Virginia referendum - if you hate MAGA, vote YES (even if your mailing says to vote 'No')

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Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The democrats know this is not at all fair. Otherwise they would not have an issue with the proposed map being available at the polling places.

I don’t think a lot of Virginians want potentially 5 congress members living within 12 miles of each other in northern VA.

Why is that a problem? If they’re that close, they can work together more frequently than if they were scattered all over the state.


You sound stupid.

You are the stupid one. You think that the people in Harrisonburg or the Northern Neck or some of the rural areas want representation from people in northern VA who are not at all familiar with their issues? The whole point of congressional districts is to have representation locally so that their representatives can advocate for them.

I couldn’t give a F’ less what maga rednecks in Harrisonburg or Northern Neck think.

They are irrelevant because they contribute nothing. Blue counties in NoVA pay all the taxes, and we should have all the say for the rest of the state. These whole rest of the state are maga morons, and they need adults to manage them. And Dems will do that.


Starting with taking away their guns. This year was a good starting point.

Welp, in that case, I guess we should go ahead and have a king! … so long as he aligns with your views, i.e., the *correct* views. Who needs democracy anyway?

We can have democracy all day long. As long as we elect Democrats. It’s you people who can’t be trusted.

Please tell me this is a joke.

Did I say I was joking? Did I imply it?


No. I didn’t, and no, I’m not.


Virginia MAGAs cannot be allowed to be anything other than a tiny minority in terms of representation in Congress. Because if they’re allowed to have multiple districts like we have now, we end up with what Virginia has currently: almost half the state is represented in Congress by MAGAs.

That needs to be stopped. And that’s the point of redrawing all these districts - to make certain that each district has enough Democratic votes in it to ensure that maga nutjobs cannot get elected in thise districts, ever. That’s the entire point in doing this.

Unfortunately, Virginia has so many MAGAs, especially in the western half of the state, that there just aren’t enough Democratic votes in it to draw the westernmost district in such as way to make the numbers work, so that remaining district will always be represented by a RWNJ no matter what. So really the best we can hope for is to have a 10-1 breakdown of the state districts, and know that those 10 sane voices will outweigh the one lunatic.


That’s the best we can do, and it’s what we MUST do to ensure that election fairness and democracy itself can survive in Virginia, and be restored to Capitol Hill.

According to you, election fairness is eliminating the voices who do not agree with you. “By any means necessary” is what Lenin said, I believe.

Exactly. They could care less about fairness, representation, and democracy. As long as their side wins, they literally do not care how.

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

Of course not, and of course not.

But as stated many times on this thread, rigging elections to stop election rigging is not the answer. Trying to save democracy while participating in its destruction is not the answer.

It’s just means you’re no better that what you claim to be fighting against. Your comments make this clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

Of course not, and of course not.

But as stated many times on this thread, rigging elections to stop election rigging is not the answer. Trying to save democracy while participating in its destruction is not the answer.

It’s just means you’re no better that what you claim to be fighting against. Your comments make this clear.

Hardly.

So what is the solution? Wait until the Republicans feel like admitting Trump did something wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

What actions has he taken that you are speaking of? Be specific.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

Of course not, and of course not.

But as stated many times on this thread, rigging elections to stop election rigging is not the answer. Trying to save democracy while participating in its destruction is not the answer.

It’s just means you’re no better that what you claim to be fighting against. Your comments make this clear.

Hardly.

So what is the solution? Wait until the Republicans feel like admitting Trump did something wrong?

I don’t know, how about win elections by convincing voters your policies are better than the other side? I know that sounds crazy because the Dems have forgotten how to do that. “Fight MAGA”, “Stop Trump” is all they got, and now they’re back to gerrymandering and rigging elections to try to win.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

What actions has he taken that you are speaking of? Be specific.

Take your pick. How about the military strikes on Iran without notifying Congress in advance or getting congressional approval?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

Of course not, and of course not.

But as stated many times on this thread, rigging elections to stop election rigging is not the answer. Trying to save democracy while participating in its destruction is not the answer.

It’s just means you’re no better that what you claim to be fighting against. Your comments make this clear.

