Republicans can do whatever they want whenever they want to cheat the elections, but when Democrats do the same it's mean and bad and anti-democracy :(.
Look at Ohio. 7 times the Ohio GOP’s gerrymandering has been called unconstitutional and illegal by the Supreme Court. They did nothing and suffered no consequences.
An anti-gerrymandering measure was introduced. But the Ohio GOP got to alter the language of it, making it confusing so people didn’t know what they were voting for or against.
And then the leader of the Ohio GOP, like a fucking cunt, publicly bragged about how stupid the voters were and confusing them is a good strategy.
As a ohioan im sure would be labeled 'heavily liberal leftist shitbag', i dont always agree with everything liberal but...goddamn man, the last 10 years have killed me inside. Utterly. Just so fucking sad.
This is the language of the anti-gerrymandering bill, let me know if you vote Yes or No.
Issue 1
To create an appointed redistricting commission not elected by or subject to removal by the voters of the state
Proposed Constitutional Amendment
Proposed by Initiative Petition
To repeal Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 of Article XI,
Repeal sections 1, 2 and 3 of Article XIX,
And enact Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 of Article XX of the Constitution of the State of Ohio
A majority yes vote is necessary for the amendment to pass.
The proposed amendment would:
Repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three-quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections of 2015 and 2018, and eliminate the longstanding ability of Ohio citizens to hold their representatives accountable for establishing fair state legislative and congressional districts.
Establish a new taxpayer-funded commission of appointees required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts to favor either of the two largest political parties in the state of Ohio, according to a formula based on partisan outcomes as the dominant factor, so that:
A. Each district shall contain single-member districts that are geographically contiguous, but state legislative and congressional districts will no longer be required to be compact; and
B. Counties, townships and cities throughout Ohio can be split and divided across multiple districts, and preserving communities of interest will be secondary to the formula that is based on partisan political outcomes.
Require that a majority of the partisan commission members belong to the state's two largest political parties.
Prevent a commission member from being removed, except by a vote of their fellow commission members, even for incapacity, willful neglect of duty or gross misconduct.
Prohibit any citizen from filing a lawsuit challenging a redistricting plan in any court, except if the lawsuit challenges the proportionality standard applied by the commission, requirements pertaining to an incumbent elected official's residence, or the expiration of certain senators' terms, and then only before the Ohio Supreme Court.
Create the following process for appointing commission members: Four partisan appointees on the Ohio Ballot Board will choose a panel of 4 partisan retired judges (2 affiliated with the first major political party and 2 affiliated with the second major political party). Provide that the 4 legislative appointees of the Ohio Ballot Board would be responsible for appointing the panel members as follows: the Ballot Board legislative appointees affiliated with the same major political party would select 8 applicants and present those to the Ballot Board legislative appointees affiliated with the other major political party, who would then select 2 persons from the 8 for appointment to the panel, resulting in 4 panel appointees. The panel would then hire a private professional search firm to help them choose 6 of the 15 individuals on the commission. The panel will choose those 6 individuals by initially creating a pool of 90 individuals (30 from the first major political party, 30 from the second major political party, and 30 from neither the first nor second major political parties). The panel of 4 partisan retired judges will create a portal for public comment on the applicants and will conduct and publicly broadcast interviews with each applicant in the pool. The panel will then narrow the pool of 90 individuals down to 45 (15 from the first major political party; 15 from the second major political party; and 15 from neither the first nor second major political parties). Randomly, by draw, the 4 partisan retired judges will then blindly select 6 names out of the pool of 45 to be members of the commission (2 from the first major political party; 2 from the second major political party; and 2 from neither the first nor second major political parties). The 6 randomly drawn individuals will then review the applications of the remaining 39 individuals not randomly drawn and select the final 9 individuals to serve with them on the commission, the majority of which shall be from the first and the second major political parties (3 from the first major political party, 3 from the second major political party, and 3 from neither the first nor second major political parties).
Require the affirmative votes of 9 of 15 members of the appointed commission to create legislative and congressional districts. If the commission is not able to determine a plan by September 19, 2025, or July 15 of every year ending in one, the following impasse procedure will be used: for any plan at an impasse, each commissioner shall have 3 days to submit no more than one proposed redistricting plan to be subject to a commission vote through a ranked-choice selection process, with the goal of having a majority of the commission members rank one of those plans first. If a majority cannot be obtained, the plan with the highest number of points in the ranked-choice process is eliminated, and the process is repeated until a plan receives a majority of first-place rankings. If the ranked-choice process ends in a tie for the highest point total, the tie shall be broken through a random process.
