Nonsense. Tesla wouldn’t have released the Model S if tens of thousands of committees across the country hadn’t individually voted to approve every aspect of the designs first. Otherwise, how could we know if the car would be a benefit to our national roadways?
Perplexity says that there are 130 distinct Schedule 1 substances in the US. Which means that there are <130>P<130>** different combinations of drugs that would have led to your specific result.
** It's "permutations" not "combinations" because it matters what order you take the drugs in.
Pfft, don't you know, Tesla bypassed the committees on a technicality, and that's why the Model S's are randomly exploding on our highways everywhere.
It's definitely NOT because many people are stupid enough to believe Elon's hype about FSD** and were fucking around with their phones until they spilled some coffee on their laps and caused a catastrophic accident that, DUH, made the car's batteries blow the fuck up on a hot August day. Nope. Couldn't be.
** So, I used to play this proc-gen space sim game called "Elite Dangerous", and the hyperdrive in-universe is called "Frame Shift Drive", which of course all the players and even the game itself abbreviated to "FSD". So whenever I see [people commenting about] Elon tweeting about that shit, it throws me for a split second.
I think we need to get rid of the affordability standards as a reason to build.
These houses won’t be affordable: they’re in already high demand areas, close to transit. Building them will slow the growth of rent increases in the area at the very least.
If we have affordability as a benchmark then when it doesn’t happen, NIMBYs will say, see you built those houses and they aren’t affordable. Let’s just build more housing because there’s demand for it.
Two things can be true at once so let’s make sure we’re talking about the same thing. I’m saying a buildings in high demand and low supply areas will not necessarily be affordable. It may slow down the rate of rises in the area, especially for older buildings but that’s not the same as affordability for a specific building.
In general though, yes, there will be a knock on effect where a new building will free up demand in areas away from transit and therefore prices may become affordable in those areas (or not rise as quickly).
I think that claiming affordability for particular builds is the same as saying the economy is booming while inflation skyrocketed. And yes nimbys keep saying affordability because we keep saying it’s a goal for a specific building.
Yep, we’re on the same page! I was voicing my broader agreement that NIMBYs are using the wrong metric because it’s the only morsel they can grasp on to make themselves seem reasonable.
New housing will never be the most affordable. The whole point is to set in motion a chain of moves where some older building with low rent is freed up for people who look for that.
Indeed it does and so why not say: Increase housing supply rather than affordability. People understand the concept. It’s also backed up by research. Affordability criteria, especially when a requirement in the form of a fee, decreases supply by a lot.
In general yes. But what happens when the market for new apartments is young or retired singles and couples, but when those buildings get old they’ll be rented by families. (Just one of the futures I envision for my neighborhood)
Maybe that’s a character of low income neighborhoods - they were designed for a different demographic.
The challenge also is that it is not affordable to build housing. Even if the developers were selling the apartments at cost, it would be unaffordable. None of the housing around us is affordable. Financing for affordable housing is a time-consuming nightmare.
I do wonder when the progressive NIMBYs will join in on the anti-immigration bandwagon, since what they really want is the population of the state and their towns to be at 1985-population levels.
Word. I especially love how they are crying about the potential demolition of “naturally affordable housing”. The phrase “naturally affordable housing” is a truly hilarious euphemism for old crappy housing that is cheap because no one wants to live in it if they can possibly afford anything better.
Also, although there are exceptions, anything that’s getting demolished is getting replaced with MORE housing units, so the entire market becomes more affordable on net.
But they want it to be affordable! And require no new infrastructure. Bring no new traffic nor require no new parking. Pets? Fuck ‘em, except for the Housing Advocate’s own Muffy who is a floofy little angel.
While there are arguments one can make in favor of increased density and multifamily housing, “more pet friendly than the alternative” does not seem like it is plausibly among them.
Similarly to their produce they want their housing to be sustainable and small scale, but unlike their produce they want it to be as far away as possible.
Totally agree. And yet "We need more housing but not here and/or not this type" is just constant, it's pretty easy to say that when the lack of housing doesn't affect you.
And with California on track to lose 3 electoral votes in 2030 (maybe more?). It's time for a reckoning for decades of NIMBYism and it's destructive consequences.
I do understand it. More people means more traffic, more crowding, more crowded schools, etc. The infrastructure of a lot of cities can barely handle the population that is already there much less adding thousands of new people, and if you are a boomer or older gen-exer who owns their home, you aren't impacted directly by the cost of housing and you are impacted directly by the increase in population. And the people moving into a lot of the new housing are wealthier transplants rather than folks from the communities, which is further alienating. So I am sympathetic to their complaints, I just think they are wrong and we are in such a crisis that we need to take pretty drastic measures to alleviate.
I think you're right to a certain extent, but adding additional housing doesn't necessarily mean such a vast increase in traffic, crowding, crowded schools, etc. The purpose of adding additional housing around transportation hubs is to encourage more public transportation, ergo less traffic. I do think you might get some wealthier transplants, but this additional housing is going to be smaller scale, which will probably be less appealing to some wealthier people. There's really no getting around having some increase in population when adding additional housing, but I think a change in perspective would be helpful for these people.
We really need to be honest and stop trying to sell the American dream. The traditional interpretation is no longer attainable, and I think this country needs to start prioritizing what's realistic.
