WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2025
What does California already have? Just for the record, our personal preference would be these:
Our personal druthers:
We would prefer that every state conduct its congressional redistricting every ten years, and only then, based on the new census data.
We would prefer that every state try to create congressional districts which are as geographically compact as possible, with reasonable respect being paid to city and county lines.
Those are the practices we would prefer. That said, those practices aren't required by law, which brings us to the current war which is breaking out between Texas and California.
Let's consider what Texas Republicans are hoping to get:
Texas is often described as a deep red state. That said, we'd score it as only 56% Republican and 44% Democratic, based on results from last year's presidential and congressional elections (including its Senate race).
In last year's elections, Republicans were roughly 56% of the two-party vote in Texas. That said, here's the way the Texas congressional delegation stacks up at this point:
Texas congressional delegation, at present:
Republicans: 25
Democrats: 13
With 56 or maybe 57% of the two-party vote, Texas Republicans hold 65.8% of the state's congressional seats. President Trump says they deserve to hold more of those seats. This is the breakdown they're seeking:
Texas congressional delegation, after proposed redistricting:
Republicans: 30
Democrats: 8
That would take Texas Republicans all the way up to 78.9% of the congressional seats, based on only 56% of the two party-vote!
Based on that stated intention, Governor Newsome is threatening to fight back. He says that two can play that game—but judging by the basic data, it can almost start to look like California already has!
For the record, this:
Based on last year's elections (presidential, Senate and House) we'd say that Democrats represent roughly 59% of California's two-party vote. In that sense, California is (very slightly) bluer than Texas is red.
California is bluer than Texas is red, but just by a small amount. That said, here's the current breakdown of California's House delegation:
California congressional delegation, at present:
Democrats: 43
Republicans: 9
At present, California Democrats hold 82.7% of the state's congressional seats, even before any sudden redistricting! In California, Democrats already hold a larger percentage of seats than Republicans hope to acquire by redistricting down in Texas.
As everyone knows, California's current districts were created by what is described as a nonpartisan commission. Indeed, there may well have been zero attempts at gerrymandering in the creation of the current districts. All we're saying is this:
As the latest civil war starts, it might be worth becoming familiar with the numbers in these two states as those numbers already exist.
According to Governor Newsome, Cali may decide to gerrymander now too. We're not saying that they should; we aren't saying they shouldn't. But here's the new partisan breakdown California's Democrats would reportedly be hoping to attain:
California congressional delegation, after possible redistricting:
Democrats: 48
Republicans: 4
("It could result in as many as five new blue seats and Democrats holding all but four of California’s 52 congressional districts, according to a slide presented to members of Congress and viewed by POLITICO." Click here.)
Are those the numbers the California Democrats might seek? If so, they would then control 92.3% of the state's delegation, with Texas Republicans dreaming of the chance to control a percentage which would be substantially smaller.
Again, we're not saying what's right and what's wrong. We're just presenting the numbers.
As a final point, this:
Imagine a state whose electorate is 60% Party A and 40% Party B. There's nothing in American tradition or law which says that forty percent of that state's congressional seats should be held by Party B. Something like that might seem to be fair, but there's no such law or practice.
In fact, consider this:
If, by some magical process, the population of that state was evenly distributed all over the state, you could imagine that every district, no matter how scrupulously drawn, would end up with 60% Party A and 40% Party B.
Party A would win every seat! This is the planet we've chosen.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia needs to be split into two states, with idiot-Democrats controlling the smaller area, overwhelmingly populated by idiots.
And I suppose in that smaller state idiot-Democrats should be able to do whatever they like. Let them ruin and depopulate the place completely. And let it be a lesson for all of us. To be remembered for a long, long time.
Fuck off Mao.
Delete"Let them ruin and depopulate the place completely."
DeleteNobody goes there anymore, It's too crowded.
If I were you living in Cali I would do the patriotic thing and move to mother Russia and fight on the frontlines.
DeleteThe idea of splitting CA into two (or more) states is ridiculous because the red areas would not be economically viable. This has been discussed to death. In the last version, the tech bro billionaires tried to fund an initiative to break Silicon Valley into its own fifedom. It was defeated of course.
Deleteanon 2:32, your position seems to be that if any Democrat ever criticizes or disagrees with Trump or his party on anything, no matter what, they are, per se, "idiots." The only solution (apparently) is if the swallowed the elixir by which they'd contract Trump Lickspittle Syndrome. Sure, there are lots of dem "idiots" (like some regular customers here, but not by any means all). Believe or not, there may be valid reasons to criticize the President.
