a fine tooth comb. I am not looking forward to it.

[KaiserDave]

This lead is irrelevant, like all leads before it.

There are many many ballots left to go. This will go on well into 2021.

This is going to turn into the 2008 Minnesota senate race we're every challenged ballot will get looked over with a fine tooth comb. I am not looking forward to it.

It's even worse for the people of NY-22, who will possibly not have representation for most of the coming year.

[Bootes Void]

https://twitter.com/tjbarton83/status/1344321939750445056?s=21

Continue the challenge, it's only fair of Trump did it

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

https://twitter.com/tjbarton83/status/1344321939750445056?s=21

Continue the challenge, it's only fair of Trump did it

What "challenge"? Hart is free to contest every vote for as long as she wants, but Pelosi is making the only right choice here - to seat the certified winner, rather than the certified loser.

And Trump's antics will get him nowhere.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

https://twitter.com/tjbarton83/status/1344321939750445056?s=21

Continue the challenge, it's only fair of Trump did it

Yes let’s become the things we are fighting against so we can be no better than them then

[ꙮ]

https://twitter.com/tjbarton83/status/1344321939750445056?s=21

This is a strawman, most dems here want Meeks seated, f#ck off

Woodbury is exceptionally skilled at owning the libs that live in his head.

[jimrtex]

House Democrats should agree not to seat Hart in exchange for IA-3 being turned into a Safe D seat.

There's a commission process that R's could technically mess with if they really wanted to.  Don't give them a reason by seating Hart.  The algorithm favors a compact Des Moines seat and IA-03 will have to shrink, probably by enough to flip it to a Biden win.   

In forty years, since the passing of the law regarding redistricting, the Iowa state legislature has never rejected the maps drawn by the Legislative Services Agency.
For Paul Mitchell is a FF, redistricting has, for the last forty years, always been done by a state agency called the Legislative Services Agency. This article describes how the process works. As it says in that article, "It is explicit in state law that district lines cannot be drawn 'to favor a political party, incumbent, or other person or group.' " You can read more about the redistricting law here.

That's not entirely accurate. The legislature has rejected a congressional map on grounds that the deviation was too large. The LSA then submitted a new map. IIRC, the first map would have had a deviation of a bit over 100, and the second about half of that.

I suspect that the second map may have been known, and the legislature preferred it for reasons beyond the difference in deviation.

Iowa has an advantage of regular square counties, thus nobody really recognizes the pistolmander.

[jimrtex]

What I don't understand about the IA-2 situation is why Hart hasn't taken the matter to state courts before appealing to the House. If she has legitimate reasons to believe the law wasn't properly followed, the courts should be able to offer remedy (and I guess if there's a federal claim she can file in federal court too, though that seems like a reach). If the law was followed, then the House should absolutely NOT seat her. That would be an egregious breach of democratic norms and I don't see how Democrats can advocate that with a straight face given what's happening right now.

Mark Elias and Perkins-Coie are the DNC's lawyers (Marc Elias was the bagman for the Steel dossier).

Hart likely will do anything her legal advisers tell her to do.