The Republicans in Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are (or maybe are not -- Virginia seems to be bucking the trend) about to launch one of the most undemocratic gambits in many generations. By partitioning the electoral votes of Blue states but leaving the electoral votes of the Red states to be awarded by state, they're planning on gaming the electoral college to make it impossible to elect a Democrat president any time in the next millenium.
That's vile, unpatriotic and disgusting. It's the kind of behavior which I associate with Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Benedict Arnold, the American Trinity of Traitors. It infuriates me beyond words, and I hope I'm not alone in that.
I know I'm not alone in that, in fact. I've seen a bunch of people criticizing the Supreme Court's unwillingness to intervene in this kind of anti-democratic (as well as anti-Democratic) bullsh*t. There's only one problem: the Supreme Court is right about this one, at least as the issue has been framed.
Follow me past the MSG-laden of Cheetoh of Doomliness to find out why..and what we can do about it.
I know, I know: we have two parties in this country, and it's trivially obvious that votes for the one should count for exactly as much as votes for the othe...
Oh, wait. We DON'T have two parties in this country. We have a boatload of third parties. Those third parties are actually fairly important in some states -- New York, for one. They've even had an impact on past presidential elections -- 2000 was decided because of the third party candidacy of one "Ralph Nader". (And that ignores the contribution of the Dixiecrats in the late 1960's.)
More than that, parties are entities of convenience. If anything, the Framers opposed their existence; Publius certainly inveighed against their rise in the Federalist Papers! The Supreme Court has ruled that they're not in the business of determining political questions between parties -- and they are right in that. As far as redistricting law is concerned, there's no such thing as a political party. Period.
What the Republicans are talking about doing is unfair, wrong, and unreasonable -- but doing this to the Democrats is perfectly legal.
What may not be legal is dilution of the votes of communities of interest. To the extent that persons of common economic, racial, or professional status should have votes which are of equal impact, the current electoral maps in the gerrymandered states clearly dilute the votes of the poor and working class relative to those of the middle class and the wealthy, and dilute those of the middle class relative to those of the wealthy. Similarly, the maps overweight people of higher professional status relative to those of lower professional status.
Of course, that's intentional -- those folks have another names; they're called 'Republicans'. But unlike measuring 'Republicanness', measuring income and average educational or professional attainment is easy.
So, I suggest the following: instead of trying to defend "Democratic" votes in the courts, defend the votes of those who have lower socio-economic statuses. Hell, win the House in 2014, and impose rules like that via amendments to the Voting Rights Act.