Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 40210
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2025/07/08 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/8     

2005/10/21-22 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/California/Arnold] UID:40210 Activity:low
10/20   Re: the redistricting proposition. Prop 77.
        It's not a partial, non-biased redistricting.  It'll decrease
        the amount of seats urban areas get, while increasing rural
        representation.  Think districting based on land covered, rather
        than population.  This essentially means it will increase R
        representatives and decrease D representatives.  Arnold sends
        another wolf in sheeps' wool.
        http://csua.org/u/dsc (blog)
        OTOH, he later mentions a Cal study showing no apparent political
        bias effects to 77, but the study isn't released. (scroll up)  The
        Trib article he quotes mentions prof. Bruce Cain.  Anyone know of
        him?  His UCB bio shows he's very pro-redistricting.
        \_ why are they always pushing a magical retired panel of judges
           somewhere to plan redistricting?  what makes them so special?
           also the redistricting would be based on 5 year old census
           data.  there's a reason redistricting usually happens
           only immediately after each 10 year census, the data is considered
           to be the most accurate at that time. - danh
           \_ Also, first time around, the new plan goes into effect before
              we get to vote on it.  bull shite. --scotsman
        \_ Almost anything would have to better than the current system
           where the legislature chooses their voters, rather than the
           other way around. Just because DeLay jerrymandered Texas,
           doesn't mean the Democrats should do the same to CA. -ausman
           \_ I have yet to see evidence that the current map is
              gerrimandered.  In the BA, at least, the maps pretty much run
              along county or city grouping lines.  I don't think people
              voting their representatives back in necessarily means
              the game is rigged. --scotsman
              \_ It is definitely gerrymandered. I don't know about the
                 Bay Area, but it is apparent in LA. How it happened:
                 http://tinyurl.com/8vae2
2025/07/08 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
7/8     

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csua.org/u/dsc -> plumer.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_plumer_archive.html#112950845034870389
proposal s for, uh, tax reform won't actually go anywhere, and they're mostly jus t ideas for "discussion" rather than things the Bush administration will actually end up backing. has argued that it doesn't actually benefit home-buyers, since sellers just bid up the price of houses until they exactly offset the cost of the deduction, so in essence, it just acts as a taxpayer subsidy to the construction and real estate industries. 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That was as true in the American South in 1865 as it was in Kosovo in 1999. And sad to say, but the mere existence of a profit-seeking military-industrial complex made problems like the looting of the Iraqi treasury pretty much inevitable. There's no reason to think an invasion run by George Packer or Peter Beinart could have "r emade" Iraq better than Bush did. That said, I think this part of the TA P piece sells the idea of liberal interventionism somewhat short: Intervening requires us to take sides and to live with the empowerment o f the side we took. Tensions between Kosovar and Serb, Muslim and Croat , Sunni and Shiite are not immutable hatreds, and its hardly the case that such conflicts can never be resolved. Outside parties can succeed in smoothing the path for agreement, halting an ongoing genocide, or preventing an imminent one by securing autonomy for a given area. But only the actual parties to a conflict c an bring it to an end. No simple application of more outside force can make conflicting parties agree in any meaningful way or conjure up soci al forces of liberalism, compromise, and tolerance where they dont exi st or are too weak to prevail. That's obviously true of the United States' military, which has classical ly been good primarily at smashing things, although our twenty-year-old soldiers have adapted to "mission creep" unbelievably well in Iraq. "Jacksonian tradition" in American foreign policy has neve r had much interest in anything more than overwhelming bloodletting in t he defense of the national interest. We're a nation ruled by speculators and powered by Southern nationalists; as such, idealistic projects abro ad just aren't in the cards, except in very rare circumstances. But the United Nations complicates the tale somewhat, since their peaceke eping forces actually have succeeded in reconciling a large number of po st-conflict nations. Post-WWII UN operations in Congo, and post-Cold War peacekeeping forces in Namibia, El Salvador, Mozambique, Eastern Slavon ia, Sierra Leone, and East Timor should all count as successesthe UN di sarmed the parties, demobilized militias, held relatively free and fair elections, and put the countries on a path towards sustained civil peace . meaningful way," and if those UN missions didn't conjure up, as TAP puts it, "social forces of liberalism, compromise, and tolerance," they at least pointed the way down that path. Those countries, save for the Congo, are all peaceful democracies today. On the other hand, even the UN can't seem to stop a country on the brink of disintegration from doing so, but it's hard to tell how much of that failure has come from the sheer difficulty of the task and how much from poor implementation. The original UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia ob viously flopped, but it was also severely undermanned. So I don't think I'm quite as ready to say "it's impossible", although a good deal of modesty and skepticism is ab solutely crucial here. I think the United States is inherently awful at nation-building right now, yes. But that says as much about the United S tates and its military as it does about the inherent impossibility in pe acekeeping and nation-building, and it's worth, I think, trying to disen tangle the two. interview with "Abu Qaqa al-Tamimi," an Iraq i insurgent trainer, that among other things sheds light on why so many suicide bombers in the country have been foreign fighters rather than Ir aqis: Most of the more than 30 bombers he says have passed through his hands w ere foreigners, or "Arabs," to use al-Tamimi's blanket term for all non -Iraqi mujahedin. Although he says more and more Iraqis are volunteerin g for suicide operations, insurgent groups prefer to use the foreigners . 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tinyurl.com/8vae2 -> www.caltax.org/member/digest/oct2001/10.2001.Quinn-BipartisanRedistricting.08.htm
Tony Quinn is co-editor of the California Target Book, a nonpartisan anal ysis of state legislative and congressional elections. Lost in the aftermath of September 11 was the enactment of new district l ines for Californias 120 legislative districts and 53 House seats. The once-a-decade redistricting had been expected to generate political hea t and partisan fireworks, but this years exercise passed with almost no one noticing. Thats because both political parties early on agreed th at this year the reapportionment process would be a status quo redistric ting in which each party kept the existing number of seats. It was, in e ffect, a bipartisan gerrymander of Californias districts. Thus ends Californias decade-long experiment in competitive legislative districts. In 1991, former Governor Pete Wilson vetoed a sweetheart pla n that passed with strong bipartisan support and forced the drawing of d istrict lines by the State Supreme Court. He gambled that the court wou ld come up with competitive districts and the Republicans then could win control of the Legislature. followin g the 1994 GOP landslide, Republicans actually had 41 seats in the Assem bly, a one-seat majority. It has been downhill for Republicans ever since, with major losses of leg islative and congressional seats in each of the past three elections. T he districting plan that seemed so wonderful in 1991 turned out to be a political disaster. It created competitive districts all right, and the Democrats won them. Democrats never wanted competitive seats, and fully in control of the pro cess this cycle, they decided to simply make all the districts safe. Vi rtually all the marginal districts created by the Supreme Court in 1991 are made safe for the incumbent party in 2001. There are 50 safe (or as near safe as possible) Democratic seats in the Assembly; In the Senate there are safe seats for 26 Democrats and 14 Repub licans. In Congress it is 20 safe seats for the GOP, 33 for the Democra ts. This plan had enormous bipartisan support, even though it cements the Rep ublicans into a minority status in the congressional delegation and the Legislature for as long as the wind blows and the grass grows. Why did Republicans settle for permanent minority status? Well, they are political realists and all the alternatives were worse. The 20 GOP sea ts in Congress could have been reduced to as few as 16. Republicans hol d the US House of Representatives by a very narrow margin; The Assembly and Senate were a little tougher to justify. The GOP really has only 13 Senate seats, since the seat held by Senator. Bruce McPhers on in Santa Cruz is really a Democratic seat. Republicans nearly lost t he seat held by Senator Bob Margett of Arcadia in 2000, so Republicans w ere looking at as few as 12 Senators if they did not settle with the Dem ocrats. The final Senate plan creates a 14^th Republican district, like ly to be won by Assembly Member Abel Maldonado of Santa Maria in 2004, a nd gives Senator Margett a safe seat. There is a potential 15^th Republican seat in a marginal district created in Modesto and Salinas, and a new safe GOP district in Kern and Tulare counties. On the whole, Republicans have much to be pleased with in the Senate plan. Interestingly, Democrats gerrymandered two liberal Assemb ly members, Fred Keeley of Boulder Creek, near Santa Cruz, and Hannah-Be th Jackson of Santa Barbara, out of possible Senate districts, and the o utlook is for a somewhat more moderate state Senate when all the distric ts are filled. Republicans have lost 11 Assembly districts in the past three election cy cles. With the states demographics moving so dramatically against them , the best they could hope for is to stanch the bleeding, and that is wh at they did in agreeing to the 50-30 Assembly division. Several margina l Republican seats, that would have fallen to the Democrats over the n ext several election cycles, were made safe.. But in exchange the GOP g ave up winning back virtually all the districts it has lost since 1996. The Republicans problem in California is not a matter of gerrymandered d istricts, it is a party out of touch with the new middle class Latino an d Asian voters, and a party that has lost formerly Republican voters in the suburbs. Cities like Menlo Park, Los Gatos, La Jolla and Palos Verd es were the anchors for safe Republican districts 20 years ago. Now all these communities have Democratic legislators and members of Congress. Republicans went along with permanent minority status in the Legislature simply to survive, with the hope to fight another day when perhaps the p olitical demographics of California turn once again in their favor.