Quick On The Redraw
September 28, 2021
The Good News
- Two transgender women win seats in German parliament (Reuters)
- ‘Big line in the sand’: China promises no new coal-fired power projects abroad (Guardian)
“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.” — Montesquieu
Quick On The Redraw
Redistricting is underway in state legislatures. For red states like Texas, Florida, and Georgia, there’s no ambiguity in the process or the goal: do whatever it takes to stay in power. Democrats might secretly want to do that, but they’ve always claimed the high road when it comes to redrawing district lines, delivering earnest criticisms and judicial arguments that their GOP opponents have often operated unethically to maximize their power.
Texas lawmakers released a draft of their new congressional map on Monday. The state’s population growth — 95% driven by Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians — entitles it to two additional congressional seats. So, naturally, the number of districts dominated by people of color has been reduced, and the number of districts where Donald Trump beat Joe Biden in 2020 has been increased. Republican incumbents who might have been vulnerable have also had their districts packed with more Trump voters.
Texas’ current 36-seat congressional delegation has 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats; the current map includes 22 districts with white majorities, eight with Hispanic majorities, one with a Black majority, and five with no majority. The proposed map has 38 congressional seats and 40 electoral votes in future presidential contests. The new seats are in Austin and Houston, with large Hispanic and Black populations, respectively. The new map has 23 districts with white majorities, seven with Hispanic majorities, none with a Black majority, and eight with no majority. In other words, despite the latest census showing Hispanic Texans nearly equal the number of white Texans, the proposed map has one less Hispanic majority district, and zero districts with a Black majority.
Districts that voted for Trump would increase from 22 to 25, and districts that went for Biden would decrease from 14 to 13. Some districts purposefully overlap. In Houston, two popular Democrats — Representatives Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee — are now pitted against each other. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project (PGP) gave Texas’ proposed map an “F” grade for its fairness, concluding that the districts give a “significant advantage” to Republicans.
Arguably, it’s not the time for Democrats to be carrying a knife to a gunfight. They have only an eight seat majority in the U.S. House, but for the first time in a century Dems have total control of New York state government — with autonomy over redistricting if they choose to take it — which is probably the best shot at keeping their House majority. But that means doing what they’ve long criticized Republicans for doing. A PGP spokesman thinks a Democratic gerrymander in New York is likely. “There’s not a huge political cost…no one picks a politician based on whether they gerrymandered or not.” (WaPo, Texas Tribune)
Not So Crete
- Just after 9 a.m. Monday, a powerful earthquake of magnitude 5.8 shook the Greek island of Crete, located at the southern edge of the Aegean Sea. The tremor sent people fleeing from homes, schools, and public buildings; damage was reported to many old buildings close to the epicentre, in the eastern part of the island.
- Several people were injured, and at least one person was killed when the dome of a church collapsed in the town of Arkalochori. Aftershocks were also reported in surrounding areas, with the strongest estimated to have a magnitude of 4.6. Rockslides were reported, and emergency services workers searched through dust and rubble for people possibly trapped in the debris.
- Arkalochori and Iraklion were particularly affected by the quake, which had a recorded depth of 6.2 miles. Witnesses said they could feel tremors as far away as Santorini, some 92 miles from the island. Both Greece and Turkey sit on active fault lines, so earthquakes are not uncommon. (WaPo)
I’ll Scholz You
- German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz has the best shot at forming a new government after leading his Social Democratic Party (SPD) to a narrow victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections. The center-left SPD won 25.7% of the vote, while Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) took 24.1%.
- Scholz is in the strongest position to start coalition talks with the Green Party, which won 14.8% of the votes, and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) with 11.5% of the vote. The 63-year-old, who worked closely with Merkel over the last four years, has positioned himself as a pragmatist and ‘a safe pair of hands.’
- Scholz’s political style is not dissimilar to that of Merkel, and despite coming from two rival parties, the two are alike in many ways — calm, measured and steady. On Monday, Scholz said if he does become chancellor, his key foreign policy goals will be forming a stronger and more sovereign European Union, and working on the good relationship between Germany and the U.S. (CNN)
Additional World News
- Japan’s Princess Mako to give up one-off payment in controversial marriage (CNN)
- San Marino votes to legalise abortion in referendum (BBC)
- China’s release of ‘Two Michaels’ vexes country’s online nationalists (WaPo, $)
- UK could ask soldiers to deliver fuel as service stations run dry (CNN)
- South Korean president suggests ban on eating dog meat (Guardian)
- Indian farmers stage nationwide protests against reforms (Reuters)
- ‘They yell ugly things’: Migrants in Chile’s north fearful after fiery protests (Yahoo)
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Trapped In The Jail Cell
- Sexual abuse accusations have followed R&B superstar R. Kelly for years. In the 1990s and the 2000s, Kelly was considered one of the kings of R&B and widely credited with helping redefine the genre. But his behind-the-scenes behavior attracted greater public scrutiny with the rise of the #MeToo movement, leading to boycotts of his records and protests across the country.