Hardly.

So what is the solution? Wait until the Republicans feel like admitting Trump did something wrong?

I don’t know, how about win elections by convincing voters your policies are better than the other side? I know that sounds crazy because the Dems have forgotten how to do that. “Fight MAGA”, “Stop Trump” is all they got, and now they’re back to gerrymandering and rigging elections to try to win.

So...Dems should ignore everything that Trump is doing so they can go back and work on campaign platforms and messaging? And hope for the best in 2028?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

Of course not, and of course not.

But as stated many times on this thread, rigging elections to stop election rigging is not the answer. Trying to save democracy while participating in its destruction is not the answer.

It’s just means you’re no better that what you claim to be fighting against. Your comments make this clear.

Hardly.

So what is the solution? Wait until the Republicans feel like admitting Trump did something wrong?

I don’t know, how about win elections by convincing voters your policies are better than the other side? I know that sounds crazy because the Dems have forgotten how to do that. “Fight MAGA”, “Stop Trump” is all they got, and now they’re back to gerrymandering and rigging elections to try to win.

So...Dems should ignore everything that Trump is doing so they can go back and work on campaign platforms and messaging? And hope for the best in 2028?

Trump will likely be dead within the next 5-10 years. Thank God, because Dems will have to find something of actual substance to campaign on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

Of course not, and of course not.

But as stated many times on this thread, rigging elections to stop election rigging is not the answer. Trying to save democracy while participating in its destruction is not the answer.

It’s just means you’re no better that what you claim to be fighting against. Your comments make this clear.

Hardly.

So what is the solution? Wait until the Republicans feel like admitting Trump did something wrong?

I don’t know, how about win elections by convincing voters your policies are better than the other side? I know that sounds crazy because the Dems have forgotten how to do that. “Fight MAGA”, “Stop Trump” is all they got, and now they’re back to gerrymandering and rigging elections to try to win.

So...Dems should ignore everything that Trump is doing so they can go back and work on campaign platforms and messaging? And hope for the best in 2028?

“Elections have consequences”. Do you remember who said that? Here’s a hint: he had a phone and a pen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

Of course not, and of course not.

But as stated many times on this thread, rigging elections to stop election rigging is not the answer. Trying to save democracy while participating in its destruction is not the answer.

It’s just means you’re no better that what you claim to be fighting against. Your comments make this clear.

Hardly.

So what is the solution? Wait until the Republicans feel like admitting Trump did something wrong?

I don’t know, how about win elections by convincing voters your policies are better than the other side? I know that sounds crazy because the Dems have forgotten how to do that. “Fight MAGA”, “Stop Trump” is all they got, and now they’re back to gerrymandering and rigging elections to try to win.

So...Dems should ignore everything that Trump is doing so they can go back and work on campaign platforms and messaging? And hope for the best in 2028?

Trump will likely be dead within the next 5-10 years. Thank God, because Dems will have to find something of actual substance to campaign on.

So no actual suggestions for what Dems should do today to combat Trump's unethical, illegal, and unconstitutional actions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an Independent and while I’m moderate in a lot of things, I am wholeheartedly a “Yes” on this. For the good of all.

I'm also an independent and moderate regarding many issues, which is why I wholeheartedly voted "No." For the good of all.

+1

It’s such a lie that it’s temporary for one. The district lines will stay in the new shapes, the old ones will never come back. That is 1000% clear. They mist chame the numbers slightly after the new census in a few years but the new districts will remain and never go back to previous.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. “Because TX did it”, is not a valid argument.

Trump is done soon. We will be stick with these nonsensical districts dividing small toens and counties into separate districts.

+1 The whole “restoring fairness” thing is such a shameful lie. If I ever hear any of these partisan hacks (Spanberger and Obama included) whining about “protecting democracy” again I’m gonna puke.

Rs love to pretend like they didn’t do anything wrong.

It's a response to the MAGA's power grab nationally.

Didn't hear you complaining about the Rs gerrymandering in TX, MO, NC, or UT.

Why the F would anyone on an anonymous DC message board complain about gerrymandering in those states, jackass? They didn’t complain about gerrymandering in CA, MD or IL either.

