Gerrymandering: Crash Course Government and Politics #37
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- čas přidán 30. 10. 2015
- Today Craig is going to talk about a topic that makes voters and politicians alike ANGRY! We're going to talk about Gerrymandering - that is the process in which voting districts are redrawn in a way to favor one party during elections. As you'll see, this is why election outcomes on Census years (which tend to be when districts are redrawn) are a really big deal. So we'll talk about how some of these cockamamie voting districts come to be and explain how Gerrymandering can affect the outcomes (and misrepresent voters) during elections. But even with all these rage-inducing and bizarre district maps, it's important to remember that it isn't ALL political scheming, but also a reflection of the tendency for Democrats to live in urban areas.
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Ok, this has to stop. I say we find this Gerry and tell him to cut this nonsense out!
Gerry is dead. you may have to go to heaven or hell to find him. are you willing to make the trip?
Eugene Bigay. 1990 American Skaters my dude it was joke
@@impacc4182 so was his reply i-
I'm glad I'm living in a smaller nation. Democracy works better in smaller populations.
Not really.
@@asherdavss7819 do you have anything to back up your claim?
Alex Thurow do you
@@bullrun2772 yes. Switzerland.
Alexfolledemoi really switerzland whoa faceplam
Craig, you do this really well.
Yes, nearly as good as CGPGrey and that's quite something!!
+daddyleon this is true, but grey doesn't release enough content
jesse robinson he edits all of his videos, it takes him a lot longer to do what he does, and he's not the best editor.
+Jason Clark hmm maybe but he is liberal so this is pretty objective but not completely.
CRH gaming He argues both sides and does it well, I don't think he's ever made it apparent where he stands, you're just assuming things.
Governmy by far is the most confusing history class I’ve had to take, for me at least. All these strange governmt terms and elections and dumb voting rules are so mind boggling to me. I typically never struggle in history cus it’s my favorite subject but man government is beating me this year which is why I’m so grateful for these videos!! It really helps me understand what the stupid textbook can’t :) so thank you crash course never stop!!
It also doesn’t help that my teacher just shoved the books at us and expects me to understand everything this books tells me, and it feels like I’m reading a whole different language lol
Why in the fuck can't my vote just count as a vote???
+Artbug Your vote is just a vote in Senatorial and Presidential elections.
+krim7 no, not at all in us presidential elections. small state citizens have way more power than big state citizens. you could hypothetically win the presidential election with only 24,7% of votes in a two party election!!
+krim7 That is true in Senate races, but not the presidential. The Electoral College system is flawed, and it significantly distorts politics. We recently elected a president that had fewer votes than his opponent did. However, there is a bigger problem. Most presidential elections are decided by about a half dozen swing states. If you don't live in those states, your vote doesn't matter. Most states lean fairly heavily to one party or the other, and only rarely go the other way. To get elected, a candidate must cater to those states, regardless of the views the majority of the country.
A direct election removes this distortion.
+krim7 Its not a vote in presidential elections. He enplaned that.
civil war would break out if that of are elections
Upon hindsight, this really was a great choice of Crash Course series for Craig to host. The clones are incredibly useful!
This topic is fascinating to me as a Canadian. We redraw districts regularly based on census data, but it's done by an impartial nonpartisan bureau. They tend to make simple, straightforward districts that break down easily on county, city or neighbourhood lines and are easy to picture.
How the urban/rural divide works can be point of contention, but as our parliament is not as purely bipartisan it's generally not as big a deal.
Unfortunately, both the democratic and republican parties really love gerrymandering, so chances are it won't go away anytime soon.
You need to start & vote for ballot initiatives that bring the redistricting process to independent commissions in each state!
I've been watching Crash Course since a few weeks after it first premiered. I'm sure I'm not the only one, but when the intro starts it's like the intro to a Disney movie. I'm not sure what I'm about to watch, but I know I'm going to enjoy it.
Thanks for all that you do. Please keep up the good work.
