Thread by @ncdave4life

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 1/27》The Democrat Party is the party of crooked electioneering. I've personally been disenfranchised by them. When I left California, I had no State Senator, thanks to the Democrats’ schemes.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 2/27》After the 1980 census, in 1981, the Democrat-controlled State legislature gerrymandered California, to "protect" incumbent Democrat politicians, and get rid of as many Republicans as possible. They used every trick you can imagine, and some that you probably couldn't.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 3/27》Obviously, they drew convoluted districts, like Elbridge Gerry's infamous salamander, and they drew Democrat districts with fewer voters than Republican districts (which is made possible because apportionment is by number of bodies, not number of voters). But that's not all

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 4/27》The Calif State Constitution requires districts to be "geographically contiguous," but Democrats twisted that amazingly.

They drew districts that "crossed," so they were contiguous only at an infinitesimally small point.

One district was contiguous only at low tide!

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 5/27》They needed a few more Democrats to make the Marin Co. district of U.S. Rep. John Burton (not related to me, BTW) safely Democratic, because in 1980 he'd been reelected by an uncomfortably narrow margin, with just 51.1% of the vote. So guess what they did?

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 6/27》They extended his district across the Golden Gate Bridge, around the San Francisco shoreline (bypassing everyone who lived in San Francisco), down to Daly City, and picked up some Democrat precincts there, where they had Democrats to spare!

google.com/maps/place/Dal…

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 7/27》But none of those tricks matched what they did to get rid of Republicans in the California State Senate.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 8/27》California State Senators have staggered four year terms: those with odd-numbered seats are elected in the same year as Presidents, and even-numbered seats are elected in non-Presidential election years (two years earlier/later).

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 9/27》I was represented by Republican State Sen. Marz Garcia. He'd been elected in 1978 in an even-numbered district (Senate district 10), so in 1981 he had one more year on his term. His State Senate district was adjacent to that of another Republican, also with an even number.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 10/27》So the Democrats "double-bunked" them, drawing them into the same new district, to force them to run against each other.

Then they gave the new district an odd number, so that there'd be no election there for there more years.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 11/27》So, at the end of 1982, when the two Republican Senators' terms ended, the residents of the new district were left with no State Senator at all. They had no representation in the State Senate for two years, because odd-numbered districts didn't have an election until 1984.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 12/27》I left California before the next election. At the time I left, I had a State Assemblyman, but no State Senator.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 13/27》Over in Sacramento, they did the opposite. It was represented by a Republican with three years left on his term. They drew a new district similar to the old one, but gave it an even number, so that there would be an election there in 1982.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 14/27》The Republican was already in office with an odd-numbered district, so he couldn't run (you can't represent two districts at once).

He was the only well known Republican there, so the Democrats won the new district in 1982. For 2 years the district had two State Senators

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 15/27》(Technically, it was two districts, but they were mostly the same.)

In 1984 the Republican's term ran out, and since there was no election there until 1986, he left office, and the Sacramento district was left with only its new Democrat State Senator.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 16/27》Both Parties engage in gerrymandering, but when the Democrats controlled the North Carolina legislature, gerrymandering here in NC was probably worse than it has ever been in any Republican-controlled jurisdiction.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 17/27》Our NC State Constitution provided for multi-member Senate districts, and forbade splitting counties. The multi-member districts were needed so that the prohibition against splitting counties didn't result in gross disparities in voter representation/weight.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 18/27》Federal courts voided the prohibition against splitting counties, by requiring almost-exactly equal representation/weight per census-counted person, but NC still had multi-member districts (until they were abolished in Stephenson v. Bartlett, in 2002).

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 19/27》In 1991, the Democrats then in charge in the legislature used multi-member Senate districts for racial gerrymandering, to maximize the number of seats "safe" for white Democrats.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 20/27》They used multi-member Senate districts to "dilute" mostly-black urban precincts with suburban & rural precincts from other counties that were whiter & more Republican. The goal was to draw districts too Democratic to elect Republicans & too white to elect black Democrats.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 21/27》The purpose was to keep both Republicans and black Democrats out of the legislature. It was outrageous, and racist, and blatant, and extremely unjust -- and you rarely heard a peep of complaint about it from the liberal press.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 22/27》In those days I used to watch the returns come in, at election parties. You'd see Republican legislative districts which often had twice as many total votes as Democrat legislative districts.

That's the effect of Democrats subverting the ideal of "one person = one vote."

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 23/27》They've done their best, for many years, to make it more like "one person = ⅔ vote in Republican districts, but one person = 1⅓ vote in Democrat districts."

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 24/27》For example, they manipulate the census to count college students in college towns, instead of in the hometowns where they’re registered. That gives liberal college towns disproportionate legislative representation, and conservative rural districts less representation.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 25/27》Democratic election trickery and fraud is nothing new. In fact it wasn't even new when they staged the Wilmington coup, in 1898.

What, you say you've never heard of the Democrats' Wilmington Coup? That really WAS an armed insurrection.

history.com/news/wilmingto…

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 26/27》That was only 22 years after the infamous election of 1876, in which massive voter intimidation & fraud by Democrats left America forever in doubt about who really won the Presidency.

@DLaneBreckenri1 @lyndonallydice @danielcincu @robert_zubrin @McFaul @ClaireBerlinski 27/27》So, do you wonder why so many Republicans don't trust Democrats to count votes -- or draw districts -- honestly?

https://twitter.com/ncdave4life/status/1470959641710452737

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