Monthly Archives: June 2021

Redistricting — Nebraska

By tmess2 | Published June 6, 2021

In Nebraska, the new lines will be drawn by the Nebraska Legislature.  Nominally, the races for the legislature are non-partisan, but the general consensus is that most of the members are Republican.  As a result, the expectation is that the legislature will try to shift the lines to favor the Republicans., but, as discussed below, that might be hard for the Republicans to achieve.

After the last round of the redistricting, the Second District (Omaha) was a toss-up district.  The First District (most of the rest of Eastern Nebraska including Lincoln) was a safe Republican district — around R+10.  The Third District (the rest of the state including the Sioux City suburbs) is a solid Republican district — around R +30.  On the map, the districts look like three semi-circles with the Second being the inner core surrounded by the First which is surrounded by the Third.  It can be expected that the legislature will, where possible, try to move Republicans from the Third District into the First and from the First into the Second and to move Democrats from the Second into the First and from the First into the Third.  While not absolutely required, in the last round of redistricting the Nebraska legislature tried to honor county lines.  In the last round, that meant that the First District had a very slim sliver of Dixon County (otherwise in the Third District) and that Sarpy County was split into two halves (the eastern half  in the First District and the western half in the Second District

As has been true in other states, urban and suburban areas have grown faster than rural areas.  So the current estimates reflect that the Third District is underpopulated with the Second District being overpopulated.  (The First District is slightly overpopulated.)  The first, and easy step, is to move the part of the First that is in Dixon County into the Third District, but that is less than 800 people.  Even without those people, the Third is over 36,000 short with the First having around 7,000 excess people and the Second having around 29,000 excess people. Continue Reading...

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Redistricting — Maine

By tmess2 | Published June 5, 2021

In a lot of ways, the redistricting process in Maine is simple.  The Maine Constitution requires that the district lines split as few political subdivisions as possible.

The hard part of redistricting is that the process requires consensus.  The initial draft is drawn by a bipartisan commission but has to be approved by a supermajority of the state legislature.  That limits the opportunity for political gamesmanship.

Maine only has two congressional districts.  Currently, the only split county in Maine is Kennebec County, home to the state capitol of Augusta.  Currently, the First District is about 50% urban, but the Second District is only around 28% urban.  As one would expect, the current population estimates for the districts has the First District with some excess population and the Second District is a little bit short.  Assuming that the estimates are correct, that will require moving about 14,000 people from the First District into the Second District.  The only question is which precincts to move, and what might control that decision is the requirement to avoid splitting political subdivisions. Continue Reading...

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Lessons of the AIDS Epidemic

By DocJess | Published June 5, 2021

40 years ago today, the first domestic cases of a rare pneumonia in a few gay men were reported. Like the beginnings of many diseases, it flew under the radar. It was the summer of 1981 and the Yuppies were in bloom. Stonewall had been 11 years earlier, but gays were much more in the closet than out. Most people did not know that they knew a gay person. (Honest.) And initially, as “GRID” (gay-related immune deficiency) spread, it was ignored by most people since it was completely outside of their “worlds”.

Lesson 1: We are ALL connected.

By early 1982, we knew that AIDS was found in the blood supply, and could be spread that way, initially affected hemophiliacs. Again, a subset of the population. In his book “Reimagining AIDS”, Robert Root-Bernstein described even earlier cases of AIDS, dating back close to a hundred years. For a few cases, in the 20th century, there were saved tissue samples shown to have HIV. The rest is anecdotal. But we came to learn this disease came from Africa, zoonotic from monkeys, and likely entered the US during the 4th of July celebrations in 1976. For a clear and accurate history, Randy Shilts “And the Band Played On” (the book, not the movie) is highly recommended. Continue Reading...

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