8-6-25 - 7am - What Is Gerrymandering & Blue States Do It Too

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So, Michael, are you trying to tell us that the
success and viability of your program is entirely dependent upon
the knowledge and skills of engineers?

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Did I hear you correctly? Thanks? No, you're an engineer,
so you completely misheard that ethan engineers. That's funny, you
know that that's the technical term eth an engineer. Yeah,
that's that's that's it right there. I've got the answer.

(00:30):
I just heard Kaplus's promo about the Mountain Lion. I
don't want to just like destroy his entire program, but
I have the answer. Send them trap the mountain lion.
Send it to that zoo that we talked about yesterday
that was in one of the Nordic countries where they

(00:51):
just feed them the pets. Yeah, and the mountain lion
can have all the dog at once. Problem involved. Happy
life got lots of you know, you could have a
Toihuala one day, you could have a Wiener dog, the
next you have a Lienberger later. I mean, think about
all the kind of you know dog you could have,
you know, a little you know, maybe one day you

(01:11):
went a little kiddy. Well you can get a little
kiddy one day. Oh, this seems a little sick of
you know, a cat eating a cat. Then that sound
kind of averted. Catibalism. Catibalism, that's exactly right, catibalism. So
Dragon wanted to know why the Texas legislators, uh think

(01:35):
he thinks they went to Illinois because Dragon thought that Illinois.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, they're a neighboring states, neighboring states state.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
To you cross the Red River between Texas and Illinois.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
It's getting a car, drive twenty minutes and you're in
a different state. You're in Illinois, right then the safety
zone right right to.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Say exactly the safety zone. The problem is you cross
the Red River, you're in oh a home of where
the women comes sweeping down the plane and it's all
seventy seven counties there are red Oh yeah, So you
go to Illinois. You get Illinois because the governor there
is Pritzker. The Pritzker family are the founders and I

(02:15):
think still the owners. I may be wrong about that
of the Hyatt hotel hotel chain. And besides, you don't
want to drive anywhere. You don't want to get in
the car and drive, say from Austin all the way
to Oklahoma City or Arden Moore. No, you don't want
to do that, you want to because people you know,

(02:36):
you cram, you cram. You know, eighteen or twelve or
one of the number of legislators are into you know,
a car and they're all eating potato chips and fre
doos and stuff. Those party buses well or even a
party bus, and they got all the chips and the
crap and everywhere. No, that takes too long, you know,
and then the women they're gonna have to stop to pee.
I mean, you know, it's just gonna take forever. So

(02:58):
what you do is, if you're Democrat legislator, you charter
a jet.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Still mostly serious questions. Why didn't go to New Mexico.
That's the you share a border with New Mexico, and
that's the closest friendly blue state.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
And stay in to come carry versus the Hyatt downtown Chicago,
and you.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
You can go up a little bit more. You go
to Colorado. We're the blue state closest to him, might be,
I don't.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Think think Aspen state, the little now. Yeah, yeah, you're
you're exactly Illinois.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Illinois.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah, they go to Illinois. Yeah, they went to a
state that even Stephen Colbert soon to be former Late
Show Hosts is talking to Governor Pittsker and they have
this pretty fascinating conversation about what I'm about to explain
about Jerry manderin.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
If you're if you're considering, if you're considering doing a
little more redrawing in Illinois, you already have some crazy
districts in Illinois. Take a look at this. Look at
look at seventeen here it does that. Then it comes
up here and it sneaks around there and goes all
the way up here and then goes right over there
like that. And look at look at look at this
one kind of goes whip up there. It's like the

(04:14):
stinger on a scorpion down here. Is this common for.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
All states to do?

Speaker 5 (04:19):
We handed it over to a kindergarten class and let
them decide.

Speaker 4 (04:22):
Okay, that's the non partisan group that does this.

Speaker 5 (04:26):
Guy, and that's our independent commission.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
You know that is yeah?