It's good to hear something explained simply and without bias. Thank you
Good summary! I live in Maryland and can never tell which district I'm in, even with a map, because the border squiggles back and forth across this area so much. Really feels like my representative has nothing to do with my county, and it's kind of disenfranchising.
Still can't believe you guys don't have an independent body not split along party lines entrusted with drawing these boundaries.
+WhiskeyWhiskers we do sometimes. and it still happens
+WhiskeyWhiskers The mathematical methods of finding solutions to the district problem didn't occur until well after the Constitution was ratified. By the time methods surfaced, the ones in power simply used them for personal gain instead of fairness.
If the founding fathers had known that mathematics could fuck over politics so badly so easily, the would definitely have set in place a system for non-partisan boards.
+WhiskeyWhiskers Ohio just voted for a Bipartisan committee to draw up our congressional districts starting in 2020
+WhiskeyWhiskers We do, the problem is the parties send represenatives to these bodies and "enlighten" their opinions. Usually with money.
weirdly enough we in India despite our many problems even we have a better system with an independent delimitation commission.
As a native born Texan, I hate how gerrymandered my state is. We ought be more Democratic than the districts show.
Districts 2, 18, 33, and 35 are prime examples.
Jordan Martirossian I hope you vote Beto for Senate and promote people to vote Democrat in those districts
Alexander Wild wow! good intellectual argument! thank you random internet stranger!
who is here for school
You know, these educational services and specifically the people are awesome! their body language and scripts are extremely well managed and make them, and as a result the subjects the represent very approachable and fun to watch. Even if I'm already familiar with the topic :D
This was well presented and explained without bias. Thank you for sharing this
I remember the '03 gerrymandering in Texas. I was in taking a government class in high school at the time and was the only person in the class who didn't consider the Democrats leaving the state in protest to be "flipping the table when they lost the game." I was also the only person in the room who didn't blindly support the Bush administration no matter what, which may be a coincidence or it may say something about the ideologies involved. It was big news in our class since I'm in Oklahoma, so it was kinda local-ish news.
GUYS. Well done, this was so beautifully educational! You create beautiful things so all the best!
Watching this right after Supreme Court made a decision to leave gerrymandering to the States. So now I want to learn about it so we can influence local elections by gerrymandering.
You see that it is not how it is supposed to be used but it is now because people who want more want no gerrymandering
CP gray did a video on this and also different forms of voting. great videos
Lol I love the "Hot line bling" reference in 6:16😆
I loved this episode's intro so much
nice hotline bling reference at 6:14
This gives me so many flashbacks to AP Human Geo :)
CGP Gray is still the first video I will send people to but this was definitely a second video I made them watch. GJ guys!
Great video! Love the clones idea, hilariously entertaining
Why not just have nationwide proportional representation...
+Angel33Demon666 That would require making the parties an official thing (note: parties aren't a thing in the US, not officially at least). Proportional representation means voting for parties instead of people. You could argue that we already do that, and I would agree.
But doing such a change would require a lot work.
+Angel33Demon666 "I have never read the Federalist Papers" for 500, Alex.
+Angel33Demon666
As the supporters of first-past-the-post say, "Women from Eastern Europe give birth in England, because there are single member districts in England".
Anyway, the proponents of single member districts claim that they make the process more local, which should make it easier for local community leaders to get elected. Also, they argue that if you vote for a party, like in the party-lists proportional representation, political organizations become these giant clan-like structures where MPs are loyal to the party leadership rather than their constituency, since it's up to the party to distribute individual seats.
+Angel33Demon666 Representative are supposed to represent their district, not the entire state. So take a state like California where you have absolutely massive urban areas like LA and San Francisco, but also massive agricultural areas. The people who live in those two areas are going to want completely different things, and therefore should have different representatives.
+Angel33Demon666 Because Republicans know that under that system, they'll never get elected again to any office, including Dog catcher, even in the South.
