WEBVTT - Gerrymandering: How to Stifle Democracy 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.840 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:18.960 There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Jerrymander. Yeah, 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:25.200 that's right, our pet salamander, Jerrymander, And this is stuff 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:27.520 you should Know. That was a dad joke right out 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.640 of the gate man. Apparently that's all I've got these days, 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.680 or dad jokes. There's nothing wrong with that, I guess not, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.200 which is really just a way of saying middle aged 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.720 dude jokes. Sure, sure, because I think our senses of 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:47.120 humor decline, we get less funny. Look at Jim gaff again, 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:53.720 but we think we're funnier, right, hot pockets. Actually, I 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:59.440 tease Jim, I I love your work. Oh are your pals? No? Okay, no, 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:04.960 but I do of his work. I'm just a fan. Yeah. Um, like, 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:10.039 like absolutely zero, there's zero not to like about Jim 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.800 gaff Agan. Um, you know my buddy Jim. I say 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.120 he's um, he's sort of pals with him. He says 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.800 he's a good guy. I like, there's no way he's not. 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:20.880 You know, like, you just you can't you can't, you 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.320 can't make up that level of like coolness and niceness 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:31.600 and approachability, affability, even maybe gaffability. He just went, that's genius. 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:35.080 I'm gonna trade Marty totally as if he listens to 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.039 this show. So here we're diving into politics, which we 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.560 keep saying, like, let's not do that because it's political. 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:47.000 But this is very newsy and not everyone understands jerrymandering, 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.480 and I think it's this file this under p s 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.320 a because it's a big deal and it stinks and 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:54.560 it's been going on for a long time. Yeah, it was. 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.240 I'm definitely one of those people who didn't understand it. 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.400 Like I knew, yeah, I had to do with drawing 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:01.720 maps and you could draw them so that they're unfair, 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.560 and I never thought, well, how do you do that? 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:08.160 And I found out thanks to researching this episode, and 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:12.519 apparently it's gotten way way worse in recent years. So 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:17.320 to understand gerrymandering, though, you have to understand a little 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.360 bit about the House of Representatives. One of the two 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.160 houses of Congress, one's the Senate. One is the House 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:29.040 of Representatives, and Webster's defines right, Yeah, so the deal 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:35.120 of the House is is that the founding fathers um 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.560 invented the House or established let's say the House to 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:45.560 be a much more sort of of the moment reactive, fair, 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:51.440 ultra democratic group of uh governing body, and that it's 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.320 only every two years. And the idea was to have 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.679 a lot of turnover and have them really uh you know, 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:02.200 because there's four five of them, have them really uh 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.400 really tied to their constituents, right, So it's just a 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.400 super fair way for things that really matter to you 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.800 on a smaller level are heard as opposed to the Senate, 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.639 which is you know, far far fewer, right. And there 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:18.519 are a couple of ways that they did this. One, 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.119 like you said, elections are held every two years. All 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:23.919 Congress people are up for re election every two years, 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.240 and they're they're elected directly by the people they represent. 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:31.720 And when they started, I think there was sixty five 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:37.640 seats in the House of Representatives, and by twelve I 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:39.840 think it was up to four d and thirty five. 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.760 And they added seats because they established the House of 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:51.040 Representatives to to represent a set proportion of um population population, 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:56.520 So each congress person represents one chunk of America from 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:01.000 their state, right. So the larger and large America grew 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.720 the more and more congress people you needed, and then 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.840 finally in nineteen twelve, they said, uh, we can't do 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:08.800 the same more. We're just gonna if you have too 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.120 many congress people, they're going to Um, you're not gonna 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:13.880 be able to do anything. It's just going to be 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.760 too many. Right, So they kept it at four and 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.560 thirty five. And that does something. It's it it means 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.400 that if you have a state that keeps growing, because 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.520 it's not like America stopped growing in population in nineteen twelve, 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.680 So as your population keeps growing, that means that as 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.960 one state keeps growing proportionately speaking, that means another state 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.240 is smaller, whether people move from that state to the 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.320 other larger state or the other larger state just by 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.840 contrast attractive more people. That means that the smaller state 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:46.920 or the one that didn't grow as much, is going 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:51.080 to actually lose congressional seats, and that the bigger seats 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.000 or the bigger state, the one that's growing, will actually 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:58.200 gain congressional seats. Because again, a congress person represents a 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.880 set amount of American public from their home state, and 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.839 right now it's about seven I think the average is 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.239 seven hundred and eleven thousand people is how many people 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.359 a congress person represents in the US today. Yeah, and 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.000 they did this through what's called the Reapportionment Act, of 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.920 which basically set up all right, here's an automatic system. 