They've built a handful of new apartment buildings in my ~25,000 person town. The impact on everything but parking has been negligible, and they bring in more revenue for the city because their property taxes are higher than the neighbors who bought their houses 30-40 years ago. I've seen mostly good things come of it. I will say the parking situation is worse, and the city and state is fooling itself if it thinks people won't have cars just because parking isn't provided and it is near transit. They'll have cars, and if you are in an old east bay neighborhood with super narrow streets, it will start to suck.
The parking situation is worse because the city is not handling parking sensibly. There is a very simple way of dealing with a big demand for parking: charge the market price for the parking, and use the proceeds for improvements in the neighborhood where the parking is.
Every time I check Nextdoor I become radicalized against local veto. I'd rather have neighborhoods be able to override a city veto, but not hold a veto. Neighborhoods get a yes vote, not a no vote.
Californian SBers, make sure to contact your legislators! And Angeleno SBers, contact your councilmember about the SB79 vote (mine voted against condemning the bill, thank god). And let’s make Karen Bass a one term mayor!
I did contact my LA council member. I even contributed a lot to her campaign. (We had chatted at a recent fundraiser, but not on this; I didn't know it was on the agenda.) She had done good work before (she sponsored a new policy permitting single staircase developments).
Alas, she voted in favor of the Council position expressing opposition to SB 79.
Disappointing. And I conveyed that disappointment to her.
SB 79 has passed every vote so far with no votes to spare. So it's dicey. The leading gubernatorial candidate, Katie Porter, came out in favor of it yesterday.
Lots of progressives are embracing YIMBY rhetoric, but how many of them are going to put that rhetoric into action when they actually have to push for policies that relax environmental regulations and rent controls so that private developers can build "luxury" apartments and condos, especially when such development inevitably leads to gentrification in poorer neighborhoods?
Karen Bass, who came out in opposition to SB 79, was basically using the same rhetoric a year ago!
If SB 79 becomes law, we don't have to relax environmental regulations. We already did that, for infill housing.
I don't know what rent control has to do with this argument, and I also don't know why I as a progressive should be in favor of keeping bad neighborhoods bad as a way to keep prices low, rather than allowing abundant housing to lower the rents on existing old housing.
Karen Bass has a history of pretending to want to build housing, but then every time housing actually has a chance of being built, she pulls back. YIMBYs have not forgotten ED1, where she signed an executive order to promote housing, only to rapidly pull it back when it started to produce housing.
I bring up things like rent control because Katie Porter has a history of advocating for them and doesn't really have much of a pro-housing agenda beyond things like that which would of course inhibit housing development.
I don't trust Porter, who by the way endosed Karen Bass for mayor. The only thing that her support for this bill tells me is that there is enough pressure from interest groups and activists for YIMBY policies that people like Porter at least have to pay lip service to them.
That Porter endorsed Bass doesn’t say much about her housing bona fides; Caruso didn’t run as a pro-housing candidate. I also don’t know what makes you sure that when Porter endorsed SB79 she’s just pandering, but when she endorsed Bass that was a sincere preference (and on housing in particular!). How do you know she wasn’t just backing the winning horse?
I don't understand how anyone arguing in good faith thinks any of those are good arguments. Aren't those same things (local control, perfect enemy of good enough, etc.) the reason that there's a million house shortage right now?
NIMBY is very literal. A lot of these people will fully agree there's a supply problem, they just don't think it should come at the cost of their quiet shady streets. Everyone is adamant the housing can be built somewhere else.
They like their own Exclusive neighborhoods. High prices keep out the Wrong people. Like the folks who have ancestors from the Wrong parts of the world or who attend religious services on the Wrong day.
As someone who makes this point a lot, I think the fairer (and more accurate) version is that a lot of California NIMBYs would be fine with minorities moving to their neighborhood and replacing current residents, as long as no new housing gets built.
My neighborhood has had a TON of turnover and lots of small single family homes getting torn down and replaced with much nicer/bigger single family homes. The locals are fine with the first, grumble about the latter, but go ballistic about any new housing (think about the traffic!).
I think utility provision and fire safety are reasonable concerns - I would prefer housing to be more affordable, but "has water and sewer, isn't going to be underwater the next time it rains, and isn't going to burn down/set the neighborhood on fire" seem like reasonable thing to make sure of even if they increase housing cost.
(I mean, yes, I do remember living in a house with an outhouse and one sink that drained onto the ground, but that's not the solution I think CA cities should implement.)
The more people with vetoes the less likely anything ever gets built and the more expensive the construction is. Delays drive up the cost because the interest on the construction loans has to be paid.
I read a very disturbing article about the crime crackdown issue. A gentlemen with a history of mental illness began vandalizing a restaurant and was arrested. The prosecutor wanted to hold him and the judge grew incredulous that the prosecutor would suggest such a thing.
I'm thinking or the average voter who comes home to find someone ripping the lights off his front porch. You have to buy new lights, fix the damage, maybe hire an electrician, take off work when they show up...etc. Similar issues obviously for the restaurant owner/manager.
How much of this catch and release of those struggling to exist in society should the public have to put up with. The could be a huge issue for swing voters if people see the problem get better because the law is actually getting enforced. Democrats are at serious risk by being perceived as caring more about the right of the vandal than the business owner.
Were there ANY mitigating circumstances? I hate to keep having this conversation, especially having to take the skeptical side of it, because I genuinely AM sympathetic to being significantly tougher on involuntary commitment of those with mental health issues.
