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 I-65 Alabama Welcome Center
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With the new year on the horizon, and the mid-term election machines heating up soon, it’s probably worth remembering that we have a decennial census and reapportionment (and re-gerrymandering) coming up as well. CQ Politics passed along this bit of information, based on 2009 interim estimates released by the Census Bureau this week: A total of 10 [...] 
I’m poking around some of the stats on various initiatives around the country. A few interesting ones to me: California Measure 8 (same-sex marriage ban) has been called to pass. (Note to same-gender couples, Connecticut would now love to host your weddings.) 
I’ve written a few posts about why I voted YES for the Connecticut Constitutional Convention question on my absentee ballot. As usual, someone else has put together a far better-written argument than I’ve been able to craft. Seen at Connecticut Commentary: The argument usually brought against ballot initiative and referenda is that both are un-republican. In a [...]
(Note: parts of this post are taken from a post I made last summer.) Last week, I mentioned that in a winner-take-all, one-representative-per-district system, ending gerrymandering and moving towards a politics-blind method of drawing district boundaries would ease my concerns of two-party duopolistic power, with politicians beholden to themselves more than the citizenry they are supposed [...]
With primary season all but over, attention will soon be turning towards the November general elections — not just the Presidential race, but also those few down-ticket races that are actually expected to be competitive. We’re heading into the time of year that armchair pundits like me like to vent our frustrations with the entrenched duopoly [...]
It’s still only 2008, but political map-makers are apparently already looking ahead to the 2010 census and the redistricting games that will follow. After all, in some states, general elections this fall could lay some of the groundwork for exactly who will be drawing new maps in 2011. Folks interested in the subject might wish [...]
DailyKos has highlighted an interesting diary entry by “dreaminonempty”, discussing how the GOP’s tactic of maximizing the number of Congressional districts with majority Republican or Republican-leaning voters may work against them as the political winds have seemingly shifted. The concept is simple: to maximize the number of districts you have an advantage in, you’re going to [...]
Just when you thought it was dead…. from the Sacramento Bee: Two longtime Republican political consultants and a major GOP fundraiser revived the initiative effort last week after initial backers abandoned the proposal in September. The initiative would assign California’s electoral votes by congressional district rather than giving all of the state’s 55 electoral votes to [...] 
The New York Times has an article which ponders whether the shenanigans behind the California electoral vote initiative portends a particularly “entertaining” presidential campaign next year. The Giuliani link on the pro-initiative side has already been discussed in several places. However, the Clinton link on the anti-initiative side, while not surprising, is something I haven’t [...]
Seen in the New York Times blog, “The Caucus”: An effort to change the way electoral votes are apportioned in California has been stunningly abandoned and left for dead, even though most voters didn’t even know this patient was sick. The prominent Republican lawyer who authored the initiative – one that proposed altering the system so that [...] |
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