Speaker 4 (04:31):
I mean, look, because all states to a certain extent
do this. Why is what Texas doing particular?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Grecious in this case?

Speaker 5 (04:39):
So here, every ten years we do a census in
this country, and right after the census, we redraw districts
in every state.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
But what the Republicans are trying to do and.

Speaker 5 (04:49):
The Texas Republicans, frankly at the behest of Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Are dual. So you got to blame Trump for all
of it. We get mid decade. That is extraordinarily rare.

Speaker 4 (05:01):
That's an important point.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Did you know his language. He didn't say it's wrong.
I got to give the governor credit here. He didn't
say it's wrong. He didn't say it's illegal, he didn't
say it's unconstitutionally. He says it's exceedingly rare.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
I think he literally called them or wrote them and said, hey,
I need five seats.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah no, he said why don't you do this? You know,
why not? And the question is why not? Why? Why? Why?
Why not do that? So we have redistricting and we
have Hang on one second, I got pull up this
noteing so we have all of the news coverage last

(05:53):
night was about I mean, all the cable channels were
covering this. The network's covered it as if this was
something that was absolutely horrific and has never been done
before the problem is it has. Let me tell you

(06:13):
about League of United American Citizens versus Perry. In this case,
the League of United Latin American Citizens is an NGO.
It's a national organization, but they have chapters in the
state of Texas. And Perry happens to be a guy
by the name of Rick Perry, who is the former
governor of Texas. This is a United States Supreme Court case.

(06:37):
You can find it at five point forty eight US
page three ninety nine, decided in two thousand and six.
So these Latin American voters challenged the governor challenging Texas
two thousand and three congressional redistricting plan. The court held

(06:57):
that while most of the plan did not violate the Constitution,
the redrawing of the District twenty three, the redrawing of
District twenty three in particular, violated the Voting Rights Act
by diluting Latino voting strength. But it rejected the broader
claims of unconstitutional partisan jerry mandering. Jerry mandering. What is

(07:26):
jerry mandering? The term jerry mander comes from an eighteen
twelve incident, As I said earlier, in Massachusetts. The governor
was Elbridge Jerry. He signed a state Senate redistricting bill
that was drawn to benefit his Democratic slash Republican party.
Just deal with it. Yes, it was that's what it

(07:47):
was called. One resulting district was so oddly shaped that
it resembled a salamander, inspiring the term jerry mander, coined
in a Boston new newspaper and lampoon with a famous
cartoon that you can find online now. Although Jerry himself
disliked the highly partisan plan, the redistricting was a political success.

(08:11):
His party retained control of the state Senate, although Governor
Jerry lost re election as governor, and then the term
gained national traction very quickly, and it's been used ever
since the eighteen hundreds to describe district boundary manipulation for
partisan gain, not just in Massachusetts but across the entire country.

(08:32):
They even talk about it in other countries where they
divide up their safe for their members of parliament. In
the UK, it's it's just been around forever. In the
United States, redistrict king happens every ten generally happens every

(08:55):
ten years after the census. But over the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, both major parties have engaged in jerrymandering at
the state and national levels, and they've been doing it
at different times, not always. Texas did this. What I
think this is twenty twenty. I think they did it
in two thousand and three. So it's like, you know,

(09:20):
history rhymes, history repeats itself. We're going through the same
thing again. And what they're what the Texas legislators are
upset about, is you're doing this now so that you
can redraw the seats, which they have the absolute power
to do. If the Democrats were controlled, they could do

(09:44):
this if it would benefit them, but it wouldn't benefit them,
so they're not going to do it. But because Texas
has had an influx of additional people into the state,
they want to redraw their lines to kind of, you know,
a portion equally the new population. And they want to

(10:06):
do it so they can draw the lines, so they
can gerrymander the lines so that they could add two
I think maybe up to three seats that would probably
vote Republican, giving Texas an additional three votes, which was
ultimately what increase the margin that the Republicans might have