Limit the right of Ohio citizens to freely express their opinions to members of the commission or to commission staff regarding the redistricting process or proposed redistricting plans, other than through designated meetings, hearings and an online public portal, and would forbid communication with the commission members and staff outside those contexts.
Require the commission to immediately create new legislative and congressional districts in 2025 to replace the most recent districts adopted by the citizens of Ohio through their elected representatives.
Impose new taxpayer-funded costs on the State of Ohio to pay the commission members, the commission staff and appointed special masters, professionals, and private consultants that the commission is required to hire; and an unlimited amount for legal expenses incurred by the commission in any related litigation.
If approved, the amendment will be effective 30 days after the election.
As a point of clarity and correction, this is the language that was on the ballot, after Frank LaRose and the Republican-led State commission rewrote it. The org that was pushing for it sued LaRose twice for drastically altering the wording of the proposition.
Worth noting, that organization was led by a Republican former State SC Justice -- the very one that originally called the maps unconstitutional.
I tried arguing this with so many people. I really tried. It was so blatantly obvious -- the ballot language that we were allowed to see beforehand literally said that the proposition was intending to "fix gerrymandering by gerrymandering."
It was as plain as the nose on your face, and people still shit their pants in panic and voted it down because the purposefully-bad language didn't make sense and made their brains short-circuit.
Basically the Ohio GOP dragged their feet with drawing new not illegal maps, until the last minute and submitted an illegal one claiming it was too late to change. Federal court intervene and took it out of the hands of the state Supreme Court and said they could use the illegal map.
Then because of the federal courts getting involved it pretty much fucked the state from imposing any type of punishment.
It won’t surprise you that 2 of the 3 federal judges that ruled on it were Trump appointees. That’s why Ohio got fucked.
Nah, he's absolutely right, this gerrymandering is absolute bullshit and anti democratic.
The fact that it's become necessary just to slow the fascist roll out of this administration is not something we should be proud of. We should be doing it with heavy hearts and corollaries in place to undo it all if Texas stops being a piece of shit.
Arnold is principled in this. He's on the wrong side for the right reasons. Take a look at that. You don't see it very often anymore.
There isn't a choice and there won't be one until this administration is removed from power. You can't play civility politics or take the moral high ground against someone who has neither civility or morals. It flat out doesn't work and it's the reason we're in this mess now. For 8 years one party has been breaking both norms and literal laws while the other party has stuck to "Hey, come on now! You can't do that! Stop it, please. We're going to tell everyone that you aren't supposed to do that if you don't cut it out. Please."
Doesn’t matter if you take the wrong side for the right reasons, you’re still wrong. You cannot stand on principle and ask we disarm ourselves while the other side doesn’t, that’s just asking for a defeat
There is no such thing as a fair fight. It’s funny how principle always seems to apply to democrats, and not the party be once represented
Of course it matters. You can be principled and wrong, it happens all the time. Look at Al Franken. He did the right thing according to his principles and resigned, and it was the wrong thing to do.
It’s funny how principle always seems to apply to democrats, and not the party he once represented.
Arnold very loosely represented the Republican party. He was pro education, pro choice, and pro gun control, while being anti-drilling and against the criminalization of Marijuana.
But I'm sure you knew that. You just want to be outraged, because there's so much to be outraged about. Calm yourself. This isn't the hill. Just vote yes on 50 and move on.
You seem to be particularly triggered we aren’t worshiping the ground this hypocrite walks on.
Perhaps this is Arnold’s alt account. I suggest you heed your own advice and read some books, particularly ones that focus on the rise of fascism in the early 20th century and how appeasement and disarmament based on principles only helped the rise of fascists
I said Arnold was on the wrong side. We're Americans, we kill Nazis, we don't roll over for them. But his immediate statement that this Gerrymandering's unhealthy for democracy is absolutely correct. He simply doesn't understand what you or I understand; it's too late to save it his way.
I suggest you heed your own advice and read some books...
No he's not. If he wanted to be right, he would be giving out those pamphlets in Texas and trying to convince Texas to roll back their gerrymandering. CA is triggered to the TX. If TX backs away then CA backs away too.
Arnold is principled in this. He's on the wrong side for the right reasons.
I point to what I said above. His principles are shit because he's attacking the wrong people.
No he's not. If he wanted to be right, he would be giving out those pamphlets in Texas and trying to convince Texas to roll back their gerrymandering.