But you’re being extremely credulous of the side that is actively doing fascist shit. How do you know this prosecutor wasn’t trying to pull off a fast one?
At the end of the day, I want BOTH:
1. This guy to be involuntarily committed.
2. The fucking fascism to stop and be rooted out from our society.
I REFUSE to accept any attempt to pose these goals as mutually exclusive, because they just fucking AREN’T.
Not when it comes to the fucking fascist pieces of shit.
Once they are no longer a problem, I fully expect to revert to 1950’s levels of civility.
But fascists don’t deserve civility, they fucking deserve to be beat down until their atavistic bullshit is a distant fucking memory. Sadly, one of the realities of the universe is that only blunt force can pacify the crude blunt force that fascism relies on, long enough to allow peace to exist.
I have realized that blade and order isn't really related to the words... Crime is something poor people do to rich people or other people when you can see it; lawbreaking itself isn't necessarily a crime.
I know that's an autocomplete/autocorrect error, but now I want Disney+ to produce an MCU police/legal procedural!
Opening narration:
In the criminal justice system, there are two separate, yet equally important groups: the human-vampire hybrids who investigate crimes and the district attorneys with gamma-irradiated blood who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. *DUN-DUN*
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I think the judge was referring to the idea of holding the guy indefinitely because he "threatened the president" when he is obviously just a crazy guy spouting crazy stuff. Our laws are sufficiently broad and open to interpretation that prosecutorial discretion is easily abused. I think this is a real problem in the justice system that needs to be patched -- in similar news today was the flag burning executive order in which Trump said they would prosecute anyone for flag burning but do it under an environmental statute presumably for polluting the air. Obviously this is ridiculous, but if this kind of thinking flies we're cooked vis-a-vis authoritarianism.
On the other hand I really agree with your sentiment that the safety net has a huge hole it in for people like this, and the standard "catch and release" solution is misguided and bad. There's a crazy guy who roams my neighborhood and he recently started breaking into my yard and then climbing up the fire escape and presumably squatting in the stairwell of the building next to me. I talked to the building management and they say they call the cops, they haul him off, and he's back there in less than a week. Last time I saw him on the street he slowly biked up to me and whispered "you're a fa*****, that's right you heard me, you f**" and biked away. Should we throw the book at him? I don't think so. But it's not great to have this guy in the neighborhood. He obviously has untreated mental issues aside from being an asshole and I don't even know if we (progressives) even have a plan to improve the situation for people like this and for the people they affect.
No, he doesn't need or deserve to be punished any more than a sweet old lady in memory care is being punished. She's in a facility getting the help she needs and baring any medical advances that care will continue until her death. And no, she's not allowed to leave.
It's quite possible this poor man has a mental illness that's not responsive to treatment. That's fairly common*. In that case he needs to go someplace where they can give him the help he needs while ensuring he isn't harassing random strangers.
* There is a great myth on the left that all mental illness can be treated with meds and therapy. Severe mental illness is like cancer or any number of other disease - sometimes it responds to treatment and sometimes it doesn't.
There's also a swath of people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder who are functional when taking their meds but do not take their meds when symptomatic and stop taking them when not symptomatic due to side effects etc. My dad encounters them frequently in his job as a SSD attorney.
As a firm believer in incarceration and despiser of punishment (think of it as quarantine)... This is what I want...
Good luck getting people to pay for prisons though... We can build shitty concentration camps on the taxpayers' dime but God forbid we build pleasant, capacious prisons to keep undesirables out of sight and out of harm's way
There are very limited reasons that justify bail denial. The main one is that you are found to be a flight risk. The other one is that you are found to be a danger to yourself or others, but that is very difficult to prove (as it should be).
Okay but I’m not sure where any of that is in the Constitution. There’s a right to a speedy trial (almost universally waived, because delay is typically to the benefit of the defendant’s case) but I’m not aware of a right not to be subject to pretrial defention.
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
The issue is for those that are destitute. If someone has no means with which to post bail can then can he be held pending trial?
If it was a frat bro he could pay his bail from his summer job savings, his buddies could take up a collection, his parents could put up some money and he'd get bailed out. The issue then is for this guy who, likely due to addiction, is unemployable and has burned all his bridges with friends and family... If someone has fallen into such a state maybe they need to be away from the booze for a bit.
Your recounting of the facts of the arrest is a little misleading. According to the Times article, he was arrested for breaking a light outside a restaurant. You’re suggesting that the jail should feed and house this guy for God knows how long until trial over a busted lightbulb?
That's primarily a cost-disease problem, not an incarceration problem.
If we can bend the cost disease by increasing incarceration so that normies will do sane things like approve a shit ton more housing, then it's worth temporarily incurring the costs.
I would expect some kind of restitution after the defendant had been convicted. You’re talking about holding someone without bond over one of the most minor offenses there is. The jail doesn’t have room for these people, and if the guy is genuinely nuts, he doesn’t need to be getting brutally victimized in an overcrowded facility.
Also, the notion that your hypothetical swing voter is paying any attention to bond decisions by lower level judges and magistrates is a little far-fetched.
If we could get a group of amped up social justice white liberals and some churchgoing African Americans from the south in the same room to discuss this issue, I think we could solve it
"The could be a huge issue for swing voters if people see the problem get better because the law is actually getting enforced. Democrats are at serious risk by being perceived as caring more about the right of the vandal than the business owner."
A weak straw man argument if I ever read one. So are you condoning the current administration's blatantly lawless actions?