(10:28):
the opportunity to maintain in the House of Representatives. That's
all political. It's all political. Now. We can debate till
the cows come home about whether it's right to do
this or wrong to do this. I don't think it's
either right or wrong. I think it's political. And in

(10:49):
this case, in the in the case of the Latino
the Latino Group versus Perry, the Court said, this is
indeed a political decision. It is not for the courts
to determine. The Supreme Court ruled five to four that

(11:12):
although there was no standard for ruling partisan gerrymandering unconstitutional,
they did decide that one particular district in one particular district,
District twenty three, was intentionally reducing Latino voter's influence and
that violated the Voting Rights Act. So generally, you can
draw the districts anyway you want to, as long as

(11:34):
it's not based on race. The case clarified that while
mid decade redistricting for partisan purposes is not unconstitutional, if
you're going to do that, regardless of when you redistrict,
you just have to comply with the Voting Rights Act

(11:56):
and you can't dilute minority voting power. Now this was
a singing. This was a huge decision for the law
of redistricting. It permitted almost all partisan motivated redistricting on
the Constitution, but it did just maintain the standard that
it has to comply with the Voting Rights Act. So

(12:17):
what Texas is doing is not unconstitutional as long as
they don't violate the Voting Rights Act. As long as
they don't just say, hey, we're just going to create
an all black district, or we're going to make sure
that these blacks in this community that they get divided
up such that their vote is diluted. You can't do that.
But if you want to include the blacks, as long
as you put them all maybe in generally speaking, in

(12:40):
the same district, but you jerrymanned that district to make
sure you get more Republican voters, That's okay. Here's what
I want you to understand. This is a purely partisan
political issue. This has not to do with the law
other than complain with the Voting Rights Act. But set

(13:01):
that aside. Because whether you do that, whether a state
legislature does this, or one of these stupid independent commissions
they set up does it, everybody has to make sure
that you don't violate the Voting Rights Act. Otherwise you
can draw the districts as crazy as you want to. Now,
my personal opinion is I hate Gerrymander districts. Do you

(13:24):
want to know why because I think it creates the
highly partisan divide that we have because there's no incentive
for anybody to do anything other than win your primary.
Because in most congressional districts, if you win your primary,
you're going to win the general election. So you never

(13:46):
have to compromise, you never have to try to get
in other voters, you don't have to try to compete.
And I also think that congressional districts ought to be
kind of geographically consistent. Like I think, for example, in Colorado,
I know that we've got Dina to get in Denver,
But while what if we had a congressional district that
was kind of the Front Range, you know, just kind

(14:08):
of a narrow, almost erectangle. Say, you know that's kind
of runs you know, parallel to well at the front Range,
and it runs down, you know, kind of on along
the other side of I twenty five, maybe from Larimer
County down to just about El Paso County, and make
that a congressional district. All those people have something in common,

(14:33):
we all live in the urban area. And then you
could take say El Paso County and Pueblo and put
them in the congressional district and then you could divide
up the rural areas. Everybody's in. Everybody has something in common.
We're urban, we're rural, or where you know, it's a
ranching area, it's a farming area, it's a it's an

(14:55):
oil and gas production area. Divided up along those kinds
of lines, as opposed to just how many Republicans can
know or how many Democrats can I cram into a
district so they'll always vote Republican or they always vote Democrat.
Think about a congressman that has to work in a
district that is let's say fifty to fifty Democrat Republican. Wow,

(15:18):
what's that congressman going to do? That Congressman's going to
have a hard time, isn't he. I'd like toy have
congressman hard times. I'd like for congressmen to have to
really actually debate issues, to actually have to see the
other side of an issue, as opposed to being in
a solidly safe Think about Diana de Gett. Let's use

(15:39):
Diana to get as an example. I know Diana pretty well.
Diana doesn't have to really debate anything because she lives
in a district that's been designed that it's predominantly liberal
Democrat voters that are always going to vote Democrat. So
all Dinah Degett has to do is if when the

(15:59):
Democrats in power just vote for whatever they want, and
when they're out of power, just vote against everything Republicans want.
She never really has to do in critical thinking. She
never really has to go persuade voters that this is
the right thing or that's the right thing. We kind
of lost that in the country, the idea of actually
debating an issue. Now, don't miss don't don't don't misunderstand me.