Ohh man that name was actually really good, I like the sound of it, "Twisted District"
Finally a lot of references to Maryland in a Crash Course video.
Once again, thank you for the info!
This man makes topics that would normally be boring kinda fun👍🏻😀
thank you this helped alot!! i have a civics and economics exam next week and this is helping me alot!! i just miss John Green!!
Congratulations Craig! You do do this well.
As a non-american I really don't get why there is even a discussion about gerrymandering. You can argue about just how bad it is but it has literally no positive side, so why is it in play at all?
And it is not that people who are democratic go to cities but people in cities generally (because they come in contact with more different kinds of people and tend to have better education) tend to become democratic due to a more true full and nuanced world/economic view.
Yea.....because democrats just hate bombing brown people to smitherines........... well, at least when they are an impotent minority they talk like they do.
+Daan Luttik It's in play because politics put it in there. While voters would like some close elections with 1-5% difference, candidates don't. They want to be sure that they're going to win.
P.S. See CGPGrey's video on Gerrymandering to see how it is done and how it is actually a sound solution to counter itself.
Daan Luttik the people who would vote to stop it are in congress. Since many politician's goals are to stay in power, they would not vote against what keeps them there.
Daan Luttik do us a favor and stay in Europe.. generalizations always have exceptions..Im a conservative leaning libertarian who lives in NY City.Believe me there are millions of uneducated liberals here.
Weaboo Trash I dont..unfortunatley.They should have a platonic friend service for libertarians in areas that buy too deeply into the left/right BS
I can see the obvious gerrymandering. In the 2012 election, mitt Romney won more congressional districts than Obama did even though he lost the electoral college and the popular vote. We need an independent committee to draw up districts or have proportional representation. It's not fair that Republican support is less than democrat support, yet still win more districts. Urban votes are strategically gerrymandered so that democrats get less representatives. Plus, it's also unfair that one state legislature vote changes the entire house composition for the next decade. Maybe a census every five years would work.
Plus, we also need to scrap the electoral college. Bush 2000 wasn't the only time that happened. I think this happened 7 times. And you wouldn't need to have frequent recounts with a popular vote system. Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 people, not nearly that small of a margin as 500 in Florida. While democracy is mob rule, it's better than unfair rule by a minority.
Totally, it makes so little sense (to me)!
+Ko Gyi al gore would have been president 😭 just by 51% but nooo bush won by 49% of the vote
Actually! Did you know that California has its own separate committee for redistricting? It's one of the few, if not the only, state to do so. Most redistricting lines are made by the majority party within the state legislature. That is why gerrymandering is usually a problem. Both sides are guilty of gerrymandering. Hopefully other states may follow in California's footsteps and try to make a separate committee for redistricting. But it's unlikely
California has I think all of it's main public servants and even judges and sheriffs elected, if the electoral commission is elected, there will be problems there.
Excellent video.
Those census years are big ones.
will crash course history ever return ? ):
no
They did but it is second and then now eu history
Very nice video. Thank you.
But if the districts are drawn according to population, why would it matter if Democrats are concentrated in cities, as far as disenfranchising Democratic voters? It would just mean more districts in the more populous areas, right?
I live in a small, very Democratic city. Our country votes about 73% Democrat. But of our 2 state senators and 3 state house members, only one is Democratic. That's because the Republican-dominated state legislature has gerrymandered it to have each district slice into the city, but most of each district then ranges out into the surrounding rural areas, thus destroying any chance we have of getting more reps into the state legislature, which they already overwhelmingly dominate. This is in Georgia.
the republican gerrymandering in Georgia is awful!
Tovacorona gerrymandering in Florida is awful as well, the republican dominated state legislature draws districts to their advantage
I love Craig! Clever, clever man.
My College professor just gave us this to watch what a great day and Craig can talk impressively fas t
2020 a census year....this should be interesting Craig here in Texas.
this guy is so good at his job
1:10 That's a UK census form, you can see the ONS logo and a little bit of the Coat of Arms.