Some people are just pathologically resistant to change. I think it's valuable for him to make these arguments if only to show that any objection isn't being made in good faith - they all serve a pathologies resistance to change.
1. That's the idea. Local control of housing has done nothing but aid NIMBYs. It should go the way of the dodo bird.
2. That's letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The alternative to passing SB79 isn't to pass a perfect bill, it's to pass nothing and blow an opportunity to make things much better.
3. Those can be addressed mostly by individuals and builders. If there isn't demand for living in area, housing won't be built. Schools and other infrastructure will be fine just like they are here in Texas where housing gets built all the time. Yes, red states have schools and infrastructure, too, and we manage to get by alright. If you have congestion issues, a certain city in New York just showed a great way to deal with it.
4. That's the idea. Public oversight is a joke. Very few people take part in any of it. Those that do are wildly unrepresentative of the communities they live in and are usually NIMBYs who don't want anything built near where they live. See the ProPublica story about one woman single-handedly filing lawsuits to block wind power in Oregon. That's who community input empowers.
5. Who decides what constitutes "community interests"? In practice, it's NIMBYs. I'm more than happy to override them and take away their ability to block things. As mentioned in addressing objection 4, community input is nothing but a tool for a small number of people opposed to anything changing to use it to get their way. Anything to take away their ability to do that is good in my book.
"Some housing advocates say that while the bill acknowledges affordability, its provisions are insufficient to ensure access for low-income households." In my experience, many people demand that developers subsidize some low-income buyers or tenants, and many of those people say they are in favor of housing, but they tend to be, not housing advocates, but the same people who oppose actual housing projects in their neighborhoods. Usually, "but there aren't any affordable units" is just one excuse, like parking, neighborhood character, parking, traffic, parking, crowded schools, parking, and infrastructure, that's offered by housing opponents to prevent housing.
If you build luxury apartments without affordable units, they'll complain about the lack of affordable units. If you build luxury apartments with affordable units, they'll complain about how the affordable units will bring drug addicts and criminals to the neighborhood.
These are often different people, and they both have points. As important as it is to build housing, there is a reason it’s a tough sell politically, and we shouldn’t shy away from that.
Should we take any of the arguments against seriously? I suppose the local control argument is serious, but where is the stopping point? They claim to believe in community but they define it so far down that community becomes meaningless.
No. We should take none of the opposing arguments seriously. Also, opponents lie about what is in the bill. For example, we hear over and over that poor little Pacific Palisades shouldn't have to be affected by SB 79. Well it isn't, despite the contemptible SB 79 opponents' lies.
I hope so too, the fire there was horrific, but that does not excuse waving the burned flag to oppose SB 79. Pacific Palisades would be unaffected by this law, and the opponents are lying as usual.
I would argue that community is significantly more likely to become meaningless the farther *up* you define it. The more geographic distance and population you include the less likely I am to have affinity and shared interests with the residents.
Fair. The concept of community is definitely contextual. But if a community lacks cosmopolitan values (i.e., it is merely defined by some narrow benefit for a particular group of people), then it is an interest group more than a community. I think a true community (regardless of its population) must have a broad set of stakeholders and must work to meet the needs of all or most of its members. To me. that is what a community is.
Should I as a California voter support the Democrat mid-cycle redistricting in retaliation for the Republican efforts in Texas? It looks like the effort is going to this November’s ballot as Proposition 50.
On one hand I really want the GOP to lose the House and Senate in 2026, and this redistricting supports that effort. On the other hand, I am opposed to partisan gerrymandering as a matter of principal, I like California’s independent commission system, I don’t think that tit-for-tat damage to the institution of free and fair elections is something I want to put my vote behind. On the third hand, that high minded attitude is being taken advantage of by champions of illiberalism, winning means bringing a knife to a knife fight. On the fourth hand it’s rose-tinted thinking to believe that accelerationist escalation will lead to a happy ending where gerrymandering is ended on the Federal level – it could far more easily lead to an even more broken system. Thoughts?
Yes, you need to support it as a dem. Think of it as a prisoner's dilemma, where Republicans will always choose to defect (gerrymander). The best strategy in this case is to go tit for tat, unless you want to spend the rest of your life in political prison.
The best way I saw it put is, if you’re against gerrymandering (as I am), there needs to be some recourse when new or especially egregious gerrymanders happen. Counter-gerrymandering is the recourse. Otherwise, the thing that’s bad about gerrymandering—that the representation is unfair—is at its worst, as states are punished for playing by the rules.
Why wouldn't you support a tit-for-tat strategy? The GOP constantly breaks norms because they think that they can get away with it. The only way back to a more stable system is to make it worth it for the GOP to play along.
Californian here. Yes, support it. Not only is it fair, but it's our only chance to support norms. If only one side supports a norm, that norm doesn't exist.
And this isn't the end of the issue. The act explicitly states that it only applies to the elections of 2026, 2028 and 2030. After that, it reverts by law back to the independent commission.
Yes, you should support it. It doesn’t matter whether any individual state is gerrymandered, the important thing is whether the country as a whole is gerrymandered such that Democrats would need to win more than half the vote to get half the seats. California shifting more seats to Democrats makes the country as a whole less gerrymandered.
Yes. I genuinely believe Trump and the Republican Party are a threat to democracy and am willing to at least temporarily compromise my democratic ideals in its defense. If it abolished the commission I'd be struggling, but I'll vote for it once legally and 10x illegally.