DeleteAC/MA, you are arguing with a troll. Nothing good can come of that.
DeleteCalifornia needs a government that puts the well-being of legal residents first. A government that understands that over-regulation kills the businesses that underlie its prosperity. A government that chooses the most competent people.
DeleteAs a bean counter you made your living literally regulating business you idiotic dipshit fascist pig.
DeleteHow then is CA so prosperous when it is so Democratic?
Delete@11:11 - CA has the third worst unemployment rate of any state.
DeleteCA has the third worst GDP per capita of any state
CA has the 22nd worst % of population below the poverty level of any state.
CA has the 6th worst homeless rate of any state.
Delete@6:36, AC/MA, as everyone can see, this one has nothing to do with "Trump or his party". What your comment says is that you're obsessed with Trump. Snap out of it, buddy.
DeleteNo, David. California has the fifth highest GDP per capita among states. You can see the proof right here.
DeleteAnd the "22nd worst" poverty rate? That's a weird way to say "about average." If you want to find states with the highest poverty rates, look no farther than the solid-red deep South.
@1:45 "fifth highest GDP per capita"
Delete"California consistently has a high RPP, indicating that prices for goods and services, particularly housing, are significantly above the national average. "
Adjust for price parity, and get back to me.
2:02. I've got an idea, why don't you do the math and get back to us. Without such, your so-called "price parity" is gibberish. And, of course you will have to do that math on each of the 50 states for it to be meaningful comparatively. QiB corrected an obvious error by DiC, who claims to live in the state. Your remark has no bearing on the error.
DeleteTriggered, 2:24? Just go ahead and adjust for price parity, why don't you?
Delete"The BEA data shows that California has the highest RPP for housing rents among all states, at 157.8, meaning rents are 57.8% higher than the national average, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)"
Delete2:02,
DeleteGreat point about housing being so expensive in California, due to the laws of supply and demand. There isn't enough land in the state of California to build enough housing for those who want to live under San Francisco values.
Actually, California should be split into 67 states so that in the Senate the voice of one person from California would equal the voice of one person from Wyoming.
ReplyDeleteYou, 2:48, sound like you want to destroy the Union, and crate a unitary state of 330 (or so) million people. It seems rather unlikely to me.
DeleteWell, unless it's done by some sort of fascist takeover, I suppose. I won't wish you good luck, sorry.
No, 2:48 is just showing their ass.
DeleteNo, 2:48 is just demonstrating the huge gift the Senate is to backwoods, racist, knuckle dragging, Bible humping, gun toting, toothless assholes in low population red states; that are on welfare from rich highly populated blue states.
Delete330 million individual states, with their own currencies, trade policies, and Constitutions.
Delete"If, by some magical process, the population of that state was evenly distributed all over the state, you could imagine that every district, no matter how scrupulously drawn, would end up with 60% Party A and 40% Party B."
ReplyDeleteYes, of course. In each and every community, the majority of voters would be represented by their preferred candidate--exactly as intended!
The point of our system of Congressional districting is that populations aren't uniformly distributed, and our system supposedly recognizes that fact.
Except in Texas.
In Texas, they're trying to flip the democratic process upside down. Instead of having voters choose their representatives, they trying to let representatives choose their voters.
DeleteExactly!
DeleteTellingly, Somerby mispells Newsom's name the same way as Republicans do. There is no "e" on the end. I've mentioned that here before but for some reason Somerby has no interest in doing the man the courtesy of getting his name right. And yet Somerby was the one who called deliberate mispellings of opponents names childish. Apparently, not when he does it.
ReplyDeleteA while back, the so-called resident of California, DiC, made the same spelling mistake repeatedly, before being counseled about it. How does anyone misspell the name of his/her own governor?
Delete"How does anyone misspell the name of his/her own governor?"
DeleteOutrageous.
But misspelling the President's name is a must. That's in the constitution.
I spell the Presidents name as such, Child Rapist.
DeleteThe mistake in Somerby's reasoning is his assumption that the proportions in districting should match the voting. However, voting varies more than population does. Also, which office's votes should be used for apportionment? But here is another problem -- the census reflects not just voters but also the 50% of citizens who are non-voters. It also includes permanent residents who are non-citizens and there are a lot of them in CA due to immigration. Trump wants to exclude immigrants from the census but that is not the way it currently works. So using Somerby's approach of assigning districts to parties via voting patterns excludes more than half of the residents of the state of CA, and I assume TX too. That is far from fair.
