Redistricting – Politics Plus

Yesterday Iit was a little warmer, but not too bad. I just kind of took things slow and easy as much as I could.

Cartoon –

Short Takes

The Hill – Supreme Court decision could set off gerrymandering ‘arms race’
Quote – To be sure, the courts will continue to have a role to play in the looming redistricting fight. At the federal level, for instance, it remains illegal to carry out gerrymanders based on race. According to Parsons, however, state lawmakers will be particularly careful to frame their map drawing as motivated by party interest, as a way to side-step federal litigation. “In the wake of Rucho I expect many states will pack districts quite aggressively and explicitly argue that they are doing so based on partisan affiliation and not race,” he said.
Click through for deets and implications. This is not good. And saying, “Hopefully, Congress accepts that invitation before it’s too late” is not helpful. The House has written and passed the For The People Act which would address this. The Senate will not allow it to move forward – barring a miracle. So let’s not blame “Congress.” More than half of the states have some legislative or costitutional protection which could challenge attempts to gerrymander (or preclude them before they start) – but it only needs a few heavily gerrymandered states to poison the entire House and/or Senate. Ballotpedia and the National Council of State Legislatures have state-by-state information if anyone wants to check their own state.

The Week – The USPS awarded a $120 million contract to a company with financial ties to the postmaster general
Quote – “There’s no question he’s continuing to profit from a Postal Service contractor,” said Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Even if DeJoy complies with legal requirements, Canter added “it does create an appearance issue about whether it’s in his financial interest to continue to make policy that would benefit contractors like XPO.”
Click through for story.

CBS News – Florida breaks record for new daily Covid cases for third time this week
Quote – “This is real. And it didn’t have to be this bad,” Nikki Fried, Florida’s commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, tweeted Saturday. “We need everyone to do their part — #GetVaccinatedNow & #MaskUp. If not for yourself, for your friends, family, and neighbors. For our kids. For our doctors & nurses. For Florida.”
Click through for more info. You will be happy to know (even though it means he’ll be missig here) that our Mitch is outta there for a bit under a week (and having fun.)

Food for Thought –

Yesterday it unbelievably sstayed fairly cool. Also, I may be in that golden period where, after it gets so hot, the same temps which led up to that and felt hot at the time don’t feel as hot now as they did them. Whatever it is, it’s pleasant.

Cartoon –

Short Takes

DATA GEMS: How to Download the Complete Set of 2020 Census Redistricting Files for Your State
Quote: In this Data Gem, you will learn about where to find and download the complete P.L.94-171 Redistricting Data Files from the 2020 Census for your state using the Census Bureau’s File Transfer Protocol site. This is a great resource for users looking to download large data files to use with software such as Microsoft Access, SAS, SQL, Sqlite, Oracle, Tableau, ArcGIS, and more. You will also learn about some of the critical resources that will enable you to successfully work with these data.
Click through if interested. Colorado is s state which requires an independent commission to draw the districs, and it has a history of being as fair as it can be – based on the data it is given. So I won’t be looking. But it anyone does need or want to know amore about this, well – the horse’s mouth.

The Independent – ‘Occupy’ leader claims police ‘dragged’ him out of Kevin McCarthy presser for asking about Capitol riot commission
Quote – “I tried to ask @GOPLeader McCarthy a question after he decried Cuban police pickup up (sic) people in the streets,” Mr Stern tweeted. “Why does he oppose the bipartisan #January6thCommission? A Congressional staffer had four cops pick me up and drag me from the room. I still asked the question.”
Click through for deets. Despite the quotes around “dragged,” this did happen. There’s more on PolitiZoom, but not everyone can see that site.

CNN – House select committee begins taking over January 6 investigation from other committee
Quote – The newly formed House select committee is taking the lead on investigating January 6 going forward, consolidating the investigation, as other committees looking into the matter begin handing over their work, according to a multiple sources familiar with the matter. That includes interviews with key figures related to that day that were already scheduled to meet with other committees but were postponed.
Click through for story. This is a normal thing to happen – Benghazi is just one example – but the kerfuffle about the committee selection, which resulted in the Republicans on the Select Committee being the only two who are committed to finding the truth, makes it different. Republicans on Oversight might have obstructed. Now they can’t. And the same is true for any other regular committee which has any knowledge or evidence. GlennKirschner will go even farther in his video in today’s Video Thread.

Food for Thought – I’ve used this before in the gif version), but it fits today with the census date information.