(16:23):
There are some issues that I think we're right about
and they're wrong about. But imagine a congressman having to
live in a district where, let's say it's a Republican
that things like you and I do. And now they're
in a district that is, let's just say forty eight
percent a Democrat and fifty two percent Republican. They still,

(16:47):
you know, because not every Republican's going to agree with them,
They might have to debate a little bit and kind
of persuade some of these Democrats to come over their side.
If it was equal to fifty to fifty, they really
have to do so, because some voters just won't show
up jerrymandering. While I think it's perfectly legal, I think

(17:08):
it has political implications, and I think we are to
be aware of the political implications. Maybe we wouldn't live
in such a partisan country if we look again. I'm
not for bipartisanship. I think that's bullcraft. But maybe if
congressmen actually had to think and persuade and convince us

(17:30):
that their vote was the right thing, they might actually
pay attention to us. Right now, they can simply ignore
us because they're in safe districts.

Speaker 6 (17:39):
I know we are talking about a different type of engineers,
but in the skilled trades, we have a question. Why
did God create tradesmen? Because engineers need heroes.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
That's pretty good, just you know, dig into him. While
you wantn't to, I don't really care. So I want
to finish up about Texas. So people argue that Texas
is going to tip the scales for the Republicans. They
want to try to pick up five Republican seats. I'm
pretty confident they can get four of those. I think
those are clear. The fifth one is probably likely. So

(18:17):
if they do can control that's seventy eight point nine ten.
But let's compare that to California, because Gavin Newsom is
one of those ones that's bitching about what they're doing.
And I want to compare to California also because that's
the mothership that people can't wait to escape from. Forty
three of fifty two seats in California are held by Democrat.

(18:41):
That's eighty two point seven percent. Now, where's the outrage
about that? In EXA's point, yeah, why don't we test
the allocation itself having been undercounted, along with a bunch
of other red states and blue states having been systematically
overcounted and now holding the lion's share of illegal aliens
to bloat the census numbers against the interests of American citizens.

(19:06):
I had Democrats at twelve to sixteen electoral votes and
representatives too strong based on a realistic understanding of the
population shifts in this country and the government's own admittedly
inaccurate or even fraudulent data. So hear the Democrats all
rallying around their blue fortresses, particularly California, to push back

(19:30):
against not just Texas, but also Ohio, and the possibility
to even Florida, Missouri, maybe in even Indiana. All of
those states might consider mid decade redistricting in order to
assist in holding the Republican majority of the House. Now,
at worst, I see Texas in Ohio combining to net

(19:52):
six Republican seats. Now Florida, by my calculations, has room
for three that I could see at a quick glance.
Missouri maybe five bordering on two R plus maybe forty
four districts in Indiana. Uh, not more than one each,

(20:13):
maybe in a couple of couple of areas. It seems
proper to remind you that Nebraska Congressional District number two,
which is Metro Omaha, is perhaps the most poorly drawn
district any group of Republicans has ever come up with.
So if my range anywhere of eleven to thirteen seats

(20:36):
picked up by the five Republican states that could do
mid decade redistricting is anywhere near accurate, the odds of
Republicans holding the House skyrocket. Here's how things would shape
up in the three big Democrat states who are all

(20:57):
out there talking a big game about they're going to
do it. If Republicans do this, well, we're gonna do it.
In California, Illinois, and New York two really well California
right now is forty three Democrats, nine Republicans. Illinois is
fourteen Democrats and three Republicans. New York has nineteen Democrats
and seven Republicans. Let's go to Illinois and New York

