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Jason LefkowitzIf you ever wondered why Texas so reliably sends Republicans to Congress, part of the reason is that Texas Republicans won control of the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction in 2002, and they immediately set about gerrymandering the state so Democrats could never win a majority of the state's Congressional districts again
That gerrymandering effort was led by Texas Republican Tom DeLay, who rode it all the way to becoming leader of the House GOP until his obvious and flagrant corruption became too obvious and flagrant for even Texans to live with
Glyph@jalefkowit ugh there are too many characters in this show. I thought he was a sex criminal but he was apparently just a big supporter of famous sex criminal Dennis Hastert?
TTimo@jalefkowit it's not just the gerrymandering - we have quite a lot of absolute morons here.
@TTimo I mean that's true everywhere 😆
(Though I suppose like everything else, this may be bigger in Texas)
mtp@jalefkowit … and wasn't this already like the second or third time the governor attempted to use law enforcement to round up Democrats to force a quorum in the legislature?
Arjan H@jalefkowit Yeah, tell me more about fair elections.
EndicottRoad59@jalefkowit Translation: THEY CHEATED.
Lord Tom Klopf of CZ 
@jalefkowit every democracy has vulnerabilities. if there are people with disingenuous intent, they'll find them and exploit them. that's why it's important to have respect for the platform underneath your feet, and those that don't should be considered enemies of democracy.
@jalefkowit We are not a serious country
Work in Progress 🌻@jalefkowit Same thing the Democrats do here in New York State. The map they produced was comically biased.
https://www.courthousenews.com/top-ny-court-upholds-judgment-that-says-democrats-gerrymandered/
Iain Collins@unfinishedsymphony @jalefkowit When a candidate who won the popular vote for president was not elected because of the Electoral College system is something that has happened 4 times and every single time it's been a Republican president that ended up in office instead of a Democrat it seems to suggest one party is in fact decidedly more problematic.
@iaincollins @jalefkowit We were talking about gerrymandering Congressional districts, not the Electoral College. But you may be interested to learn about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Perhaps you live in a state that has not yet joined it and you can pressure your state representatives to get onboard.
Progress of the National Popular Vote Bill in Each State
Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut DC Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming As of April 13, 2026, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has been enacted into law in 19 jurisdictions possessing 2
draNgNon@jalefkowit i remember this
lupus_blackfurOh...
You mean like the feds are now attempting to do in every state...???
Across the US...??
What a plan!!
Spoken as a suitably chastened and chagrined Texas resident. 🙄🙄
I've lost much faith in "human goodness"...
At least 30-40% humans are Assholes and always will be.
🤷♂️🤦♂️🤡🫏🖕🖕💩💩
Fazal Majid@jalefkowit to be fair, I had a cousin who worked for the Texas legislature when it was Democratic in the mid-90s when I visited him at the TX capitol. They had purchased a bunch of top of the line HP Apollo 9000 workstations and were using them to gerrymander by hand using a GIS. After a month of work, the workstations were just sold off for a song.