![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogor are you just happy to see me, Congressman?
Here in upstate New York, home of two of our state's three most recently disgraced sexual-predator Congressmen, we seem to have come up with a solution to the age-old problem of how to create fairly drawn, geographically sensible districts for politicians to run in. The more common practice- of messing with the lines to achieve maximum political power for the line-drawers- has likely been a political tactic since forever, but it's gone by its present name since the 19th century in Boston, when Leading Masshole in the State Elbridge Gerry drew a district so inelegantly shaped that it resembled a salamander. The name has lasted far longer than the fishy district did.
Nowadays, good-government groups make much noise about making the process more objective and non-political, perhaps even using them thar newyfangled computery things to just plot lines. But power is just too much of an aphrodisiac; last fall, every Republican candidate for New York State Senate (one of the three bodies deciding on the lines for both state and federal districts) signed on to a pledge to make the process independent of political hacks. That is, they pledged until they actually won control of that legislative chamber, so now they're, hmmmmm, thinking about it. Talking about forming a commission to get it jusssst right! Maybe putting it in the state constitution, which would put off independence until 2013 at the earliest when the new lines, based on the 2010 census numbers, have to be drawn now.
Same old bullshit, different year- except now, through amazing coincidence and convergence of male hormonal stupidity, we've brilliantly turned to a principle right out of Darwin's Law to replace the Salamandate of Governor Gerry: you do the crime, you lose the line.
Follow me here. This is political geekery, but it's fairly simple. Our state is losing two Congressional seats due to population changes nationwide. The thinking among the party-boss political hacks, with roughly equal voices in the Albany process, is therefore that we lose one seat upstate and one downstate, and further that it be one Republican and one Democrat. Until last week, that would have been tricky. My own disgraced Congressprick, Chris "Shirtless" Lee, was a likely candidate to have his upstate Republican district drawn out of existence- except that a Democrat won it, convincingly and with national implications, so I think Kathy's seat is safe. Fortunately, we now have a special-elected Republican in the next district over, who got his seat thanks to the sexual shenanigans of Congressman "Tickle Me Eric" Massa a year or so ago. So my guess is that HE will be the upstater, and the Republican, who will be sacrificed.
That means we have to find a downstate Democrat to put to the knife. Any particular weiners come to mind?
And as long as our Congressional delegation remains predominantly male, I think we're good to go once we lose three more seats in 2020.
Here in upstate New York, home of two of our state's three most recently disgraced sexual-predator Congressmen, we seem to have come up with a solution to the age-old problem of how to create fairly drawn, geographically sensible districts for politicians to run in. The more common practice- of messing with the lines to achieve maximum political power for the line-drawers- has likely been a political tactic since forever, but it's gone by its present name since the 19th century in Boston, when Leading Masshole in the State Elbridge Gerry drew a district so inelegantly shaped that it resembled a salamander. The name has lasted far longer than the fishy district did.
Nowadays, good-government groups make much noise about making the process more objective and non-political, perhaps even using them thar newyfangled computery things to just plot lines. But power is just too much of an aphrodisiac; last fall, every Republican candidate for New York State Senate (one of the three bodies deciding on the lines for both state and federal districts) signed on to a pledge to make the process independent of political hacks. That is, they pledged until they actually won control of that legislative chamber, so now they're, hmmmmm, thinking about it. Talking about forming a commission to get it jusssst right! Maybe putting it in the state constitution, which would put off independence until 2013 at the earliest when the new lines, based on the 2010 census numbers, have to be drawn now.
Same old bullshit, different year- except now, through amazing coincidence and convergence of male hormonal stupidity, we've brilliantly turned to a principle right out of Darwin's Law to replace the Salamandate of Governor Gerry: you do the crime, you lose the line.
Follow me here. This is political geekery, but it's fairly simple. Our state is losing two Congressional seats due to population changes nationwide. The thinking among the party-boss political hacks, with roughly equal voices in the Albany process, is therefore that we lose one seat upstate and one downstate, and further that it be one Republican and one Democrat. Until last week, that would have been tricky. My own disgraced Congressprick, Chris "Shirtless" Lee, was a likely candidate to have his upstate Republican district drawn out of existence- except that a Democrat won it, convincingly and with national implications, so I think Kathy's seat is safe. Fortunately, we now have a special-elected Republican in the next district over, who got his seat thanks to the sexual shenanigans of Congressman "Tickle Me Eric" Massa a year or so ago. So my guess is that HE will be the upstater, and the Republican, who will be sacrificed.
That means we have to find a downstate Democrat to put to the knife. Any particular weiners come to mind?
And as long as our Congressional delegation remains predominantly male, I think we're good to go once we lose three more seats in 2020.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 01:01 pm (UTC)...which, of course, means that it won't happen.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 01:10 pm (UTC)As you likely know better than I from having lived there, Albany is a place where brains go to die. For years, there's been a budget-fixing battle over selling wine in grocery stores (WIGS in Albanyspeak). The liquor-store lobby pretends to be a bunch of struggling mom-and-pop proprietors who will better protect your kids from buying wine (never mind that Wegmans has far more to lose, both wine and beer, if they let a kid get past), while Danny and Wally do their own campaigning the other way. The solution? Let non-liquor stores sell the stuff, but add a $5.00 convenience fee per bottle, designated half to DWI enforcement and alcohol resistance education, half to deficit reduction (I'm flexible on all the numbers). It's so simple, and beautiful, and customer-choice-friendly, it's therefore the one thing that everyone agrees that they DON't want.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-09 01:15 pm (UTC)BUT...tell that to a special interest group. Sigh.
I love the convenience fee, although they'd probably demand that you apply it to beer, too, in that case...
no subject
Date: 2011-06-10 10:06 pm (UTC)