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:23.120 Now every ten years, we do a census, and they 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:27.640 will just redistribute and allocate seats according to that census 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.400 every ten years. And like you said, if you're growing, 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.479 we're gonna nip some away from the places that aren't 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.239 growing or shrinking. And it was, you know, it seemed 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.400 like a pretty fair way to redistribute and allocate these uh, 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.080 these seats. It is. It's extremely fair. And so as 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.479 a result, you've got like Montana that the whole state 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.800 has one congressional district that represents about a million people, 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.880 whereas New York State has, which is a third of 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:57.159 the size of Montana, has twenty seven congress congressional districts 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:00.880 and hence seats in Congress. Right, it's a very fair system. 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.400 Here's the problem when the Census Bureau figures out all 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.120 these figures and they say, well, this state actually should 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:10.400 get two new congress people, and you know, this state 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:14.760 should lose one and another state loses one. Um, they 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:19.359 have to redraw the maps of the state to show 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.440 what these new districts are because population is shifted every 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.200 over the ten years since the last census, so you 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.080 have to update the maps to make sure that they 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.479 each congress person is representing roughly the same number of 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:37.159 people and so everybody is accounted for. Again makes sense, right, Yeah, 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.719 But the problem came in when they were very vague 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.719 as far as the rules for drawing these boundaries. Uh. 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:49.719 It says something like geographically can geographically contiguous, compact in shape, 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:54.559 roughly equal in population. All these things are subjective, so 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:59.320 when partisan politics become involved, the people that redraw these maps, 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.840 it seems, can't help themselves but be like, hey, if 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:06.719 we move over ten blocks this way, and like a 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.760 couple of miles that way, and shape it like this, 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.440 which looks really weird, but hey, that's okay because these 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.840 rules are vague, then we you know, even though there 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:21.000 may be a majority of one party, we could still 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.680 win if we draw this thing the right way, right. Like. 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.920 The big problem with this whole process for apportioning the 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.920 House of Representative seats is that they left in each 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.480 state the dominant political party who happened to be in 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.680 power at the time when the maps need to be redrawn, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.440 it was left up to them. There's no federal oversight, 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:45.280 there's no there's no oversight whatsoever. And the whole premise 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.320 of it was, well, okay, um, the voters will see 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.920 what they're doing and will vote those guys out. The 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:54.320 problem is, if you control the congressional maps, you can 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.640 draw them in such a way that even the voters 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.080 can't vote you out. And this is jerrymandering. And this 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.120 is the current state of politics right now and has 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.680 been for a very long time. Actually, we've been jerrymandering 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.200 for a while, but again, like I said, supposedly it's 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:13.480 gotten way worse in the last decade. Yeah, all right, 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.080 I'm a little worked up already. Yep, you've got a Interestingly, 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:23.160 you're crying blood. I'm trying not to, but it's not helping. 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:26.160 So we're gonna take a little break and maybe let's 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.320 jump back and talk history, if that's right with you. 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:30.480 I would love that, Chuck, and then we will go 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.640 back forward in time to study the current mess that 0:08:33.640 --> 0:09:03.760 we're in right after this. Sorry, huh, all right, we're 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:10.320 in the way back machine. Yeah, it's Virginia ratifies. It's 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:15.120 ratifies the Constitution of the US. And former Governor Patrick 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:20.200 Henry convinces his state legislators to redraw the fifth Congressional 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:24.480 District to force his foe, James Madison, to run against 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.800 James Monroe, because he figured he could easily win. It 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:31.360 backfired on him. Madison came out on top. But this 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:36.240 kind of kick started at the onset of our founding 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:40.079 in our country in the Constitution, the process of jerrymandering, 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:41.800 even though at that point it wasn't quite known as 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.800 jerrymandering yet, No, it wasn't. It was known as jerrymandering 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:50.000 after I think eight the eighteen twenties, I believe, and 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:57.680 the governor of Massachusetts Elbridge Jerry eighteen twelve, Um Elbridge Jerry, 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.320 who was he was the governor of Massachusetts, right correct? 