ReplyDeleteThis arises from misunderstandings over how the census is used to apportion seats to states. Somerby also does not seem to understand that CA currently has a non-partisan system of creating districts that relies on a committee that is distinct from either party. Its criteria are much closer to Somerby's preferences than he portrays in Newsom's threatened revised system, which he would have to change state law to enact.
Somerby's essay today strikes me as a major strawman and his complaints about CA are invalid because they are based on something that does not occur in CA and a premise that no one has accepted -- that redistricting outcomes should match previous voting patterns.
anon 6:16 - you misconstrue TDH's post. He was merely pointing out facts. He wasn't advocating that house seats in the various states should be distributed according to the number of voters for each party - or for anything else.
DeleteAnother Somerby whisperer who knows what Somerby was thinking when he wrote what he wrote.
DeleteSomerby clearly states that he is not advocating anything, but Somerby is the one who makes the comparison involving political affiliation and prior voting results. And he says keep it in mind -- for what purpose when he has no opinion, God only knows.
Somerby's words speak for themselves. He might have written about how gerrymandering dilutes the power of minorities by spreading them thinly into multiple districts instead of concentrating them, but he chose to write about political advantage instead. Do you think that such choices made by Somerby have no implications?
After examining the possible impact of Newsom's threatened redistricting, Somerby points out that the Democrats in CA would have a stronger advantage than the Republicans are proposing in TX. Do you think Somerby makes that point just for the fun of it? He is not drawing the conclusion himself, but it is obvious, that the net result would be very unbalanced in CA.
As it happens, CA does not vote Democratic in electing state officials because the red voters are largely concentrated in inland rural and agricultural areas whereas there are far more blue voters in populous urban areas and along the coast. The state is legitimately Democratic, not gerrymandered to be blue. Note the existence of an independent commission that does districting in a non-partisan manner.
Here is what Newsom himself is saying about redistricting:
ReplyDelete"I've long supported independent redistricting. I can't stand these gerrymandered districts.
But Democrats can't just sit there and act holier than thou while we watch our democracy be totally degraded.
Democrats try to play by a higher value system, but it's a different day. So if Greg Abbott and Donald Trump want to find five seats in Texas, then the blue state of California is going to get darker blue."
He links to this statement:
https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/1951313598111949078
Representatives are elected to represent a district under the presumption that each district is sort of a separate community, with its own interests. The way districts are narrowed and elongated in many states completely destroys the possibility that the district is a community.
ReplyDeleteThere is the question about the basis for defining a community. Should it be done based on income, ethnicity, race, businesses or university proximity, history, boundaries defined by freeways or other infrastructure. There can be different communities in the same geographical area, so which should be privileged and which ignored? This may be more complex than you are assuming, David.
DeleteThe goals that exist when defining communities for districting should not be political. Somerby assumes the opposite, that the process should reflect the priorities of politicians explicitly (defined by voting patterns). That seems like it would require redoing the districts after every election, which is costly and cumbersome.
Delete"Should" in this case doesn't mean Somerby is advocating, but it means he has chosen that as an example, an assumption for his discussion.
DeleteI believe that Somerby is advocating against the CA retaliation because it would produce a large Democratic advantage in seats, exactly as Newsom threatens. That isn't a bad outcome if TX changes its districting to help Trump in the midterms. This is tit for tat. Trump is the one commanding this gerrymandering.
Why doesn't Somerby come out and say what he thinks instead of so carefully saying he is not advocating anything and that nothing is right or wrong, in a situation where TX is clearly doing something wrong (especially for the % of the TX population that votes blue) at Trump's command?
This is war. Fuck those treasonous fascist bastards at Project 2025; i.e. the Trump Administration. Must be destroyed. Killing Universities, science, medicine, research, for what nefarious purpose? Clearly they have a bio weapon and you will only get the "pure" shot if you pledge your life to Her Trumph. It's gonna be a bloodbath man.
DeleteMore like this, Democratic Party.
