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Is congressional districting according to race justified racial discrimination?

Is congressional districting according to race justified racial discrimination?

  • Yes

    Votes: 1 4.5%

  • No

    Votes: 21 95.5%
  • Total voters
    22
haymarket said:
If we accept that this example is wrong, is not the redrawing of ANY congressional district intentionally done to produce a pre-ordained result wrong?
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That would likely depend on why that assumption was made. What do you think?
 
jet57 said:
What districts have been redrawn according to race? Congressional districting is about equal numbers of people being represented.
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Many congressional districts have been redrawn in the US to insure that a black candidate is elected to Congress. Is there something I am missing here?
 
MildSteel said:
Many congressional districts have been redrawn in the US to insure that a black candidate is elected to Congress. Is there something I am missing here?
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Districts are drawn so that residents are represented by residents. If a district happens to be black, what's the problem? Or should the Koch brothers represent black districts?
 
MildSteel said:
No, that's not what I am asking. The question is is the practice of deliberately drawing congressional district lines to favor or disfavor a particular racial group justified racial discrimination. That is the question. Clear?
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Districts are drawn for equal numerical representation. If a district is half black and half white, what's it matter? If a district is black, then of course SOMEONE from that district should represent them.
 
jet57 said:
Districts are drawn so that residents are represented by residents. If a district happens to be black, what's the problem? Or should the Koch brothers represent black districts?
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I didn't say it was a necessarily a problem. I just asked was it an instance of justified racial discrimination.
 
MildSteel said:
I didn't say it was a necessarily a problem. I just asked was it an instance of justified racial discrimination.
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Not if a black representative is elected to a black district because he beat his competitors.
 
jet57 said:
Not if a black representative is elected to a black district because he beat his competitors.
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The point is this, if you deliberately draw district lines so that a black person will be elected, that is, on the basis of race, giving persons special treatment. Although that is not negative treatment relative to the perspective of blacks, it is nonetheless racial discrimination because that group was given the special treatment on the basis of their race.
 
OrphanSlug said:
(I had to go get another cup of coffee for this conversation, and it may get philosophical depending on how many cups I go through this am.)

I tend to say no, if we are going to stay a constitutional republic then whole idea is to have elected officials govern within the confines of a constitution. And no where in those confines is the idea that to represent a district one has to demographically match the constituents by race, or by age, or by sex, or by income level, etc.
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What about equality under the law?
 
jonny5 said:
What about equality under the law?
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Do you look at equality as a starting point or ending point? The reason I ask is everyone's vote has equal weight. For instance, I do not see where a black person's vote has less weight just because there are by percentage less of them in the total US population.
 
OrphanSlug said:
Do you look at equality as a starting point or ending point? The reason I ask is everyone's vote has equal weight. For instance, I do not see where a black person's vote has less weight just because there are by percentage less of them in the total US population.
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I see it as a starting point. And I was just point out that there is something in the constitution that implies congress should attempt to make sure race isnt a factor in elections.
 
MildSteel said:
That would likely depend on why that assumption was made. What do you think?
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I think that looking at race is a far too narrow of a characteristic. The greater issue which this is only a small part of it far more crucial - the intentional gerrymandering of most of the House districts with the obvious intent to give that district to one party or the other. That is something which needs to be stopped as much as is humanly possible.

I worked on the redistricting plan in the Michigan legislature a few years ago and if one follows the rules, one can produce a legislature controlled by either party depending on how the lines are drawn. And everybody participating in this knows darn well how it works.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
You seem to be confusing intended outcome of discrimination with the process of discrimination. You cannot turn a minority into a majority; you can either concentrate minorities into special districts thus giving them a token representative (still easily ignored) or spread them as thinly as possible hoping to minimize the impact of their vote in that manner.
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Well if we learned to vote as Americans instead of individual races, none of this would be a concern.
 
American said:
Well if we learned to vote as Americans instead of individual races, none of this would be a concern.
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That requires actually thinking as a nation of Americans (whatever that has become) rather than deciding to simply choose to follow the party, racial or ethnic herd. As the nation moves (progresses?) further away from having a common mass media inspired base, many more seem to be treating themselves to heavier doses of confirmation bias making that even less likely.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/163412/americans-main-source-news.asp
 
MildSteel said:
Again, self explanatory.
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Ironic that you say self explanatory, because you can district along racial lines so that different races are split up (leading to potentially more minorities being elected), or you can district along racial lines so minorities are diluted (leading to very few elected).

BTW, neither are justified either.
 
MildSteel said:
Again, self explanatory.
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Nope.The only thing that should have anything to with how these districts are drawn is the number of voters and that is it.It should not have anything to do with age,gender, race, political affiliation and so on.
 
Congressional districts should be multi-member, drawn by population, and drawn by an independent commission. Racial makeup of districts should have nothing to do with it.

Interestingly enough, New Zealand has seats specifically allocated to the Maori people in their Parliament.
 
MildSteel said:
Again, self explanatory.
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no and there is no such thing in this country as justified racial discrimination

and Gerrymandering to distort voting is a despicable.
 
SocialDemocrat said:
Congressional districts should be multi-member, drawn by population, and drawn by an independent commission. Racial makeup of districts should have nothing to do with it.

Interestingly enough, New Zealand has seats specifically allocated to the Maori people in their Parliament.
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If its drawn by population, whites will always win, since they are a majority in any given district.
 
jamesrage said:
Nope.The only thing that should have anything to with how these districts are drawn is the number of voters and that is it.It should not have anything to do with age,gender, race, political affiliation and so on.
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EXACTLY!!! It would be a simple matter to write a program that would draw the lines for districts based on nothing more than population and possibly a couple of variables such as barriers to transportation (for those sad places that don't have the wonderful system of 100% Vote By Mail that Oregon has).
 
SocialDemocrat said:
Congressional districts should be multi-member, drawn by population, and drawn by an independent commission. Racial makeup of districts should have nothing to do with it.

Interestingly enough, New Zealand has seats specifically allocated to the Maori people in their Parliament.
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No commission, just use software and take all the whining out of the equation. An algorithm to partition by population is simple to write. Start by calculating the number of people in each district and then start at the NW corner of the state and work your way to the SE corner adding population in city block sized increments, working in patterns that create the "squarest" districts possible.
 
faithful_servant said:
No commission, just use software and take all the whining out of the equation. An algorithm to partition by population is simple to write. Start by calculating the number of people in each district and then start at the NW corner of the state and work your way to the SE corner adding population in city block sized increments, working in patterns that create the "squarest" districts possible.
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Not a bad idea, actually.
 
SocialDemocrat said:
That's not exactly true, given that there are 27 congressional districts that are African-American majority, 30 that are Hispanic majority, and 1 that is Asian Pacific Islander majority, in addition to the fact that there are current African-American, Asian, and Hispanic congressmen/women.
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Because of gerrymandering. Look at FLorida. We have 2 districts drawn to ensure black representation because democrats and republicans made a deal for it.

America’s most gerrymandered congressional districts - The Washington Post
 
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