The Democratic mandate in the House

[Row6]

Well, there certainly is no republican one.

From today's WaPo

As a new Congress convenes, it has become an unquestioned truth among Republicans that their party has as much of a mandate as President Obama because voters returned them to power in the House

The mantra has been intoned by John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, Grover Norquist and many other party eminences, and there is a certain logic to saying that the voters, by giving Republicans the House, were asking for divided government.

But the claim to represent the voters’ will doesn’t add up.

The final results from the November election were completed Friday, and they show that Democratic candidates for the House outpolled Republicans nationwide by nearly 1.4 million votes and more than a full percentage point — a greater margin than the preliminary figures showed in November. And that’s just the beginning of it: A new analysis finds that even if Democratic congressional candidates won the popular vote by seven percentage points nationwide, they still would not have gained control of the House.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...efc_story.html

[108]

gerrymandering

[viningsgator]

The fix is in on both sides. Will try and find the article I read a few days ago that shows that all but a few congressional districts are rigged for one party.

[JerseyGator01]

WP is excellent advocacy journalism. It's a weak argument at best since we only have one Prez who only needed to look like less of a moron than the blue blood's selection for the GOP. Not real hard really. Even Joe Biden could do it with the level of present media brainwashing in this country.

Campaign finance is an even bigger problem than gerrymandering.

CORRUPTION RULES!!!!!

[MichiGator2002]

There really is no bottom to the political depravity, seeking now to invalidate the House majority on what is an utterly, utterly irrelevant ground -- the aggregate of total votes cast. I mind quails at how such an argument could convince anyone. You do realize that all it takes for this meaningless anamoly to come up, is for Democrats to have won their seats by wider majorities than Republicans won theirs, right? What would that fact tell you? That each specific representative has more support on their district than another. It says nothing.

N O T H I N G

About national support. And here is another twist... who cares? The legislature is not elected en masse, so in any real sense, it never has a mandate en masse. Each member had a mandate from her constituents, and no other. And there are more GOP members.

What is even more absurd about this asinine appeal to hold the measure of the legislature to a national popular vote, is that pretty much by definition, to be in the majority but not have that total, means that you won more of the closely contested districts than the minority, that the minorities wins were more in monolithic districts.

[rpmGator]

Pubs lost seats to the other side, and in two years, may lose more if they don't wise up and start representing more than white males...

My guy had a tough time getting elected this time around, and I don't think he will win the next time as the face of the district is getting less white.

[Dreamliner]

Why represent the voters anyway, given their cognitive dissonance ?

[corpgator]

Originally Posted by MichiGator2002

There really is no bottom to the political depravity, seeking now to invalidate the House majority on what is an utterly, utterly irrelevant ground -- the aggregate of total votes cast. I mind quails at how such an argument could convince anyone. You do realize that all it takes for this meaningless anamoly to come up, is for Democrats to have won their seats by wider majorities than Republicans won theirs, right? What would that fact tell you? That each specific representative has more support on their district than another. It says nothing.

N O T H I N G

About national support. And here is another twist... who cares? The legislature is not elected en masse, so in any real sense, it never has a mandate en masse. Each member had a mandate from her constituents, and no other. And there are more GOP members.

What is even more absurd about this asinine appeal to hold the measure of the legislature to a national popular vote, is that pretty much by definition, to be in the majority but not have that total, means that you won more of the closely contested districts than the minority, that the minorities wins were more in monolithic districts.

That anomaly is actually what happened: Dems won their seats by a wider margin than Reps. This was not an accident, though, but an intentional strategy the GOP carried out by making sure they had control of state legislatures when it was time to redraw districts.

[MichiGator2002]

The respective district margins imputed absolutely nothing about the national agenda. Any other suggestion is just... insipid. I mean, can a serious person infer from Nancy Pelosi's margin that Peter King has no mandate from his constituents? Because that is the load of bull one is being asked to swallow to accept the premise that national margin across 400+ independent elections determine a single mandate for the House.

[bluelang]

Divided government is good. Our legislature is designed to be inefficient.

[Minister_of_Information]

Wow, it's unfortunate for democrats that Representatives are elected from individual districts rather than the nation at large.

[el_lagarto]

i just dont care anymore. im surrounded by a bunch of idiots who cant seem to grasp the idea that voting for any incumbent is a moronic idea.

congress has an approval rating collectively in the toilet and the same assclowns get re-elected year after year b/c the electorate is a bunch of retards,..no offense to retards.

congress is not the problem. stupid people are the problem. and stupid is in an exponential growth curve.

[JerseyGator01]

Yep, there was a very large percentage of stupid voters this year who based their vote largely on a Hurricane Sandy photo op involving two very overrated so-called leaders.

CORRUPTION RULES!!!!!

[wargunfan]

Originally Posted by el_lagarto

i just dont care anymore. im surrounded by a bunch of idiots who cant seem to grasp the idea that voting for any incumbent is a moronic idea.

congress has an approval rating collectively in the toilet and the same assclowns get re-elected year after year b/c the electorate is a bunch of retards,..no offense to retards.

congress is not the problem. stupid people are the problem. and stupid is in an exponential growth curve.