I don't mind the ads
I don't mind the buffer
But when ads buffer, I suffer
P.S First Comment :)
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
It’s been 2 years though
Soojong Ha its now been 3
Why not remove the districts and let people vote, if 60% votes Republicanand 40% Democratic, the Republicans get 60% of the senators, and the Democrats 40% of them.
the only problem with this I can think of would be a lack of local representation. Way better than first past the post tho imo
He's not talking about senators he is talking about representatives
that's called proportional representation and it promotes a weak government. (for example, the Weimar republic)
+Diaberu monk Still better than promoting a democracy where voters opinions don't matter and results are made up.
There is a system that does this well. Look up the mmp form of representation
Great explanation. I do quite hate gerrymandering. It's time for all states to have more representative districts (instead of favoring one side or another.) Thanks for the video!
"One person, one vote."
Yea, the electoral college really fucked that up.
So, hang on. The winner of the election gets to decide the boundaries for each seat up for other elections? Does anyone else see how insane that is?
Why not have an independent commission draw the boundaries and take it out of politics altogether?
pj whitlock because if you have the point you make then people with more power will get power
Chicago and its suburbs are a perfect example of this
When I first looked at the United States HOR electoral map I thought I was misinterpreting it. Here in Australia electoral districts are drawn by independent commissions and are highly consultative with the public.
NOW I understand gerrymandering! Thank you.
your hair was gerrymandered. :)
Wheezy Whinings should be a channel.
Craig! Craig! I LOVE YOU!!
will you be doing an episode on party list proportional voting to contrast this episode?
Great video. I preferred cpgreys version though, was more clearer and to the point.
He didn't punch the eagle. That is great. No more animal abuse. My solution would be that representatives would actually represent the people voted for them but up to a maximum number but also a minimum number so that not to many representatives are there either. That way all parties in that state are represented to a high degree of fidelity. This may allow 3rd or even 4th parties to run, which is why this change may have snowballs chance in hell.
+TheAtheistPaladin 0:10
I’m here for my AP human geo class, can you guys please tell me the three main points in this video and the pros and cons
its really cool in the beginning ( 0:27 ) when the partisan "clones" appear to either side of Craig whilst he sits between them as a physical representation of a liberal conservative.
If you tighten the sting too much it will snap and if you let it too loose it won't play.
I thought you mentioned that the districts were supposed to represent areas of equal population... so it shouldn't matter if Democrats tend to gather in urban areas.
by your logic California would have 80x the districts in Wyoming because it has 80 times the people, and each district has to have the same number of people. But one state having 80x the power of another state in a confederacy of states is politically problematic so it isn't done that way.
@@luizcastro5246 I'm pretty sure he means that within a state the districts should have equal population among each other. It's on a state by state basis for how many people are in a district rather than on a national one.
Luiz Castro actually the USA is not a confederacy first which makes your entire point sort of wrong we are a Federation not a confederation
oscar word yay
The UK too has a history of gerrymandering, particularly in Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland tends to follow traditional country boundaries, and uses PR-STV voting, so there are far fewer problems.
For over half of this video, I confused gerrymandering with filibustering. And I was wondering why he was talking about districts and for a moment I thought, "is he gerrymandering(filibustering)?" I thought it was hilarious until he got to the gerrymandering. He should make a video about filibuster
(4:03) I believe that's my district.
It's either that, or district 8 slightly east of there.
This is why we should have a 10-50 district, party list system that isn't drawn around state lines.
As a fellow Chicagoan I'm with you
Not just any reptile, a salamander, hence Gerry-mander. A rare miss here for Craig.
you should do an episode on felon voting and how it would effect voting overall if it was legal everywhere, or how it already does effect voting
That AP test 2016 was so easy
true
Terrific
Easy to understand.
Just out of curiosity- what's with all the pictures from Maryland? As a Marylander, it shocks me to see so many mentions of Maryland in under 8 minutes from something national.
