House Democrats got more votes than House Republicans.

[Buster]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...got-a-mandate/


I had heard this fact mentioned but never saw it in print. so here it is.

The number one reason to expand the membership in the House of Representatives

House Democrats got more votes than House Republicans. Yet Boehner says he’s got a mandate?



By Ezra Klein , Updated: November 9, 2012


The political-science evidence is clear on this: There’s no such thing as an election mandate. There’s only what a president is able to get done with the Congress the American people gave him.

But few politicians agree. And so the days and weeks after elections are heavy with arguments about who has a mandate, and for what. The latest debate is about whether President Obama, who ran a campaign explicitly promising to raise taxes on high earners and who beat a candidate explicitly promising to refuse any and all tax increases, has a mandate to raise taxes.

Speaker John Boehner says he doesn’t. “Listen, our majority is going to get reelected,” he said the day before the election. “We’ll have as much of a mandate as he [President Obama] will … to not raise taxes.”

Boehner’s logic is, on its face, sound. House Republicans have been as clear in their opposition to new taxes on the rich as Obama has been in his support for them. And House Republicans were reelected. They have as much right to claim a popular mandate as the president does.

Or they would if they’d actually won more votes. But they didn’t. House Republicans did the equivalent of winning the electoral college while losing the popular vote.

It can be a bit difficult to tally up the popular vote in House elections because you have to go ballot by ballot, and many incumbents run unopposed. But The Washington Post’s Dan Keating did the work and found that Democrats got 54,301,095 votes while Republicans got 53,822,442. That’s a close election — 48.8%-48.5% –but it’s still a popular vote win for the Democrats. Those precise numbers might change a bit as the count finalizes, but the tally isn’t likely to flip.


What saved Boehner’s majority wasn’t the will of the people but the power of redistricting. As my colleague Dylan Matthews showed, Republicans used their control over the redistricting process to great effect, packing Democrats into tighter and tighter districts and managing to restructure races so even a slight loss for Republicans in the popular vote still meant a healthy majority in the House.

That’s a neat trick, but it’s not a popular mandate, or anything near to it — and Boehner knows it. That’s why his first move after the election was to announce, in a vague-but-important statement, that he was open to some kind of compromise on taxes.

© The Washington Post Company

[sg3]

Boner can't even get his own teabaggers to agree to do what he wants.



Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

[Warfish]

Got to love the dishonesty of Politics.

The reason House (D) got more overall votes than House (R) is because states with huge cities, like California and New York, have more votes than the rest of the nation combined.

It's not reflective of what the actual jurisdictions wanted in each jurisdiction individually. You know, how the election actually works for the House.

But you knew that.

If this factoid meant anything, then we'd have a system where say, California and New York could all vote (D) 100%, and every house memebr would be a (D), and the other 49 States would have to deal.

Thats why we don't have that system, and why this factoid is utterly irrelevant.

Unles you don't really like Democracy in a Republic, of course. Which most (D) don't...

Hilarious hypocricy part II: Gerimandering was awesome when used to get all black districts to get black reps elected. But if it helps (R) it's suddenly the worst evil ever. Lol.

[Bonhomme Richard]

Originally Posted by Warfish

Got to love the dishonesty of Politics.

The reason House (D) got more overall votes than House (R) is because states with huge cities, like California and New York, have more votes than the rest of the nation combined.

It's not reflective of what the actual jurisdictions wanted in each jurisdiction individually. You know, how the election actually works for the House.

But you knew that.

If this factoid meant anything, then we'd have a system where say, California and New York could all vote (D) 100%, and every house memebr would be a (D), and the other 49 States would have to deal.

Thats why we don't have that system, and why this factoid is utterly irrelevant.

Unles you don't really like Democracy in a Republic, of course. Which most (D) don't...

Hilarious hypocricy part II: Gerimandering was awesome when used to get all black districts to get black reps elected. But if it helps (R) it's suddenly the worst evil ever. Lol.

+1. Common sense at its most common.

Originally Posted by sg3

Boner can't even get his own teabaggers to agree to do what he wants.



Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

Brilliant contribution.

[PlumberKhan]

Originally Posted by sg3

Boner can't even get his own teabaggers to agree to do what he wants.



Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

Obviously, the sackless f*ck hasn't shed enough tears to get enough votes.

Don't worry though. He plans on spending his holidays watching lifetime movies with post-menopausal woman and playing golf.

[MnJetFan]

Because Boehner is a closet liberal and a snake.

[Winstonbiggs]

You will never see Buster blame the voting rights act on lost Democratic seats.

A large number of districts were redrawn to insure African Americans were elected to Congress. This destroyed moderate Democratic seats and helped get more Republicans elected to Congress.

Gerrymandering is a huge problem but it's a decidely two way street.

[Warfish]

Originally Posted by Winstonbiggs

Gerrymandering is a huge problem but it's a decidely two way street.

Agreed.

[parafly]

Originally Posted by Buster

The number one reason to expand the membership in the House of Representatives

+1

The House of Representatives needs to be expanded. The first house had one member for every 30,000 American citizens. Today, one member represents nearly 700,000 American citizens.

This clear dilution has played a big role in taking power out of the hands of individual citizens and into the hands of special interest groups. There is no reason why House expansion should not be proportional to population increase.

[Buster]

Originally Posted by Warfish

Got to love the dishonesty of Politics.

The reason House (D) got more overall votes than House (R) is because states with huge cities, like California and New York, have more votes than the rest of the nation combined.

You just described why we have a Senate.

Also, Texas is ranked number 2 in total population and Florida is ranked number 4.

[DDNYjets]

The country is yours. Quite frankly, you can have it.

[RMJK]

Originally Posted by parafly

+1

The House of Representatives needs to be expanded. The first house had one member for every 30,000 American citizens. Today, one member represents nearly 700,000 American citizens.

This clear dilution has played a big role in taking power out of the hands of individual citizens and into the hands of special interest groups. There is no reason why House expansion should not be proportional to population increase.

At least it saves us their pensions and benefits. Less is better I think. Less of a bad thing is better....no