Sunny Days in Heaven
Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven


Thursday, March 11, 2004  

Skewing the State

Daniel Weintraub points out today an interesting fact -- even though California skews Democrat in representative government, it tends to vote Republican on major statewide issues.

The reason? Democrats represent less people. Most Democrat representatives come from urban areas where their districts have fewer voters. Not less people, but fewer ones who vote.

"In statewide races, only voters count. Those who cannot or do not register and vote are left out of the equation entirely. But legislative districts are divided evenly by population, not voters. And because immigrants tend to live disproportionately in urban areas represented by Democrats, members of that party actually represent fewer voters, on average, than do Republicans. Those who do vote in those Democratic districts are, in effect, casting proxies for those who do not.

Consider the November 2002 elections for the Assembly. The number of votes cast per district ranged from a high of about 139,000 to a low of 31,500. . . Of the 20 districts casting the most votes, 11 were won by Republicans, and of the top 30 districts, 18 are in Republican hands. On the other side of the ledger, the 19 districts with the smallest vote totals were all won by Democrats.

In other words, it takes fewer votes to elect a Democrat than a Republican. The 32 Republicans in the Assembly represent an average of about 101,000 voters each, while the vote in the 48 Democratic districts totaled an average of just 80,000."


The State's congress has also ghettoized apportionment creating safe districts for both Reps and Dems. It has effectively disenfranchised millions of conservatives or moderates since in some areas, their votes will never count as a constituency which elects a candidate. Thus Dems can skew as far loony Left as they like. There are no moderating forces or voices in such Dem primaries.

One wonders if any urban area will ever be Republican again. And what will happen to cities like Reno and Las Vegas as they fill up and expand with refugees from California and elsewhere. Will they turn Democrat in time, also? Was there a large city in the USA that didn't vote for Gore in 2000?

posted by Mark Butterworth | 1:11 PM |

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