An interesting story in Michigan regarding the House of Representatives. It appears that Michigan, a state that voted 54% to 45% in favor of Obama, and a state that had a very similar percentage of votes for members of the House of Representatives -- 55% Democratic votes and 45% Republican votes, will send nine republicans to the House of Representatives and five Democrats.. In a state that sends 14 congressfolks to represent the people of Michigan, instead of 8 Democrats and 6 Republicans, as one might expect based on the 55/45 divide in the state, it is sending 5 Democrats and 9 Republicans. Six (6) extra Republicans representing Michigan......
Gerrymandering districts is not limited to only one party -- both sides are doing it. In Massachusets and Maryland there is a Democratic edge of 23% and 25% respectively and only one Republican congressfolk and 17 Democrats where one one might expect more Republicans. That is fairly consistent for states that have more than a 10% favor for either party. But in the swing states, the Republicans are doing it better. In Pennsylvania, where there is a +5% for Democrats, they have 5 Democratic congressfolks and 13 Republican congressfolks. In Florida, a relatively 50/50 state, they have 10 Democratic congressfolks and 17 Republican congressfolks.
Mother Jones has an article on this: http://www.motherjones.com/.... It talks about how for every 1 vote to elect a Republican, it took between 2.5 to 3+ votes to elect a Democrat in many swing states.
Kossack tle wrote about this last Thursday -- http://www.dailykos.com/...
When Boehner and others say that President Obama did not get a "mandate" in 2012 because the House of Representatives stayed Republican -- that was clearly not the intent of the voters. But when a there have to be 2 to three times more Democratic voters than Republicans to accurately represent a swing state, well, it does become a bit difficult.
Whether or not any of the gerrymandering in place today is so egregious that a court would throw it out is unclear. Signing petitions and passing state laws to ensure a fair redistricting of a state's population by an independent panel of citizens or judges prior to 2020, would help ensure that the members of congress sent by each state, does adequately represent the voting population in those states, rather than the interests of whichever party controlled the statehouse every decade....