Yes. I genuinely believe Trump and the Republican Party are a threat to democracy and am willing to at least temporarily compromise my democratic ideals in its defense. If it abolished the commission I'd be struggling, but I'll vote for it once legally and 10x illegally.
I think we should gerrymander to make as many swing districts as possible so that politicians are more concerned about the general election than the primary.
Cross-posting a dumb joke from my Notes because we all need some laughs tonight:
I know that you’re supposedly wasting a small African village’s worth of water whenever you tell an AI “please”, but I also kinda feel like maybe there’s an off-chance that our future AI overlords will be nicer to the people who said “please”.
“affordability safeguards”
The only true safeguard for affordability is to build enough damned housing.
Nonsense. Tesla wouldn’t have released the Model S if tens of thousands of committees across the country hadn’t individually voted to approve every aspect of the designs first. Otherwise, how could we know if the car would be a benefit to our national roadways?
Judging by the design of the Cybertruck, at least one of those committees was drunk and/or high.
You're gonna hafta be a bit more specific there.
Perplexity says that there are 130 distinct Schedule 1 substances in the US. Which means that there are <130>P<130>** different combinations of drugs that would have led to your specific result.
** It's "permutations" not "combinations" because it matters what order you take the drugs in.
I think we know which drug was involved. *waggles eyebrows while glancing at username*
Pfft, don't you know, Tesla bypassed the committees on a technicality, and that's why the Model S's are randomly exploding on our highways everywhere.
It's definitely NOT because many people are stupid enough to believe Elon's hype about FSD** and were fucking around with their phones until they spilled some coffee on their laps and caused a catastrophic accident that, DUH, made the car's batteries blow the fuck up on a hot August day. Nope. Couldn't be.
** So, I used to play this proc-gen space sim game called "Elite Dangerous", and the hyperdrive in-universe is called "Frame Shift Drive", which of course all the players and even the game itself abbreviated to "FSD". So whenever I see [people commenting about] Elon tweeting about that shit, it throws me for a split second.
For me that's Marjorie Taylor Greene
I think we need to get rid of the affordability standards as a reason to build.
These houses won’t be affordable: they’re in already high demand areas, close to transit. Building them will slow the growth of rent increases in the area at the very least.
If we have affordability as a benchmark then when it doesn’t happen, NIMBYs will say, see you built those houses and they aren’t affordable. Let’s just build more housing because there’s demand for it.
>>then when it doesn’t happen, NIMBYs will say, see you built those houses and they aren’t affordable
No lie, friend, they already fucking say this, and they are absolutely full of shit! It's the epitome of specious claims (on their part).
Two things can be true at once so let’s make sure we’re talking about the same thing. I’m saying a buildings in high demand and low supply areas will not necessarily be affordable. It may slow down the rate of rises in the area, especially for older buildings but that’s not the same as affordability for a specific building.
In general though, yes, there will be a knock on effect where a new building will free up demand in areas away from transit and therefore prices may become affordable in those areas (or not rise as quickly).
I think that claiming affordability for particular builds is the same as saying the economy is booming while inflation skyrocketed. And yes nimbys keep saying affordability because we keep saying it’s a goal for a specific building.
Yep, we’re on the same page! I was voicing my broader agreement that NIMBYs are using the wrong metric because it’s the only morsel they can grasp on to make themselves seem reasonable.
New housing will never be the most affordable. The whole point is to set in motion a chain of moves where some older building with low rent is freed up for people who look for that.
Indeed it does and so why not say: Increase housing supply rather than affordability. People understand the concept. It’s also backed up by research. Affordability criteria, especially when a requirement in the form of a fee, decreases supply by a lot.
In general yes. But what happens when the market for new apartments is young or retired singles and couples, but when those buildings get old they’ll be rented by families. (Just one of the futures I envision for my neighborhood)
Maybe that’s a character of low income neighborhoods - they were designed for a different demographic.
The challenge also is that it is not affordable to build housing. Even if the developers were selling the apartments at cost, it would be unaffordable. None of the housing around us is affordable. Financing for affordable housing is a time-consuming nightmare.
I do wonder when the progressive NIMBYs will join in on the anti-immigration bandwagon, since what they really want is the population of the state and their towns to be at 1985-population levels.
Word. I especially love how they are crying about the potential demolition of “naturally affordable housing”. The phrase “naturally affordable housing” is a truly hilarious euphemism for old crappy housing that is cheap because no one wants to live in it if they can possibly afford anything better.
Also, although there are exceptions, anything that’s getting demolished is getting replaced with MORE housing units, so the entire market becomes more affordable on net.
Let them live in shacks.
I am going to commit seppuku
Your statement is as true as it is succinct!
"Some housing advocates say"
Housing advocates like homeless advocates often seem to be working to make the situation worse.
Those "housing advocates" are typically the people who are in favor of housing, but not this project. They're not actually housing advocates, mostly.
But they want it to be affordable! And require no new infrastructure. Bring no new traffic nor require no new parking. Pets? Fuck ‘em, except for the Housing Advocate’s own Muffy who is a floofy little angel.
While there are arguments one can make in favor of increased density and multifamily housing, “more pet friendly than the alternative” does not seem like it is plausibly among them.
Ethics exist along a gradient.
People who hate housing so much that they demand it be pet friendly or not, are probably bad people, though.
Job. Security.
It's just amazing that a state with such an affordable housing crisis still has people arguing against housing.
