Virginia Republicans move forward on plan to give GOP more electoral votes

They are planning on not having to campaign or worry about pesky things like public opinion. Fascism by stealth.

maybe the dems, instead of trying to be overly-fair to the cry-baby party, should have been doing this as well

This is something that should NOT be done, and the justice department should be paying attention to this. I believe that Reid delivered the country to the Republicans today.

but as it would take a constitutional amendment to do so...we are sadly stuck with it.

what's your plan?

What good would that do? 30 states have republican governors and 24 are controlled by republican legislatures...who would no doubt refuse to ratify the amendment.

You want to take back your government? You'll have to focus on state elections...Dems never seem to quite get that.

you have to start it to get it to the finish line

I may have hit upon a real solution, however. Gerrymandering is a political institution, and not protected by the constitution. If Dems rose up in protest of gerrymandering and demanded all districts be drawn fairly, if all the states sued as the Dems in NC have, we might actually arrive at a system that is more just. With no 'safe' districts politicians would have to serve their constituents, and a state could allot its electors in any manner it chose...because there would be no unfair advantage by one party or the other.

that's a major difference. So no, the fight wouldn't be as big...perhaps as nasty, but not as big.

Congress can be bypassed if 3/4 of the states truly want it.

Convention. Any amendments subsequently proposed by 2/3 of the states is ratified if 3/4 of the states agree. The Congress and President can be completely bypassed.

Edit for spelling.

I mean one state doing this, can't do anything, but it's clear they're coordinating this from the federal level.

Let's send this to an international election observer, "you see these votes count like this here, but these votes are counted like this over here."

If another country did this, we would be cutting off aid to them in the blink of an eye.

is for people to light the hell up about it.

Deluge the clowns pushing it to maybe push enough of the republican's into backing out of it before they bring it up for a vote.

And, if they pass it, go Wisconsin on them and gin up enough public furor to vote the ass hats out of office.

We dodged this in PA a year ago, they put their finger to the wind on it and decided the path of least blowback was the voter ID law.

But, it burns their asses to end that we go Dem in the Presidential.

We have almost a million more registered democrats than registered republicans, but they LONG ago districted both at the state and congressional level to give them a mortal lock on the state senate and the house in all but big democratic years. Obama won PA by a half dozen percentage points, but they won 13 of 18 congressional seats having 100,000 less total votes in those races.

THAT is what we are looking at here - the President winning the popular vote by a clear margin, but only getting 5 of 18 electoral votes.

I wrote both my state senator and representative about it at the time, both are Rs. My representative pretty clearly said he would not support it, my senator, who is all politician and in the leadership, took until they had decided to go Voter ID instead to say he was against it.

There is no love between the senators and representatives and our ass hat governor, but they come together on the important stuff (to them).

I suspect they are very likely to go for it this go around.

I think there is only one real solution...and I think it would benefit democracy all the way around. The way a state allots its electors is entirely up to that state's legislature, according to the constitution. However, Gerrymandering is NOT. The Democrats, all across the nation must rise up and call for an end to gerrymandering. Yes, it would cost them some safe seats, but there should be no such thing as a "safe seat" for either party. If districts were drawn reasonably, then their electors could be allotted fairly...with no party having n illegitimate advantage.

while the Rs have fine tuned it completely to the benefit, and to the max in Pa, and while democrats will publicly talk big to an extent, they won't really push the issue, because as you noted, they REALLY benefit with mortal lock districts overloaded with democrats.

They are silent partners in it.

It is going to have to be the PEOPLE making a bit stink about it to force all of their hands on this issue.

To end gerrymandering...Dem politicians will have little choice when they see themselves locked out of the WH and House of Representatives for decades.

ALL politicians, their first concern is keeping THEIR job.

So, the incentive for them to actually battle it vs just passively allowing it isn't there.

Further, there is SOME party unity/concern for republicans, hence, their never ending power grabbing BS.

Democrats are cats, MUCH harder herding them.

This one is on us.

Under the constitution, the people don't get to vote for president. It's just a popularity contest. The state can assign its delegates any way the legislature wants.

Unfortunately it is entirely legal and constitutional.

Oh wait.....nevermind

.... Constitutional grounds because you can't have different methods of apportionment
of electoral votes in different states.

n/t

Nebraska and Maine can split their votes...

and the constitution specifically leaves this up to the states. Republicans have a perverse genius for undermining our democratic republic.

Cheating and scams are the republicans SOP ..... no doubt w/in minutes after the
2012 returns were in the republicans could see they had a #s problems as per demographics
and they started out to get and keep as much power as possible.

We Dems have been way too blind, or naive, to see what was happening right under our noses.

.... they have been cheating shits.

The sad thing is at one time this country had some good republicans who
cared about America but now a large % of them are just crooks and cheats ...
in Ohio Kasich has figured a way to sell the profits from all state liquor
sales to himself and some Wall St. buddies for the next 15 years by borrowing
money from Wall St. against the back end of the deal.

just last week. At the risk on being stoned here on DU, I will state that Dems have been almost as bad. Chicago sold its parking meter revenue to an outfit in Dubai...Dems were in control. Ed Rendell tried to sell part of the PA turnpike....

Max Baucus and many like him like to keep the gravy train rolling.

Even if Harry didn't have the votes he should have at least called for
a vote we can see who is with us and who is against us.

Now I am glad that that Diane Feinstein is a D but I think she is on the
take too.

As long as elections must be paid for, and American citizens are unwilling to do so, they have little about which to complain in that regard. I was shocked to learn that the Obama "list" that everyone thinks is so marvelous, contains only 16 million names. It's hard to find accurate numbers, but I think there are between 52 million and 63 million registered Dems in the nation. If you can't or won't fork over money to elect your representatives and your president, how committed are you? I know of poor people who literally kept money in a jar, or a sock, until they accumulated enough to make a $10. contribution. They have skin in the game and I applaud them.

... The Constitution leaves it to the States to determine how they will apportion electoral votes. There are already a couple of small states (i.e., 4-6 electoral votes each) that award electoral delegates by Congressional district.

Until the mid-19th century there were some states that awarded their electoral votes based on the results of a popular vote (like all do now) and some that had the state legislatures vote on it.

Doesn't mean it shouldn't be opposed, of course.

Rat bastards steal yet another election screwing around with the system - only this time it's over!!! We must do something to stop this now.
They have already said they will steal the country back and "they don't care about Americans or what they think."

Imagine a GOPer carrying the state and not getting all of the electoral votes.

The bill, which was passed out of a state Senate subcommittee on a tied 3-3 vote, with one Republican voting against it, would allocate the state's electoral votes based on who wins each congressional district. It is likely to pass out of the full committee, which would send it to a full Senate vote.

I think there was something important buried here. A Republican in the Virginia Senate in the subcommittee voted against it. The Virginia Senate is split 20-20. Unless that Senator changes his/her mind, then this will not pass the Virginia Senate unless some Democrat votes for it.

I hope it's true!!!!!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014378747

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/bill-bolling-virginia-redistricting.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

is utterly illegitimate and must be ignored and dealt with as such.

The Republican Senator did not vote against it.That would have killed the Bill immediately.However she states that she will continue to oppose the Bill in full committee or on the senate Floor

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/23/1486841/virginia-republican-state-senator-opposes-gop-electoral-college-rigging-scheme/

OR as we like to call them Transvirginal.