But WHY is Gerrymandering Even Possible?

Guess who's back? Nice comeback video :)

I’d love to see a video looking at how direct democracy works and it’s modern implications, loved the video!

This popped up on my feed, glad I clicked!! Wonderful explanation, really enjoyed this video. Definitely subscribing.

Finally back!

nice to see you back, good sir. yeah, it looks like there will be quite a bit of mid-cycle work this time around, what between Ohio's new law and all the racial gerrymanders that were put in place that the Supreme Court may or may not uphold. This really gets to how hard it is to build a system that makes any sense on its own terms. All the racial, religious, and political history of this country feeds into the process, and then of course pure power politics. I'm most familiar with the two states i've lived in most--Arizona and Kansas. Arizona has what is supposed to be a bipartisan and independent system but it all hinges on the one independent on the committee and what they value so they have had huge swings in competitiveness and partisan valence. Kansas is pure power politics with the Republican legislature cracking the one area with significant overall minority power into two parts and stuffing almost half in with Western kansas and the other half with a few modestly populated counties to the south, all to remove the one Democrat in the house they hope. and for once the Republican party wasn't so riven with internal divisions that we don't have a court-ordered set of state maps. it is all so darn weird.

good advice at the end concerning the substance of the rules being itself a thing of politics

nice to see more content

Good to have you back! Question for you: Why is it that the last decade has seen so little mid decade redistricting - is it because in recent years there hasn't been as much unified control over the legislative and executive branches of state governments?. Furthermore, is this absence of redistricting an anomaly in US history? Put another way, Has there been a trend of redistricting that has been bucked in the last decade or so? I know you mentioned that it was up until the 60's it wasn't uncommon, but I'm curious to learn more about when and why it occurred and why it is no longer occurring at the same rate.

What are your thoughts on the fact that the number of House of Reps. seats haven't increased since 1929? How might that play into gerrymandering within and malapportionment between states?

Proportional representation would solve this. But seriously, I find American politics to be very esoteric. Gerrymandering isn't even something that comes up in Australian politics, because the districts are drawn up by independent electoral commissions.

This is one of the reasons I support the Fair Representation Act.

I think it's really disgusting that we still haven't instituted a form of proportional representation, especially given that all it would require is an act of congress to implement it for the house. I do think there is a reading (albeit, a fairly broad reading) of the first and fourteenth amendments which would require proportional representation for the house, state legislatures, and the electoral college (or NPV), but with this court, I don't see anything close to that happening.

It would have been nice for you to address the advantages and disadvantages of direct individualized representation. That seems to be an important component in justifying the need for redistricting.

IMO at large proportional election of representatives is the best solution

Isn't this whole gerrymandering problem solved if you randomize the alotment in a transparent way (like drawing a seat number publicly like a lottery and feed a computer with it)?

Sounds like the "One person: One vote" principal would be better served by eliminating all districts and just go with a statewide proportional system (Though I seriously doubt Republican politicians and Judges will let such measures pass)

like the Democrats didn't stuff the ballot boxes lol

And Russia demonstrates how much stronger your iron grip is if you have an at-large selection system and not a district-based system! Wake up!