^^^This. The dumbing down of America is paying real dividends for the ruling class.

[wargunfan]

Originally Posted by rpmGator

Pubs lost seats to the other side, and in two years, may lose more if they don't wise up and start representing more than white males...

My guy had a tough time getting elected this time around, and I don't think he will win the next time as the face of the district is getting less white.

Wait.....are you saying that some people vote for a candidate because he/she is not white??!! Why, that's racist!

[Row6]

Originally Posted by MichiGator2002

There really is no bottom to the political depravity, seeking now to invalidate the House majority on what is an utterly, utterly irrelevant ground -- the aggregate of total votes cast. I mind quails at how such an argument could convince anyone. You do realize that all it takes for this meaningless anamoly to come up, is for Democrats to have won their seats by wider majorities than Republicans won theirs, right? What would that fact tell you? That each specific representative has more support on their district than another. It says nothing.

N O T H I N G

About national support. And here is another twist... who cares? The legislature is not elected en masse, so in any real sense, it never has a mandate en masse. Each member had a mandate from her constituents, and no other. And there are more GOP members.

What is even more absurd about this asinine appeal to hold the measure of the legislature to a national popular vote, is that pretty much by definition, to be in the majority but not have that total, means that you won more of the closely contested districts than the minority, that the minorities wins were more in monolithic districts.

Bottomless "political depravity"? Whoa baby, that is some over the top righteous anger there.

But speaking of bottomless depravity, the facts are that in order to win the House back, democrats will have to win by about a 7-8% total vote, instead of the 1% they just won by. It is also a fact that overwhelmingly Republican seats are safe, meaning their district went for Romney, and their greatest fear is getting "primaried" by Tea Party nuts, not winning the general election. That is not as true for democrats. You want "bottomless depravity"?

"Obama won Pennsylvania by 5 points, but Republicans took 13 of 18 House districts. In Ohio, Obama won by two and the GOP kept 12 of 16 House seats."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...mandering.html

The House is the people's house and should more closely correspond to the popular vote if things aren't rigged, unlike the Senate where it is rigged by design towards small states.

[Matthanuf06]

Originally Posted by Row6

Bottomless "political depravity"? Whoa baby, that is some over the top righteous anger there.

But speaking of bottomless depravity, the facts are that in order to win the House back, democrats will have to win by about a 7-8% total vote, instead of the 1% they just won by. It is also a fact that overwhelmingly Republican seats are safe, meaning their district went for Romney, and their greatest fear is getting "primaried" by Tea Party nuts, not winning the general election. That is not as true for democrats. You want "bottomless depravity"?

"Obama won Pennsylvania by 5 points, but Republicans took 13 of 18 House districts. In Ohio, Obama won by two and the GOP kept 12 of 16 House seats."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...mandering.html

The House is the people's house and should more closely correspond to the popular vote if things aren't rigged, unlike the Senate where it is rigged by design towards small states.

I would suggest you look up a county by county map. It's mainly red. So it makes sense the GOP does well in smaller elections that generally avoids urban outposts

[rivergator]

Originally Posted by Matthanuf06

I would suggest you look up a county by county map. It's mainly red. So it makes sense the GOP does well in smaller elections that generally avoids urban outposts

I'm not sure 'more counties' is necessarily the key.

[Matthanuf06]

Originally Posted by rivergator

I'm not sure 'more counties' is necessarily the key.

It isn't given all of the gerrymandering. But lets not forget the purpose of the house. It was never intended to be a popular nationwide vote. Or even a statewide vote. At its simplest it is to give a voice to small areas of citizens because it was recognize that certain clusters of citizens may not have a national voice.

Gerrymandering reduces the competitiveness of those pockets of citizens but the whole premise of the house remains intact. Moving towards greater districts removes that premise.

In fact a good argument is that we should want gerrymandering, as we want as many as possible to have a voice.

[MichiGator2002]

Originally Posted by Row6

Bottomless "political depravity"? Whoa baby, that is some over the top righteous anger there.

But speaking of bottomless depravity, the facts are that in order to win the House back, democrats will have to win by about a 7-8% total vote, instead of the 1% they just won by. It is also a fact that overwhelmingly Republican seats are safe, meaning their district went for Romney, and their greatest fear is getting "primaried" by Tea Party nuts, not winning the general election. That is not as true for democrats. You want "bottomless depravity"?

"Obama won Pennsylvania by 5 points, but Republicans took 13 of 18 House districts. In Ohio, Obama won by two and the GOP kept 12 of 16 House seats."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...mandering.html

The House is the people's house and should more closely correspond to the popular vote if things aren't rigged, unlike the Senate where it is rigged by design towards small states.

Again, it is utterly irrelevant what national popular totals are required to win the House. To even care beyond casual curiosity what the national popular totals about the House are is evidence of either total ignorance of what the House is, or intentional misrepresenation of sane to incite outrage in those totally ignorant of what the House is.

Each seat is an election unto itself, period. The only way to lose the house but win the meaningless national popular total is to have more monolithic results in the districts won by the minority. Hell, if that says anything meaningful on the subject of gerrymandering, it is an indictment of the party with the most one-sided results in the districts it won.