DeleteThanks. It was my impersonation of the typical Q anon shitposting here, but with nutty lefty conspiracies. Like the jagoffs rehashing all the shit Durham came up completely empty with, 'cept one minor clerical error largely manufactured no jail time conviction, but whatevs. And now breathlessly Russia's gal Tulsi is barking up the exact same fucking tree, and we have the the dipshits calling it a real story this time all over again. Fucking weirdos.
DeleteFanny Ripone
DeleteThe question isn't what the state of Texas wants but what Donald Trump wants. He wants to win the midterms. He can't do that by winning votes so he is trying to cheat by rigging the election.
ReplyDelete"Party A would win every seat! This is the planet we've chosen."
ReplyDeleteThis is not necessarily true because the basis for doing the districting is not always the one he proposes here.
Math is hard, Somerby once said. Also, governing wisely and for the common good is often complicated. That may be why simplistic approaches like Somerby's are not used.
In the case of political gerrymandering, the common good is defined as whatever is good for the Republican Party of TX, which is further defined as whatever pleases Trump. There is little room left for considering what might be the best way to represent the people living in that state. The needs of the people are continually being subordinated to those of the fat cats, billionaires, Trump cultists and con-artists. At some point, perhaps the people will arise and assert their own needs in an effective way. Until that happens, they are screwed and might as well move to CA.
"This is not necessarily true because the basis for doing the districting is not always the one he proposes here."
DeleteYou left out the initial condition: "the population of that state was evenly distributed all over the state,"
If voters for the two parties were uniformly distributed across the state, then the party with the larger number of registrations would win all districts, no matter how the boundaries were drawn.
This is illegal:
ReplyDelete"Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) claimed on Wednesday that he and two other House Democrats had been “trapped” at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in New York by an officer that refused to identify themself, keeping he and his colleagues, “in essence, incarcerated.”
In a social media post on X, Espaillat said that he, along with Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Nydia Valazquez (D-NY), attempted to visit the Sunset Park Detention Center in Brooklyn in an effort to observe the treatment of detained migrants.
“We know for a fact there’s over 100 immigrants that are being detained here, and we have the jurisdiction and the responsibility to come here and have oversight over this operation,” Espaillat said in a video posted to social media.
“We were greeted by a masked agent who refused to give us his name, who refused to show his face, and who proceeded to lock the door, keeping us, in essence, incarcerated, because we cannot go in or out until we get further notice.”
This happened Wed afternoon. It is unclear whether these House members are still being held.
Taegan Goddard says these redistricting wars are just another distraction from Epstein.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be working, since another day has passed without Somerby mentioning Epstein and his connection to Trump.
"What Fox News Is Talking About
DeleteAugust 6, 2025 at 2:24 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
Fox News shows mentioned actress Sydney Sweeney and her jeans ad 766 times in the span of a week, CNN reports.
Meanwhile, Jeffrey Epstein’s name came up just 53 times that same week."
What exactly is Somerby supposed to say about Epstein and his connection to Trump that isn't also being said by every other media outlet in the country?
DeleteTo be consistent, Somerby is going to have to express pity for both Epstein and Maxwell if he is willing to pity Trump, whose behavior he attributes to some “disease” like “sociopathy” and/or a mean father. I’m sure Epstein’s predilection for young girls is evidence of some urge beyond his control, just like trump. Do it, Bob. Go there.
DeleteEpstein is important because we have a sexual predator as president. Somerby should be calling for Trump’s impeachment not talking about Gutfeld.
DeleteThe entire Republican Party is a global pedophile ring.
DeleteThe mad king keeps shouting the whole Epstein thing is a democratic hoax. Why doesn't anyone believe him?
DeleteFor the next installment, the topic shall be the observer effects on the quantum fanny-burp.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete40% of Massachusetts voted for Donald Trump.
Massachusetts' U.S. House delegation has been entirely Democrat since 1997. That's ZERO Republicans. ZERO. Since 1997.
Talk about taxation without representation.
Squeal louder, Mao.
DeleteMassachusetts:
DeleteLeading the way in the fight against pedophilia.
Oh, the GOP is just fine with taxation. Trump’s tariffs are taxes on all of us, including every red state voter, and the reps don’t give a damn.
DeleteYou'll feel better after your afternoon enema, Mr. Soros.
DeleteAnyone who isn't a child rapist, or isn't perfectly fine with child rape, left the Republican Party over a decade ago.
Deleteanon 3:05, you couldn't be stupider if you tried. But, maybe I'm wrong. If you tried harder, you might be able to.
Delete