What a dumb comment

They isn’t about state legislators, it’s for the US Congress.

It’s a national issue, dipshit.

WTF are you babbling about? State legislators?

I guess you’re so outraged by gerrymandering in CA, IL and MD that you’re not thinking clearly.

It’s not a STATE issue, it’s a NATIONAL issue.

I fully support disenfranchising MAGAs given that Rs have already done that to Ds. We all know the VA GOP would not have hesitated to do it if they had the chance. In a heartbeat.

If you support disenfranchising ANYONE, you can never again claim the high ground of pretend to care about “protecting democracy.” All you care about is your party being in power. Not about democracy. It’s true that many Rs don’t care either, but Ds are the ones constantly claiming they’re protecting democracy.

+1 The dishonesty is incredible. PP is outraged by gerrymandering until it benefits their "side"

You are full of sht.

Ds have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

No, PP. You’re full of shit and a perfect example of the dishonesty. In 2020, after gaining power again in the VA legislature, it was the Democratic Party of Virginia that passed a resolution AGAINST the amendment for the bipartisan commission and they urged voters to vote against it. They overwhelmingly supported it in 2019 when the Republicans had power, then flip flopped to keep redistricting power to themselves when they could. That happened. It’s indisputable. So spare us all the sanctimonious nonsense about only R’s pulling this sort of crap. Virginia Dems were guilty of trying it then and they’re guilty of trying the same shit now.

FACT: Dems have been pushing to ban gerrymandering for years.

Who has fought it? Rs.

The group of Dems who opposed the VA plan was concerned about the flaws, which turned out to be accurate. The Rs didn’t participate in good faith and the decision DID go to the conservative VA SC. So their concerns were warranted.

Rs decide to go crazy with gerrymandering to protect Trump.

And think Ds should just sit around and NOT try to fight it?

You might be OK with Trump shitting all over our Constitution but most people are not.

Just stop it. That's NOT what happened. IDGAF what happened in other states. In VA, the Dems overwhelmingly supported the amendment in 2019. It went thorough almost unanimously. There were ZERO objections about "flaws". Then once in power they reversed course. The amendment never changed, but all of a sudden there were BS "objections". They objected because they wanted to keep redistricting power in their own hands, plain and simple. And don't try to downplay it by saying it was "a group of Democrats". It was the Democratic Party of Virginia. They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before. The DPVA urged voters to vote against the ending of gerrymandering in the state. These are the FACTS>

https://virginiamercury.com/2020/06/24/virginia-democratic-party-urges-voters-to-defeat-redistricting-reform-amendment/

More lies.

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds were assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

And remember the election later that year? The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.




2019:
https://virginiamercury.com/2019/10/14/virginia-took-a-step-toward-redistricting-reform-with-power-up-for-grabs-will-lawmakers-follow-through/

In the House, roughly a dozen Democrats opposed it, saying it left too much wiggle room for partisan gerrymandering and didn’t do enough to protect communities of color.

‘Just wanted to get something passed’

In a recent interview, Del. Lamont Bagby, D-Henrico, the chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said he still has strong reservations about the commission proposal.

“A lot of individuals that we trusted lost credibility by jumping on the first train that leaves the station,” Bagby said. “It was evident that African Americans weren’t fully considered. … And Republicans were taking advantage of individuals that just wanted to get something passed that was said to be redistricting reform.”

Bagby said he’s also concerned about the amendment’s backup mechanism if the commission or the General Assembly couldn’t agree on a redistricting plan. In that scenario, the Supreme Court of Virginia — which is appointed by the General Assembly — would draw the district lines.
“It’s been 20 years of Republicans putting members’ friends and family on the Supreme Court,” Bagby said. “I would not trust redistricting in the hands of the Supreme Court.”

The two most recent justices appointed to the state Supreme Court are Stephen McCullough, who once worked under former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and Teresa Chafin, the sister of state Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell.



Some Democrats who voted for the amendment this year — even though they weren’t entirely happy with it — say its flaws can be remedied via a separate bill laying out more detailed rules and criteria for how the commission would work.