(21:19):
before we get to California. There's absolutely no room for
even a single Democrat pick up in Illinois because two
of the Republican seats were one uncontested in twenty twenty
four and the other one is a Republican vote dump
in southern Illinois one by forty nine percent. The state
is already fully jerrymandered. They can't draw them any worse

(21:44):
than they already have to maintain Democrat control. So whatever
their bluster is is not really going to gain anything.
In New York, I think Democrats could eliminate Congressional District
number seven that's held by Mike Lawler, but they can't
knock out the first congressional district without jeopardizing the third

(22:08):
and fourth congressional districts because those margins are simply too
thin to make more than one seat flip, and they
may not look at that as a valid option considering
the inevitable blowback over what's a minute gain I just
don't see that that there's really anything to gain in

(22:30):
in Illinois. Gavin Newsom, the blowhard Gavin Newsom, Oh, he's
out there everywhere. Well, there are two giant considerations that
prevent Newsom from living up to all the bluster that
he talks about holding the line. And the first one

(22:53):
is law in California. Man Texas, there is no law
in fact, Texas gives the legislature the absolute authority, unfettered
authority to redraw, to redistrict the lines. California is still
born because of their laws, because, unlike with its election laws,

(23:19):
it has other very restrictive laws that will almost certainly
prevent any redistricting from occurring prior to the next decade.
Why because in two thousand and eight, California voters approved
Proposition eleven that created the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. So
California's one of the states has said, we're tired of

(23:42):
the legislature bickering and bitching and you know, drawing lines
and jerrymandering and everything else. So we're going to hand
to the citizens. The California voters said, we're going to
adopt a district a commission Districting Commission to do this. Well,
after it was adopted in two thousand and eight and
twenty ten, they expanded the power of that commission to

(24:03):
include federal district boundaries by approving Proposition twenty. So you
would have to have a constitutional amendment to strip that
Redistricting Commission of its responsibilities because the voter's put it
in the constitution. So that leads Newsom with only two options,
both of which he's out there talenting. The first is

(24:24):
to argue that there is no constitutional provision that would
prohibit a mid decade redistricting. Well, that's going to lose
in court because he doesn't have any power over that.
They gave up their power to the voters, took the
power away from the legislature, from the California Assembly, and
gave it to this commission. So they're going to lose

(24:45):
in court. Does he not understand how his own city,
his own state works, But he does. He is touting
us another option, and that is to compel the legislature
to propose a special measure, which requires a two thirds
majority to hold a special election to do a work
around the commission, their districting commission. Now he's got a

(25:08):
really tight timeline, and if he's going to get that
done politically, he's got to win that vote or that's
going to hurt him politically for his presidential aspirations. Now,
if he were to succeed in that way, I'd put
my chips on the second option. But even then, if
he wins that second option, that hurts him politically nationally

(25:30):
because he will be blatantly saying to the country, I'll
do whatever it takes to win, whatever it takes. California
has forty three of its fifty two House seats in
Democrat hands, fifty three of forty two. Now, the GOP

(25:54):
seats that were won in twenty twenty four were won
by fairly hefty margins. I don't want to go through
all of them, but for example, California one was won
by thirty point six percent of the vote, California five
by twenty three point six. California forty eight, that's Darryl
isis district, he won by almost nineteen percent. There were

(26:19):
only four that were within eleven points, including Daryl IS's
at eighteen point six. Could Newsom draw out any of
the four Republican districts that were within eleven percent and
maybe some potentially, but that's not going to change anything
in terms of California being red or blue. It's not

(26:44):
going to change it at all. Texas, Ohio and potentially
three other Republican states have an edge over California, and
California's just blowing smoke because why because Newsom wants to
remain in the limelight, Which gets back to my point

(27:05):
about this entire kerfuffle going on is nothing but politics.
Nothing but politics, and what Republicans are doing in Texas
they have done before the Supreme Court has said, yeah,
it's constitutional, and we have nothing to do with that.
In fact, we wipe our hands of it as long
as you're complying with the Voting Rights Act. So that's done.

