America voted the House GOP out. Gerrymandering kept them in.

[Direckshun]

The math:

Between the two parties, voters voted for the Democratic House candidates nationally, 48.8% to 48.5%.

That would translate to Democrats having 214 DNP seats to 212 GOP.

The end results as of now (votes are still being counted in 6 races): 233 GOP to 194 DNP.

That's 53.5% GOP to 44.6% DNP.

A 9-point, 21-seat swing.

Want to know why John Boehner was so quick to extend the olive branch?

That's why.

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

House Democrats got more votes than House Republicans. Yet Boehner says he’s got a mandate?
Posted by Ezra Klein
November 9, 2012 at 10:15 am

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.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by Mrs. Loopner

Sure but I’ll need to bring a ball gag, restraints and penis extension for Direcshun to wear.

This thread has potential.

[mikey23545]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I'm big on self-determination.

The current partisan makeup in the House is undemocratic.

I hope the House Republicans can grow a pair and shoot down every bit of legislation Hussein and the Dems crap out the next four years as they beg Congressional Republicans to save the country from the hellhole Obama has set up to happen right after his reelection.

I would love to see us fall to a bloody death off of this fiscal cliff they bought and paid for by voting the little Muslim-Communist dictator back into power...

[Comrade Crapski]

Originally Posted by mikey23545

I would love to see us fall to a bloody death off of this fiscal cliff they bought and paid for by voting the little Muslim-Communist dictator back into power...

I don't know why this "fiscal cliff" is such a bad thing. It will create massive cuts and tax increases.

Thats what both sides want, so everybody should be happy.

By not doing anything, this wonderful compromise will occur automatically.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by Tom.Jay61

I don't know why this "fiscal cliff" is such a bad thing. It will create massive cuts and tax increases.

Thats what both sides want, so everybody should be happy.

By not doing anything, this wonderful compromise will occur automatically.

Now we have proof the world is ending. I agree. Let it happen.

[J Diddy]

Originally Posted by mikey23545

I hope the House Republicans can grow a pair and shoot down every bit of legislation Hussein and the Dems crap out the next four years as they beg Congressional Republicans to save the country from the hellhole Obama has set up to happen right after his reelection.

I would love to see us fall to a bloody death off of this fiscal cliff they bought and paid for by voting the little Muslim-Communist dictator back into power...

Yep, guarandamnedteed way of making sure your party doesn't win shit. Eyes are open now, let the HOR try to take the country hostage some more. You'll enjoy watching the President fall, the senate fall and then the house fall to dems.

To quote Haley, "people are talking shit about you now"

[mlyonsd]

What's the over and under on how many times uses the word gerrymandering in this thread?

[patteeu]

The olive branch Boehner offered was essentially the tax reform Mitt Romney was running on. Sounds like he's really frightened of this counter-intuitive dem mandate.

[mikey23545]

Originally Posted by J Diddy

Yep, guarandamnedteed way of making sure your party doesn't win shit. Eyes are open now, let the HOR try to take the country hostage some more. You'll enjoy watching the President fall, the senate fall and then the house fall to dems.

To quote Haley, "people are talking shit about you now"

Let the people see just what it is they voted for!

BwaHaaaHaaa!!!

[whoman69]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

Redistricting is done by the party in power...and those Republicans won elections so won the right to do that. Gerrymandering stays because both parties don't want to get rid of it. I saw that article earlier. It's bogus without all the information and we don't count votes like that. Liberals are trying every which way to claim a mandate.

You have NO mandate.

Not true at all. Iowa has done away with the gerrymandering process.

In the Presidential election the electoral college is designed to give the winner a mandate. Even if you won't begrudge us a mandate, it was still a clear victory.

[whoman69]

Originally Posted by Tom.Jay61

I don't know why this "fiscal cliff" is such a bad thing. It will create massive cuts and tax increases.

Thats what both sides want, so everybody should be happy.

By not doing anything, this wonderful compromise will occur automatically.

I didn't know Michelle Bachman posted here.

[whoman69]

Originally Posted by mikey23545

I hope the House Republicans can grow a pair and shoot down every bit of legislation Hussein and the Dems crap out the next four years as they beg Congressional Republicans to save the country from the hellhole Obama has set up to happen right after his reelection.

I would love to see us fall to a bloody death off of this fiscal cliff they bought and paid for by voting the little Muslim-Communist dictator back into power...

They've already done that and in the following election lost seats in both houses.

Back away from the hyperbole, empty rhetoric and propaganda. Wanting the country to go down the toilet just to spite Obama is...what is the word?...crazy.

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by patteeu

The olive branch Boehner offered was essentially the tax reform Mitt Romney was running on.

I'm all ears. Go on. Details.

[BucEyedPea]

Originally Posted by whoman69

Not true at all. Iowa has done away with the gerrymandering process.

A few places, this has happened. Still, gm has a long history.

In the Presidential election the electoral college is designed to give the winner a mandate. Even if you won't begrudge us a mandate, it was still a clear victory.

No it does not give you a mandate for the whole govt. The EC makes sure there is a clear winner for the presidential branch—not the rest of the govt. We have other branches. That's what you have confused. We have divided govt and it's ONLY in the House where revenue bills originate from. The power of the purse is nothing to diss. It's power. The presidential branch is the weakest, despite the propaganda from the left and the right of an "Imperial Presidency." We do not have one man rule or what is otherwise known as a dictator.

[Shaid]

Originally Posted by InChiefsHell

Jeez Direkshun...get laid or something. Seriously. You need to take a break. Enjoy your victory and just take a damn break!

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

I'm all ears. Go on. Details.

No rate increases, additional revenue from closing loopholes. The difference between this and Romney's proposal was that Romney was going for something more like lower rates with revenue neutrality. So there's your movement, but it's the same concept focused on keeping rates down while eliminating loopholes (as Bowles-Simpson recommended).