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:05.160 He um came up with a map that he drew 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.760 to help keep his party, the Democrat Republicans, I think, 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:14.880 which is beyond confusing, right but Um, he drew a 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:19.080 map that was just abhorrent. It was just so clearly 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.560 partisan and drawn just to keep his his party in 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.960 power in Massachusetts. But I think the Boston Gazette published 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.439 a picture of this map and proclaimed that it looked 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.840 like a salamander, and so they said, this isn't a salamander, 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.800 this is a jerrymander, which is a million times worse 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:43.560 because it's politically toxic and a lizard. I love that 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:46.000 little tidbit, but that's where the name came from. Yeah, 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.240 it had never had any idea, but that's where jerrymandering 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:52.520 came from. Not a pretty word, but it definitely rolls 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:58.160 off the tongue like a um oil. So it grew 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.440 to be a very common practice and very blatant, and 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.240 Congress at one point early on in two tried to 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:08.280 get it under control with that Apportionment Act that I 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:13.080 talked about um and that said, you know those vague 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.760 things like let's draw these thing as contiguous and compact 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:21.199 as possible. But it just apparently no one, I guess. 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.560 The rules were so vague and outlined in such a 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.160 nebulous manner that there was no way to enforce it, 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.880 such that at one point they carved out two separate 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.840 states North and South Dakota. Uh the Republican can controlled 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.640 Congress so they could get more seats in the Senate Yeah, 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.280 at the time, if you were a state, you had 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.480 three electoral College votes, don't matter your size or anything 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:48.040 like that. And the Dakota territories were Republican leaning, so 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:50.640 the Republicans said, hey, you guys, welcome to the Union. 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:52.040 And by the way, we're going to carve you into 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:54.400 two states. So now we have six electoral votes rather 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:58.079 than just the three if you were one big state. Yeah, 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:04.080 pretty clever, pretty sky says. So. Um. One thing that 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.520 this article, I think this is a Patrick Kiger article, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:08.680 I think it's smart to point out is that this 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:13.080 is not just a Republican technique. This has been done 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:18.400 throughout history by both the parties UM, both the two 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:22.319 main parties, the Democrats and Republicans apparently also the Democratic 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:27.880 Republicans and UM two to the same effect, which is, 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.199 we're drawing these maps to make sure that you guys 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:38.400 don't have a fighting chance in the next congressional elections. Right. 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.079 I did some digging though, because I was curious about 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:45.439 these days, like who, um It's interesting because you can 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:49.720 say who is worse with jerry mandering, or more correctly, 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:53.880 maybe who was better at jerry mandering as far as 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.680 getting it pushed through more, and every political science and 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.079 mathematician will tell you that, uh, across the board sort 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:04.760 of Republicans are are either better at it or doing 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:09.600 it way more or that the the recent elections over 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:14.040 the last I think like three or so have have 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.520 favored the GOP in ways that they ended up with 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.199 something like twenty extra seats that they wouldn't have otherwise 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.440 had had the maps not been jerrymandered. Yeah. And then 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.080 in some of these I think Maryland was one case 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:31.040 where even though it was at Maryland where the Democrats 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:36.960 held like a majority, yet they the maps are drawn 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:38.480 in such a way that they would have to get 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.920 like an eight to ten point Oh I'm sorry this Wisconsin. Yeah, 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.440 Wisconsin an eight to ten point victory in order to 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.080 overcome those jerrymandering maps. Yeah, which is it's just not 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:52.040 going to happen because Wisconsin is pretty close to being 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:56.000 um down the middle. And that's actually a really good 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:59.760 example of the modern jerrymandering that's going on. Like Patrick 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.400 Group points out, when you think of jerryman doing this 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.720 kind of thing, you think of like guys like in 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.959 a back room smoking cigars and like like poking each 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.480 other in the chest say and this this is my district, 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:12.520 and you can have this one that kind of thing. 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.920 But this is actually like they're very specialized political consultants 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.800 who go around the country after each census and help 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:26.840 states draw their maps. Um, and they're there. They do 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:31.000 so with like really sophisticated software that has like block 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:34.400 level census data, so like just like by the block, 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:36.800 the people who live on a block, they can carve 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:40.000 it out like that so that they can more accurately 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.160 create these maps. And then when they create these maps, 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.040 they can create dozens as many as you want. And 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.240 when they when they use them as a model, they 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.960 can feed them into their their computers and run a 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:56.680 simulation of future elections based on this map. It's and 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:58.920 then they can this is why it's gotten so bad. 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.760 And then they can and um, just take this block out. 