- “Surviving R. Kelly,” a Lifetime documentary series released in 2019, featured testimony from several accusers and intensified calls for him to face legal consequences. He was arrested and formally charged in 2019 with sex trafficking. Kelly’s high-profile trial began in August and centered on the allegations of six people who said he was a serial sexual predator who had abused young women, as well as underage girls and boys, for more than two decades.
- On Monday, the jury found 54-year-old Kelly guilty of one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines “for any immoral purpose.” He faces life in prison. (AP News, NBC News, DOJ)
A Cheney Of Heart
- When 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewed Liz Cheney (R-WY) Sunday night, the Congresswoman said she’d been wrong in 2013 when voicing her disapproval of same-sex marriages. Cheney’s sister Mary is married to a woman, and her father, former vice president Dick Cheney, has long defended marriage for same-sex couples, saying the decision should be left to the states.
- Cheney continues to speak out against Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, which has made her a pariah in her party. In May, she was removed from a Republican caucus leadership position, and Trump has made defeating her a top priority.
- Currently, Cheney is one of two Republicans on the House Select Committee tasked with investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol Building. Earlier this month she was made vice chair of the committee, further pitting her against members of her party. She does have support from other Republicans not tied to Trump. Former President George W. Bush, for example, is holding a fundraiser for her in Dallas next month. (CBS News)
Additional USA News
- 3 killed in small plane crash in southern West Virginia (ABC)
- Biden administration takes new steps to preserve DACA (CNN)
- More than 300 people are involved in manhunt for a suspect after a Florida sheriff’s deputy was shot during a traffic stop (CNN)
- Gottheimer: ‘No reason’ why Democrats shouldn’t pass infrastructure bill right away (The Hill)
- ’No backup plan’: Democrats reject grueling debt limit off-ramp (Politico)
- As Adams Plots City’s Future, He Leans on a Past Mayor: Bloomberg (NYT, $)
- Teens accused of plotting Pennsylvania high school attack on Columbine anniversary (CNN)
Launching A New Effort
- In July 1972, a Delta rocket launched the small Earth Resources Satellite. Its mission was to capture multi-spectral imagery of the planet and assess changes over time. Data from the polar-orbiting satellite proved so useful that in 1975, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey renamed it Landsat 1. The partners continued launching a succession of increasingly sophisticated “Landsat” satellites to continue observations. In 2013, Landsat 8 launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, 160 miles northwest of Los Angeles, California.
- Data amassed by the satellites is an impartial record of tropical deforestation in the Amazon, increasing water scarcity in the Western U.S., and ice losses in the vast majority of Earth glaciers. It is irrefutable proof of what environmental protection organizations and activists have claimed. In 2020, scientists published their conclusion in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment that “Landsat has provided a critical reference for assessing long-term changes to Earth’s land environment due to both natural and human forcing.”
- On Monday, just after 11 a.m. PT, NASA launched an Atlas V rocket carrying Landsat 9 from the newly renamed Vandenberg Space Force Base. The satellite separated successfully from the rocket a half hour later and will orbit at 438 miles above the planet. The new satellite has an upgraded thermal infrared sensor and backup systems allowing the instrument to function for a longer time. Landsat 9 is expected to continue another 50 years of Earth observations, which are used in research around the globe. (ArsTechnica, Independent)
Additional Reads
- 3 Egyptian mummy faces revealed in stunning reconstruction (LiveScience)
- Climate Change Is the New Dot-Com Bubble (Wired)
- Facebook suspends plan to launch Instagram Kids app as critics circle (Ars Technica)
- Earth glows mystical green in epic aurora image from the International Space Station (CNET)
- Oregon Is Burning Trees in Order to Save Them (Wired)
- Research reveals potential of an overlooked climate change solution (Phys.org)
- The aurora could be visible as far south as New York, Wisconsin, and Washington state on Monday, thanks to a geomagnetic storm (Yahoo)