Zombie NIMBYism.
There are still fuckwits who think 16A and 17A broke the Constitution over a century after ratification. And THIS is what surprises you? 🤣
Well, lots of people already have housing.
Similarly to their produce they want their housing to be sustainable and small scale, but unlike their produce they want it to be as far away as possible.
Most people already have housing. Almost ALL.
It's nucking futs that they imagine housing demand can be satisfied "as far away as possible".
Totally agree. And yet "We need more housing but not here and/or not this type" is just constant, it's pretty easy to say that when the lack of housing doesn't affect you.
The existence of people like that is proof of the need for the Founders’ small-r republican principle.
I’ve never understood that attitude, honestly.
Not sure about 16 and 17, but the Bill of Rights certainly did
And with California on track to lose 3 electoral votes in 2030 (maybe more?). It's time for a reckoning for decades of NIMBYism and it's destructive consequences.
I do understand it. More people means more traffic, more crowding, more crowded schools, etc. The infrastructure of a lot of cities can barely handle the population that is already there much less adding thousands of new people, and if you are a boomer or older gen-exer who owns their home, you aren't impacted directly by the cost of housing and you are impacted directly by the increase in population. And the people moving into a lot of the new housing are wealthier transplants rather than folks from the communities, which is further alienating. So I am sympathetic to their complaints, I just think they are wrong and we are in such a crisis that we need to take pretty drastic measures to alleviate.
Get with the program! Never use the word "crowded"; it's "vibrant"!
I think you're right to a certain extent, but adding additional housing doesn't necessarily mean such a vast increase in traffic, crowding, crowded schools, etc. The purpose of adding additional housing around transportation hubs is to encourage more public transportation, ergo less traffic. I do think you might get some wealthier transplants, but this additional housing is going to be smaller scale, which will probably be less appealing to some wealthier people. There's really no getting around having some increase in population when adding additional housing, but I think a change in perspective would be helpful for these people.
We really need to be honest and stop trying to sell the American dream. The traditional interpretation is no longer attainable, and I think this country needs to start prioritizing what's realistic.
They've built a handful of new apartment buildings in my ~25,000 person town. The impact on everything but parking has been negligible, and they bring in more revenue for the city because their property taxes are higher than the neighbors who bought their houses 30-40 years ago. I've seen mostly good things come of it. I will say the parking situation is worse, and the city and state is fooling itself if it thinks people won't have cars just because parking isn't provided and it is near transit. They'll have cars, and if you are in an old east bay neighborhood with super narrow streets, it will start to suck.
The parking situation is worse because the city is not handling parking sensibly. There is a very simple way of dealing with a big demand for parking: charge the market price for the parking, and use the proceeds for improvements in the neighborhood where the parking is.
"It would undermine local control."
That is a plus not a minus. Local NIMBY zoning is the reason why NYC and most of California are unaffordable.
Every time I check Nextdoor I become radicalized against local veto. I'd rather have neighborhoods be able to override a city veto, but not hold a veto. Neighborhoods get a yes vote, not a no vote.
Just local veto?
yup, was coming here to report that typo in the article! :)
most of these counterarguments seem like additional points in favor
Californian SBers, make sure to contact your legislators! And Angeleno SBers, contact your councilmember about the SB79 vote (mine voted against condemning the bill, thank god). And let’s make Karen Bass a one term mayor!
I did contact my LA council member. I even contributed a lot to her campaign. (We had chatted at a recent fundraiser, but not on this; I didn't know it was on the agenda.) She had done good work before (she sponsored a new policy permitting single staircase developments).
Alas, she voted in favor of the Council position expressing opposition to SB 79.
Disappointing. And I conveyed that disappointment to her.
SB 79 has passed every vote so far with no votes to spare. So it's dicey. The leading gubernatorial candidate, Katie Porter, came out in favor of it yesterday.
Lots of progressives are embracing YIMBY rhetoric, but how many of them are going to put that rhetoric into action when they actually have to push for policies that relax environmental regulations and rent controls so that private developers can build "luxury" apartments and condos, especially when such development inevitably leads to gentrification in poorer neighborhoods?
Karen Bass, who came out in opposition to SB 79, was basically using the same rhetoric a year ago!
https://mayor.lacity.gov/news/building-more-affordable-housing-mayor-bass-secures-funding-build-hundreds-more-affordable
If SB 79 becomes law, we don't have to relax environmental regulations. We already did that, for infill housing.
I don't know what rent control has to do with this argument, and I also don't know why I as a progressive should be in favor of keeping bad neighborhoods bad as a way to keep prices low, rather than allowing abundant housing to lower the rents on existing old housing.
Karen Bass has a history of pretending to want to build housing, but then every time housing actually has a chance of being built, she pulls back. YIMBYs have not forgotten ED1, where she signed an executive order to promote housing, only to rapidly pull it back when it started to produce housing.
I bring up things like rent control because Katie Porter has a history of advocating for them and doesn't really have much of a pro-housing agenda beyond things like that which would of course inhibit housing development.
I don't trust Porter, who by the way endosed Karen Bass for mayor. The only thing that her support for this bill tells me is that there is enough pressure from interest groups and activists for YIMBY policies that people like Porter at least have to pay lip service to them.
That Porter endorsed Bass doesn’t say much about her housing bona fides; Caruso didn’t run as a pro-housing candidate. I also don’t know what makes you sure that when Porter endorsed SB79 she’s just pandering, but when she endorsed Bass that was a sincere preference (and on housing in particular!). How do you know she wasn’t just backing the winning horse?