“People are unconformable with some aspects of this bipartisan commission,” said Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax. “So it’s important to pass implementing legislation so there will be a better understanding of how the commission would work.”

The accompanying bill could include stronger measures to protect minority voting power. The amendment says the commission must comply with federal and state laws dealing with “racial and ethnic fairness,” including the Voting Rights Act. Supporters say duplicating Voting Rights Act-style protections in state law would safeguard against any future changes to federal law.
The bill could also ensure racial and geographic diversity on the commission.

“If we have all a bunch of white people from Northern Virginia, that would be a huge fail on a lot of levels,” Cannon said.

Bagby said he’s skeptical that the accompanying bill could resolve his concerns about the Supreme Court being the final arbiter in case of a deadlock.

“Something is not always better than nothing,” Bagby said. “What it appears we’re doing is we’re letting the same people that gerrymandered us for the last 20-plus years continue to do the same thing to us. Just with different hats on.”

Sorry. Nice try twisting yourself into a pretzel over this, but the leaders did a “full flop” by Politifact. When you’re done hyperventilating, give it a look. But I suspect you’ll say it’s “more lies”.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/top-virginia-house-democrats-flip-flopped-redistri/

No twisting required. The facts are clear:

It was never “fully supported”.

It wasn’t “unanimous” - a dozen Ds voted against it in 2019.

There were many objections about the flaws. Some Ds who voted yes the first time stated that they did so assuming that additional legislation would fix the flaws.

The Ds flipped several seats and a dozen new House members voted against it in 2020.

You have a very hard time with reading comprehension.

I said it was "overwhelmingly supported" in 2019. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I said it was "nearly unanimous" in the 2019 vote. It was. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

I never said anything about who voted against it in 2020 or why. I said that after regaining power in 2020, the Democratic Party of Virginia adopted and passed a resolution (overwhelmingly) against the amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. This was after their aforementioned overwhelming support and nearly unanimous vote in in favor of the exact same amendment to end gerrymandering in Virginia. They did. Virginia Mercury and Politifact agree.

Yes, the facts are crystal clear. You're simply being obtuse and it's getting exhausting.

What is exhausting is your intentional mischaracterization of what happened.

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/585/1317856.page#31976062
“It went thorough almost unanimously”
“There were ZERO objections about "flaws”.”
“They passed a resolution to oppose it after fully supporting it the year before.”

As I documented in my previous post:
It was not "almost unanimously" supported - there was a solid contingent who opposed it from the start.
There were objections about flaws in 2019. The same objections discussed again in 2020.
And they did not "fully" support it as you claimed.




All of this is a red herring though.

It does not matter how strongly committed the Ds were previously towards eliminating gerrymandering, because now we are ALL IN. I'm glad the Ds are finally developing a backbone to deal with the amoral Rs.

The POTUS must not have absolute power. Our government doesn’t work with if all three branches are corrupt.

OK got it. You're right. Virginia Mercury and Politifact got it all wrong. Democracy sucks and it must be defeated no matter what (or when you don't get your way)

Are you OK with Trump's actions?

Should Trump have absolute power?

If the GOP were willing to step up and curb his abhorrent behavior then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. But the corrupt Congress just lets him do whatever TF he wants, no matter how unethical, illegal, or unconstitutional.

Of course not, and of course not.

But as stated many times on this thread, rigging elections to stop election rigging is not the answer. Trying to save democracy while participating in its destruction is not the answer.

It’s just means you’re no better that what you claim to be fighting against. Your comments make this clear.

Hardly.

So what is the solution? Wait until the Republicans feel like admitting Trump did something wrong?

I don’t know, how about win elections by convincing voters your policies are better than the other side? I know that sounds crazy because the Dems have forgotten how to do that. “Fight MAGA”, “Stop Trump” is all they got, and now they’re back to gerrymandering and rigging elections to try to win.

So...Dems should ignore everything that Trump is doing so they can go back and work on campaign platforms and messaging? And hope for the best in 2028?

“Elections have consequences”. Do you remember who said that? Here’s a hint: he had a phone and a pen.

So Dems should not do anything today to combat Trump's unethical, illegal, and unconstitutional actions?