Yeah this makes me crazy
Anyone else noticed that in the thought bubble in the beginning there was a girl from the hotline bling video leaning against the water fountain 😂👀
Just imagine if you had multi-member districts, drawn by a non-partisan third party, with ranked voting. I hear Lessig has some ideas... Shame the democratic party refuses to acknowledge his campaign.
+deadeaded >"a non-partisan third party, "
which immediately becomes the new de facto "ruling party" because of the power it wields, and is immediately infiltrated by the existing partisan interests and power grabbers we're already dealing with. The nation is effectively governed by whoever rules _that_ party, so the process for deciding who that party ruler is simply becomes the new "election cycle" (replacing the current election cycle). ie: it doesn't change things for the better, it just gives a new battleground which the existing partisan power grabbers will have their power battles in.
No mention of Single Transferable Vote as used in the Republic of Ireland, Australia, etc.?
America has state rights so that won't work.
+Fenrirthewolf well we could push for a state to adopt it. might be simply to few people have heard of it.
When talking about Gerrymandering, I think it makes sense to talk about worldwide strategies for dealing with it. Also, many US cities have used STV, so it's potentially relevant for local government.
The problem I have with the "Democrats cluster in Urban districts" is that one could make an equally valid an argument that Republicans cluster into Rural districts. The only difference is that anti-urban sentiment makes it OK to punish city dwellers with less of a vote, but not to punish rural areas.
I'm glad this isn't a problem in Canada, a independent panel figures out the new ridings (districts). Its not perfect and any changes to a electoral map does benefit some parties over others but I think that's unavoidable
+SuperKing604 Even better, you can use an algorithm to do this, take people completely out of the loop
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/03/this-computer-programmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/
+Anton Maes can we just make the entire government ran by a computer?
who are you going to vote for? apple or Microsoft?
and dont throw your vote away on linux. they never win. yeah they have a few good ideas but they dont have nearly the amount of money the main computers do
+Anton Maes Who writes the program? Using what algorithm? Any algorithm has inherent biases. It would still be better than the current system.
+Eric14492 how would an algorithm have biases?
Really don't need a program even, just dictate that districts the largest district (by population) can have no more than one more person than the smallest district, that no part of the state can go undistricted and that the summed perimeter of all districts shall be as low as possibly. Since the first two criteria are a simple fail-pass criteria that leaves just the last, of all proposed maps that pass the first two criteria the one with the lowest summed perimeter wins. A computer program will probably win this contest 98% of the time, but the beauty of it is that this test could of been done 2000 years ago if it's need had been apparent.
I don't get how some people (republicans) can defend gerrymandering, it is by definition a bad thing.
+Craze Phil i dont get that some people are ignorant enough to consider sanders as a valid option.
Samuel Ramos
And how is Sanders not a valid option?
+Samuel Ramos I don't get how ignorant people talk about stuff they have no idea about
wyl Kan agreed. almost all the people supporting Sanders the Kook dont have any idea
+Craze Phil democrats have also done this, its not about parties its about power
12 seconds for him to knock the eagle off the table. I think that might be a record.
Craig slid too far in the intro. HAHA. It's so funny.
This guy reminds me of my geometry teacher
Actually Gray v. Sanders (1963) established "one person, one vote." Baker v. Carr (1962) just opened the door to that decision by saying that malapporionment is a justiciable question that the Court has the authority to rule on.
Rigging the game
I just a very basic question: why is it important to elect someone of your own group?
Hey, I'm not from the USA and don't really get the Eagle, but what's with you and the hitting the eagle? CAn you explain that please?
Better than my intro to American Government class
I would like to try out the Israeli system that is used for elections to the Knesset, where if a party receives a certain percent of the popular vote (3.25% in the case of Israel) you are guaranteed one seat in the legislature. How it would work for the Senate would be a little more complicated, maybe one could say 1% of the popular vote.