Caruso is worse than Bass.
No.
I know. When she was running for Senate, her housing policy proposals were initially terrible, and that is one reason I didn't vote for her.
"I also don't know why I as a progressive should be in favor of keeping bad neighborhoods bad as a way to keep prices low"
real progressives import homeless people and gang bangers to keep rents low!!!
> I also don't know why I as a progressive should be in favor of keeping bad neighborhoods bad as a way to keep prices low
Great question. Sounds like you're a progressive, not a "progressive". We need more of those.
Will nobody think of the environmental consultants?
Bass is an idiot. Much like the Mayor of Chicago. Just...not smart.
Katie Porter is the best candidate for governor right now? Yeesh...
She's the leading candidate. I'm not saying she's the best candidate, although her coming out in favor of SB 79 raises my opinion of her.
My opinion of her fell precipitously after the Senate primary a few years ago.
A few years ago, as in fall 2024? OK it feels like years, I'll admit that.
To be fair it was more like Jan-Mar 2024 since she didn't make top two in the primary. Practically decades ago.
OK fair enough.
She's currently the polling leader, but she was also the early polling leader for the 2024 Senate race and Schiff ended up beating her quite easily.
I just wrote to Krell, my Assembly member. Housing isn't really her issue so I put some extra effort into it just in case she's a swing vote.
Same!
Every argument against seems to consist of an argument for more people with veto powers.
I don't understand how anyone arguing in good faith thinks any of those are good arguments. Aren't those same things (local control, perfect enemy of good enough, etc.) the reason that there's a million house shortage right now?
NIMBY is very literal. A lot of these people will fully agree there's a supply problem, they just don't think it should come at the cost of their quiet shady streets. Everyone is adamant the housing can be built somewhere else.
They like their own Exclusive neighborhoods. High prices keep out the Wrong people. Like the folks who have ancestors from the Wrong parts of the world or who attend religious services on the Wrong day.
NIMBYs in California are often liberals and not worrying about ethnic or religious diversity
That said, to quote Jello Biafra's cover of "Love Me, I'm a Liberal":
And I love blacks and gays and Latinooooos,
As long as they don't move next door.
As someone who makes this point a lot, I think the fairer (and more accurate) version is that a lot of California NIMBYs would be fine with minorities moving to their neighborhood and replacing current residents, as long as no new housing gets built.
My neighborhood has had a TON of turnover and lots of small single family homes getting torn down and replaced with much nicer/bigger single family homes. The locals are fine with the first, grumble about the latter, but go ballistic about any new housing (think about the traffic!).
I think it is really about class.
They do think they are fighting Robert Moses.
I think utility provision and fire safety are reasonable concerns - I would prefer housing to be more affordable, but "has water and sewer, isn't going to be underwater the next time it rains, and isn't going to burn down/set the neighborhood on fire" seem like reasonable thing to make sure of even if they increase housing cost.
(I mean, yes, I do remember living in a house with an outhouse and one sink that drained onto the ground, but that's not the solution I think CA cities should implement.)
The more people with vetoes the less likely anything ever gets built and the more expensive the construction is. Delays drive up the cost because the interest on the construction loans has to be paid.
For NIMBYs this isn't a bug but a feature.
NIMBYs want to delay and obstruct. They’ll throw anything at the wall to see if it sticks.
I read a very disturbing article about the crime crackdown issue. A gentlemen with a history of mental illness began vandalizing a restaurant and was arrested. The prosecutor wanted to hold him and the judge grew incredulous that the prosecutor would suggest such a thing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/us/politics/trump-dc-crime-takeover-federal-court.html
I'm thinking or the average voter who comes home to find someone ripping the lights off his front porch. You have to buy new lights, fix the damage, maybe hire an electrician, take off work when they show up...etc. Similar issues obviously for the restaurant owner/manager.
How much of this catch and release of those struggling to exist in society should the public have to put up with. The could be a huge issue for swing voters if people see the problem get better because the law is actually getting enforced. Democrats are at serious risk by being perceived as caring more about the right of the vandal than the business owner.
Were there ANY mitigating circumstances? I hate to keep having this conversation, especially having to take the skeptical side of it, because I genuinely AM sympathetic to being significantly tougher on involuntary commitment of those with mental health issues.
But you’re being extremely credulous of the side that is actively doing fascist shit. How do you know this prosecutor wasn’t trying to pull off a fast one?
At the end of the day, I want BOTH:
1. This guy to be involuntarily committed.
2. The fucking fascism to stop and be rooted out from our society.
I REFUSE to accept any attempt to pose these goals as mutually exclusive, because they just fucking AREN’T.
You get the fascism, in no small part, because of a perceived and actual unwillingness to crack down on this kind to behavior.
Again though, I'm not unwilling.
I just fucking hate the fascist pieces of shit who would happily crack down on it out of spite alone.
Are you capable of commenting without using profanity?
Not when it comes to the fucking fascist pieces of shit.
Once they are no longer a problem, I fully expect to revert to 1950’s levels of civility.
But fascists don’t deserve civility, they fucking deserve to be beat down until their atavistic bullshit is a distant fucking memory. Sadly, one of the realities of the universe is that only blunt force can pacify the crude blunt force that fascism relies on, long enough to allow peace to exist.