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:04.520 What happens if we take this blackout and put this 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.120 one in instead, And now all of a sudden, oh well, 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.920 we'll win for the next ten years. And they have 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.600 this this map. And the reason that I started talking 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:18.040 about this apparently Wisconsin has a map that's in effect 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:23.960 right now that is so well done that even if 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:31.280 the the Democrats get fifty of the vote statewide, the 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:35.120 Republicans would still control sixty seats in the in the 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.480 state Assembly, that they would not lose any seats whatsoever 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:43.520 even if the Democrats got the vote. Yeah. And um, 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.000 the one kind of um, the one thing where it 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.280 kind of stings them, even though there haven't been any 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.720 real repercussions yet, is that one political scientist said, it's 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.800 getting so sophisticated though, and they're drawing these maps in 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.760 such a weird way that you can then go back 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:03.640 and look and say, this is clearly an outlier because 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:09.280 this thing looks like a uh, sidewinder rattlesnake across the 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.440 state and that is neither contiguous or compact. And it's 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:15.920 just so obvious what's going on, because you're using these 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:21.200 computer programs to just distort these maps to your favor. Uh. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:22.880 And this is where I just get so burned up 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:27.360 on both sides because it's it just completely subverts the 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:31.160 process in place, which is you were supposed to be 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.560 able to vote for the person that represents you in 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.120 that vote count. I'm glad you said that, man, because 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.200 it's absolutely true. This is not like lip service, like 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:42.120 both sides to it. So we're mad about it now 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.040 like this is this is genuinely like neither side of 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:49.640 this should be doing this. This is a inherent flaw 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:52.680 in the political system that back in the day, when 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.600 things were different, we could get along with it. It 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.120 was a stumbling block. It was kind of kind of 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:04.840 hamstrung the democratic process some Now with a couple of things, Uh, 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:07.600 it has gone into hyperdrive, like so many things have, 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.600 like like normal political weirdness put through certain filters, like 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:17.880 incredibly powerful computer programs that just hyper tailor things like this. 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.800 That's a big problem. The other problem is the the 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.680 polarization of politics to a degree that it hasn't been 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.920 for well over a century or so. That has made 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:33.919 jerrymandering all the worse because before you could jerrymander all 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:36.600 you want, and but there were such things as moderate 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:40.560 Democrats and moderate Republicans and if it was a reasonable 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.520 piece of legislation, they would cross the aisle to vote 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.920 for it. They would break ranks. That does not exist anymore. 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:51.080 If you're a moderate ten within the last ten years, 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.640 wealthy interests basically carved you out. They created um, they 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:01.280 created upstart political parties to run against you in the primaries, 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.400 so you would lose your seat or your national convention 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.719 would collude with their favorite candidate against you. There's no 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.320 middle any longer. So the fact that they're the current 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:15.080 political power, whoever is in charge of that state can 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.640 jerrymander makes it all the worse because it just makes 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.040 those divisions even deeper because the parties get what they 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.200 want one way or the other. There's no middle ground anymore. 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:31.680 So jerrymandering has become a real real problem in the century. Well, yeah, 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:33.479 and it's just the other thing that burns me up 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:37.040 is is it's just a a smack in the face 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:41.440 of the average citizen. Yeah, it's done behind closed doors 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:46.159 with zero thought to geez, what is this country supposed 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.000 to be about? And it's just it just really burns 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.280 me up. There was a report last year by the 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.879 Brennan Center for Justice, and this just really kind of 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.240 shows exactly what's going on. It's not like we needed 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.400 this proof, but almost all jerrymander districts in this country 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:08.680 are in seven states Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Texas, 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:14.320 in Virginia and Texas aside, what are those other states 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.360 have in common? With one another. I don't know. They're 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.320 the swing states. Oh yeah, yeah, so the swing states 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.000 have been lost as a result of jerrymandering. Huh yeah. 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.680 Those those those seven states are where these jerryman did 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.840 jerrymander districts are happening, and they're all swing states. It's 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.679 just like it's little. It's literally they're going in and targeting. 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:39.000 How can we rig this thing as much as possible? Right, 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.359 It's just it's disgusting. Plus also, the next time you 0:19:42.400 --> 0:19:47.000 hear a politician um talk about the founding fathers and 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:50.560 what they wanted in their view of everything like this, 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:54.600 this runs so far afoul of what the framers of 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:57.159 the Constitution we're looking for when they found when they 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.639 established the House of Representatives. It's it's mind boggling, like 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.240 they're probably generating usable energy through the spinning in their 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:09.480 graves that's going on right now. Because they created the 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.959 House of Representative Representatives so that there would be, like 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.120 you said, Chuck, turnover every couple of years that they 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.440 were the pulse of the people there. They were elected 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:21.320 directly by the people. They