(27:29):
And when you look at take Massachusetts, I forget what
Trump's margin was. I think it was. I think Trump
got forty four percent of the vote or maybe thirty
thirty four or forty four percent of the vote in Massachusetts.
I forget which it was. But regardless Massachusetts is every
congressional seat in Massachusetts I think they have nine is Democrat.

(27:54):
That shows how they've gerry mandered it to guarantee that
Democrats will win all the can congressional seats even when
someone like Donald Trump runs into the state and still
picks up either thirty four or forty four percent of
the vote. That's how jerry mander these Democrat states already are.
So if they want to try to do what Texas
is doing, they'll gain virtually nothing, nothing at all. Now

(28:22):
that's why they're so upset, because if Texas, Ohio, Indiana,
but even Texas alone does what it's going to do,
that improves the chances of Republicans maintaining control of the
House in the midterms. And boom. That's the bottom line
about what everybody's upset about.

Speaker 5 (28:44):
No, it's amazing us plebes need to just roll over
and do whatever the Democratic Party wants to do. Now
that the Republicans are doing what the Democrats have been
doing in Cali, Illinois, name your blue state, probably Colorado.
Now they're just screaming fascist and all of that. Again,

(29:07):
they're getting a taste of their own medicine. And Republicans
should fight hard on this.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Do you know what that talkback just did? That talkback
just made me clicked back the backtab on my clipping service,
because now I want you to hear something you're exactly right,
but it's not fascist, it's Nazism.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
And then integration happening. Everybody thought they accept this. They
don't accept this. They are showing us who they are.
We should believe in and we better have the courage
to stand up otherwise we will fall for anything. And
in this country we will be defeated, deported. I mean,
we will lose all of our rights. And if you
think it can't happen, it can. And I will liken
this to the Holocaust. People are like, well, how did

(29:54):
the Holocaust happen? How is somebody in a position to
kill all their people? Well, good people remain or good
people didn't realize that what happens to them can very
soon happen to me or somebody I love.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
There's no self awareness whatsoever, the cognitive disson This is
just the size of the Grand Canyon. There's some Democrat congressman,
Oh no, I'll take that back. She's a Texas state
representative comparing what the legislature is doing to the Holocaust.
Holy col that's pretty Badrats are pushing their rhetoric to

(30:30):
new extremes as they attempt to block the state's vote
to redistrict many have fled to Illinois and.

Speaker 7 (30:35):
Now Massachusetts, while others are making conversial comparisons to the
redistricting effort.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Listen to this.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
You've all heard the game Texas hold them Well, we
are literally holding the line on democracy, not just for
texting it's democracy.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
They're protecting democracy. Isn't that fantastic. It's about time that
somebody stood up to protect democracy.

Speaker 7 (30:58):
The Holocaustjerson, what do you make of all deaths you?
Hewett Well I said last night to Sean griff that
this is bad high school theater. It is people who've
never had any attention paid to them and without any
power in Texas, drawing a little attention to themselves and
in the same time stopping the appropriate redistrict thing of
Texas and stopping people from being able to get the

(31:21):
relief they need. After the Hill Country disaster of July fourth,
the one that destroyed Mystic Camp, that killed one hundred
and thirty six people. So Texas legislators are turning their
back on their constituents. They are not heroes, they are cowards.
They had to go back and do their job, try
and make arguments against the maps and get that water
bill passed. The flooding has to be repaired. They've got
to go back to Texas and they got to do

(31:43):
it soon. Stop with a theater, get back to work.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yeah, just stop it, and you accident reminds me they're
also the special session is not just to readraw the maps,
but special to consider some special appropriations to help the
flood victims. Meanwhile, Democrats are saying that, oh, this is
equal to the Holocaust. So let's run off and stay

(32:08):
at a Hyatt hotel and order room service and go
out and talk to the media because the media will.
The media will spread our word everywhere. Yes, much ado
about nothing, but at least now you've got the full picture.