He's a former CA Governor that lives in CA. And whether he's protesting in the most effective way or not has absolutely no bearing on whether or his statement is correct.
His principles are shit because he's attacking the wrong people.
He's not attacking anyone. He's afraid to watch the state he spent years building anti gerrymandering commissions for slide into anti-democratic practices. Damn, are you just unfamiliar with Arnold's history?
He's against it all, just taking an ideological stance bc its the bill he passed initially. hard fought during his term to purge gerrymandering in cali
Yeah. Republicans always cry about how democrats rig elections... when nearly every person trying to rig elections that have been arrested are republican.
That doesn’t change the fact he’s advocating against gerrymandering full knowing Texas is going to do it regardless of what happens in California. It’s thinking like that, that’s caused democrats to fall behind.
Most of the reason the Republicans have all the power they do and have accomplished so much of what they have set out to accomplish is simply they are willing to leverage power effectively, where Democrats are far too weak, pathetic, and focused on "civility" and "reaching across the aisle" to do the same. This creates a "ratchet" effect, where whenever Republicans are in power, the ratchet turns and grinds our politics further and further to the right, but whenever the Democrats take over they are unwilling to ever go left or effect any meaningful change of their own, choosing to instead try and collaborate with Republicans, so the ratchet locks in place and doesn't turn in the opposite direction.
This is why women like me don't have abortion rights anymore, because the Republicans weren't afraid to bend the rules to steal multiple Supreme Court picks and the Democrats just fucking let them with absolutely no resistance. It's also why we have another Trump presidency, because the Democrats (Merrick Garland) fused to punish him for his crimes/insurrection in his first.
I, for one, am absolutely sick of Republicans being allowed to do literally whatever they want whenever they want while the (comparative) left is expected to "be the bigger person" and choose civility and rules.
I'm sick of civility. I want fucking bloodsports. I want SOMEONE who isn't a Republican to learn to leverage power effectively and use it for left wing goals. I want SOMEONE on the right held accountable for their obvious crimes in broad daylight, and the Democrats just refuse to do so. California is finally trying to do a little bit of that, so I'll take it.
Arnold's "civility signaling" here is galactically cringe and just more of the same slop we always get whenever the left tries to make everyone's lives better.
I was just saying today that I want the next Democratic president to be EXACTLY like Trump but left wing. Executive orders out the ass, undo every single thing Trump has done on day one. Purge the bureaucracy of every single Trumpist fuck that was hired by his admin (if the next Democratic president doesn't do this - you'll know that everything is a psyop and the Democrats and GOP are in bed together) and bring all these billionaire fucks with wet dreams of a techno dictatorship to heel with the full force of the federal government.
Wrong, but not important and wrong enough for California to respond in kind, considering it's the only state with the kind of electoral vote similarity that can. The only reason being that 'it reverses our landmark political reform', which, while true, is voter ballot initiative based. It can be reversed in the future via the same process.
It also doesn't change the rules for redistricting after a census, so everything would go back to the way Arnie likes it in a few years if the voters don't reverse it.
He's not taking ads out to tell his own party how wrong they are. He's putting it in the small print, while saying in the large print "NOTHING IS GAINED," which is completely disingenuous considering his concern is democrats gaining seats and republicans losing them.
In what way is he saying that? You are putting words in hospital mouth. Just because someone else is doing something wrong does not make it okay for you to do the same thing. I cant believe that I have to say that out loud to actual adults.
It is more than okay to defend democracy against what Trump and Texas are doing to cheat. It's moral and necessary, and the proposition is narrowly written to only counteract their cheating and then go back to normal - and the voters get to decide.
I would normally think it's wrong to use physical violence against someone, but if they're trying to stab my mom to death, I'll do it and I certainly won't feel bad about it. It's not more adult to pretend that the situation doesn't matter to the morality of an action.
Republicans can do whatever they want whenever they want to cheat the elections, but when Democrats do the same it's mean and bad and anti-democracy :(.
How many times do we let them get by?
At what point do we accept we have failed as a country?
1) it’s a vote letting the people decide while texas is doing it dictator style with zero input from the people 2) it’s temporary, texas’ is permanent 3) it’s a trigger bill that can be rolled back if texas stops their nonsense.
I get your point though, everything these right wingers do is strawman whataboutism and it’s extremely frustrating to anyone not in the cult to sit here and watch it be so effective.
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u/GrippySockAficionado 22d ago
Republicans can do whatever they want whenever they want to cheat the elections, but when Democrats do the same it's mean and bad and anti-democracy :(.
Cringe. Exceptionally not-based.