were meant to be the 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:25.199 voice of the people at any given time. And the 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:28.719 fact that jerrymandering has has been allowed to go on 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.359 like this has means that there are safe seats now 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.920 states where you can reasonably expect the party and maybe 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.120 even a single politician to hold onto for a decade 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:41.280 or more, which is not how it was supposed to 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:43.400 be in the House. No, and I saw that these 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:48.800 days in the US and in UM congressional races, maybe 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:51.320 a hundred of the four hundred and thirty five seats 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.840 are actually competitive races. The rest have been so firmly 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.600 made safe through jerrymandering over the years that they're not 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.520 even competitive anymore, either that one candidate or there one 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:06.200 party is going to control that that district. Alright, I 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.359 see another trick of blood coming out of your eye 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:11.880 this one. So let's take another break and we're gonna 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.680 get come back and start up with the two main 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:39.119 mayor jerrymandering techniques right after this. See good shock. Al Right, 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:42.680 So I promised talk of techniques. Um, you hear jerrymandering 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.080 and redrawing maps. There are a couple of ways that 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.560 you can do this. Uh, They're called cracking and packing. 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:54.119 Cracking is when you when you scatter the political supporters 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.119 across a lot of different districts so that they just 0:21:57.160 --> 0:21:59.320 never get a majority in any of them. Like, let 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:01.120 me just snake it this way for a mile, then 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.680 back down here, and we pretty much know that they're 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:05.400 not going to get a majority and we're gonna win. 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:08.800 The other one's called packing, and that's when they jam 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:14.399 everyone into just a few districts and essentially just say, fine, 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.840 we're gonna lose those districts, but we're gonna win overwhelmingly 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.320 everywhere else the majority of the other districts, so we're 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.600 gonna be fine. Right, And cracking and packing to sound 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:27.119 like a political consultant came up with those to explain 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.600 it to legislators, and they probably thought it was like 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:33.760 the most clever you know, get it, it rhymes even, right. 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:37.760 So here's the thing with that, right, you can you 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:40.800 can use those techniques in a couple of different ways. 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:45.560 But but with the advent of those same computer programs 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.240 that that can crack people or pack people more efficiently 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:51.600 into all different maps or whatever, you can use the 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:54.440 same ones to kind of expose that kind of thing, right, 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:57.800 And so you can actually with those same computers, I 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:00.320 think you were saying, you can use to to suppose 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:05.080 this kind of stuff and that that political scientists you mentioned, um, 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:11.639 not George Nicholas Stephanopolis. I looked, I don't think they're related. Well, 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:15.560 believe it or not, um, but the but Nicholas Stephanopolis 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:21.160 came up with that efficiency um percentage. And so what 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:23.440 you do, Chuck, is you let's say that we have 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:26.680 and here's the part where I confuse everybody. You're ready, Yeah, 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:29.400 I was waiting on this. Okay, good. So let's say 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:32.480 that you have five districts, and you have ten people 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:38.280 in a district, and there's just two parties. I'm already lost. 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:41.760 So I know I've got, I've got I'm gonna start over. 0:23:43.000 --> 0:23:45.520 I just scratched out the old stuff starting a new. 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:50.520 When you pack a district, meaning you take basically a 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:54.600 huge chunk of the other party supporters and put them 0:23:54.600 --> 0:23:58.199 into one or two districts, what you're doing is, like 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:01.800 you said, you're giving up those districts. You know you're 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:04.040 gonna lose them. But as long as there's only a 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:07.760 couple in the larger scheme of things, as far as 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:10.920 Congress is concerned, you're actually coming out on top because 0:24:10.920 --> 0:24:13.040 you're going to win more because you've packed all of 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:16.560 the opposition into just a couple of districts, right, So 0:24:16.640 --> 0:24:20.080 in any one of those districts, you have some wasted votes. 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:22.800 You have your people's wasted votes, because you're gonna have 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:25.200 some people who live in that district and their votes 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:30.280 cannot possibly change the outcome of those districts elections, so 0:24:30.320 --> 0:24:33.639 their votes are literally what they call wasted votes. You 0:24:33.760 --> 0:24:38.720 also have some of that the oppositions people's votes, because 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:41.639 all they need is the majority of the vote or 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:44.520 the most votes and they're gonna win. But whatever goes 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:48.400 over that, that's wasted votes too. So there's a bunch 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:51.920 of wasted votes in there. And then similarly with cracking, 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:55.880 when you dilute the other parties voters and you pack 0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:58.080 them in with your people, but you have way more 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:01.800 people they're us are wasted, and you've got some people 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.040 whose votes are wasted either. So if you take all 0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:07.240 the wasted votes in a state and you put them together, 0:25:07.680 --> 0:25:10.240 subtract them from one another, and then divide that by 0:25:10.240 --> 0:25:13.440 a hundred, you've got what's called this efficiency percentage, and 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:16.679 it's actually a usable number that when you look at 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:20.320 it shows you very clearly which party is favorite, it's 0:25:20.359 --> 0:25:23.640