I could see this being a bit more complicated with our population being about 40 times that of Israel's, and the fact replicating their system would be more difficult with our bicameral legislature (the Knesset is unicameral).
Just a thought.
This system isn't complicated. It's absurd.
Vincent Carmiggelt really you think it is a it’s is wrong
Well that was super unbiased.
Interesting...
Somehow this popped up on my "subscribed" list and I can't UNSUBSCRIBE! Jeeze! What a bunch of clutter!!!
Well done guys. I didn't feel quite the bias I tend to feel on some of the videos you guys produce. Stick to the facts, and let people come to their own decisions. If anyone is interested in this more, Baker v. Carr was more or less a footnote in this. That case was pretty incredibly, and the fall out from that has been equally so.
Okay, people who also live in Delaware back me up. It's Delawarean, not Delawaran. Like I've never heard someone from the state of Delaware pronounce it like Craig does.
Districting is irrelevant when all the candidates are owned by the 1%.
Hey kid try learning something about politics and stop playing minecraft
+5oh read the Citizens United decision that SCOTUS ruled a few years ago. Sheeple only matter on Election Day, the big donors have unlimited free speech every other day of the cycle.
My district is so gerrymandered looks like abstract art
Okay, informative video, yes, but... I'd suggest speaking just a little slower for the people not in on political lingo
This is sadly another example of one of the reasons affirmative actions is still a necessary thing for some states. I wish it wasn't but imagine if it wasn't there.
***** I do see the problem yes, but you also gotta admit, its hard to have a mostly minority district led by mostly white leaders who may not always have their interests at heart. It's a sticky situation both ways.
***** And I do agree on that but thats not always the case. Its something Ive seen personally. The sad truth is the majority of residents or an area may not always be the ones to vote. For example in the area that I lived the majority of the population are minorities and are young families but the major voters are usually older white residents. And they vote in leaders who shut down any tax raises which cuts off much needed funds toward schools. And for them it makes sense they don't wanna pay any more taxes but it hurts the young families. And thats just a local small case example. It can happen on a much larger scale
So why not simply state that states are districts? The number of representatives would be more in line with the number of people within a state and the representatives would be more in line with what the people want, instead of this 'winner takes all' attitude.
I'm sorry, but gerrymandering is idiotic. I appreciate the attempt to make it nuanced, but it isn't. It's just dumb
+Shangori That would negate the very idea of representation. Who would represent your town? All of them? In that case you could have one representative per state and they'd just be from the party that won the majority.
*****
"Who would represent your town? "
I don't want a representation of my town, I want a representation from my state. Who fucking cares if there is a representation from my town. What my town needs is NOT what my country needs
Hell, I don't even agree that the representation from my state represents what the people need on a federal level.
PEOPLE need to be represented, not states, not towns, not cities, PEOPLE
+SnepKaunt The US Federal Republic isn't a representative system, it uses a FPtP voting system, which means proportional representation is impossible. Gerrymandering takes the shittiness of FPtP and amplifies the level of misrepresentation because it typically pulls in a comfortable number of voters of the party the district is rigged to win, but keeps enough of the opposition party voters to nullify their vote compared to if they were in a neighbouring district that could be more favourable to the opposition party, so voters get fucked both ways.
It's a disgrace that something like that would ever be allowed.
*****
_"So you think a single person can represent an entire state?"_
Yes, of course, because I speak for state representation, I MUST mean that only one person has to represent the state as a whole
For fuck sake...
***** I'm kinda lost what to say to you. How you ever got to the idea that I think that a single representative per state is a good thing is beyond me.
And to then state I have to read a book because I have an idea you *assumed* I have is quite idiotic and arrogant. Think whatever you want, but I can't be bothered with people who build strawman for a hobby.
If they just used a system that wasn't completely moronic (like alternative vote or STV) then you could just use the whole state as a district and divide it up fairly. How can someone seek to move away from this ridiculous system currently in place? Who has the power to change it?