I’m a fucking Hobbesian like that.
So edgy.
"Democrats are at serious risk by being perceived as caring more about the right of the vandal..."
I believe that ship sailed in 2020. It's one of the reasons we have a bad president now: He's seen as the law & order choice.
I have realized that blade and order isn't really related to the words... Crime is something poor people do to rich people or other people when you can see it; lawbreaking itself isn't necessarily a crime.
Edit: I'm keeping the blade, it is amusing.
"blade and order"
I know that's an autocomplete/autocorrect error, but now I want Disney+ to produce an MCU police/legal procedural!
Opening narration:
In the criminal justice system, there are two separate, yet equally important groups: the human-vampire hybrids who investigate crimes and the district attorneys with gamma-irradiated blood who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories. *DUN-DUN*
“Crime is something poor people do to rich people…”
Well, no.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I think the judge was referring to the idea of holding the guy indefinitely because he "threatened the president" when he is obviously just a crazy guy spouting crazy stuff. Our laws are sufficiently broad and open to interpretation that prosecutorial discretion is easily abused. I think this is a real problem in the justice system that needs to be patched -- in similar news today was the flag burning executive order in which Trump said they would prosecute anyone for flag burning but do it under an environmental statute presumably for polluting the air. Obviously this is ridiculous, but if this kind of thinking flies we're cooked vis-a-vis authoritarianism.
On the other hand I really agree with your sentiment that the safety net has a huge hole it in for people like this, and the standard "catch and release" solution is misguided and bad. There's a crazy guy who roams my neighborhood and he recently started breaking into my yard and then climbing up the fire escape and presumably squatting in the stairwell of the building next to me. I talked to the building management and they say they call the cops, they haul him off, and he's back there in less than a week. Last time I saw him on the street he slowly biked up to me and whispered "you're a fa*****, that's right you heard me, you f**" and biked away. Should we throw the book at him? I don't think so. But it's not great to have this guy in the neighborhood. He obviously has untreated mental issues aside from being an asshole and I don't even know if we (progressives) even have a plan to improve the situation for people like this and for the people they affect.
"Should we throw the book at him?"
No, he doesn't need or deserve to be punished any more than a sweet old lady in memory care is being punished. She's in a facility getting the help she needs and baring any medical advances that care will continue until her death. And no, she's not allowed to leave.
It's quite possible this poor man has a mental illness that's not responsive to treatment. That's fairly common*. In that case he needs to go someplace where they can give him the help he needs while ensuring he isn't harassing random strangers.
* There is a great myth on the left that all mental illness can be treated with meds and therapy. Severe mental illness is like cancer or any number of other disease - sometimes it responds to treatment and sometimes it doesn't.
There's also a swath of people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder who are functional when taking their meds but do not take their meds when symptomatic and stop taking them when not symptomatic due to side effects etc. My dad encounters them frequently in his job as a SSD attorney.
There was an article about the LA health dept. getting psychotic homeless to consent to medication injections (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/health/los-angeles-homeless-psychiatry.html?smid=nytcore-android-share). Ideally, we could have inpatient facilities where patients can go in and out providing they are taking required meds and they're stable enough.
Great article, thanks for sharing.
As a firm believer in incarceration and despiser of punishment (think of it as quarantine)... This is what I want...
Good luck getting people to pay for prisons though... We can build shitty concentration camps on the taxpayers' dime but God forbid we build pleasant, capacious prisons to keep undesirables out of sight and out of harm's way
"capacious prisons to keep undesirables out of sight and out of harm's way"
We need our own Australia. Doesn't need to be that big, of course.
You cut off the word "pleasant"...
"How much of this catch and release of those struggling to exist in society should the public have to put up with. "
ZERO
It is a constitutional right not to be held in jail pending trial.
Um, what? Are you saying that bail denial is unconstitutional? Because that is very much A Thing.
There are very limited reasons that justify bail denial. The main one is that you are found to be a flight risk. The other one is that you are found to be a danger to yourself or others, but that is very difficult to prove (as it should be).
Okay but I’m not sure where any of that is in the Constitution. There’s a right to a speedy trial (almost universally waived, because delay is typically to the benefit of the defendant’s case) but I’m not aware of a right not to be subject to pretrial defention.
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."
The issue is for those that are destitute. If someone has no means with which to post bail can then can he be held pending trial?
If it was a frat bro he could pay his bail from his summer job savings, his buddies could take up a collection, his parents could put up some money and he'd get bailed out. The issue then is for this guy who, likely due to addiction, is unemployable and has burned all his bridges with friends and family... If someone has fallen into such a state maybe they need to be away from the booze for a bit.
Your recounting of the facts of the arrest is a little misleading. According to the Times article, he was arrested for breaking a light outside a restaurant. You’re suggesting that the jail should feed and house this guy for God knows how long until trial over a busted lightbulb?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm suggesting.
And what additional taxes will you be willing to pay to provide free room and board for anyone who breaks a lightbulb.
$10-$20k easy if we're talking secure long term supportive housing for those who can't function in society.
Cost of incarceration at Rikers Island is half a million dollars per inmate year.
That's primarily a cost-disease problem, not an incarceration problem.
If we can bend the cost disease by increasing incarceration so that normies will do sane things like approve a shit ton more housing, then it's worth temporarily incurring the costs.
Of course costs don't need to be anywhere near that.
Ok great. Ship em to Rochester.
That’s both cruel and fiscally irresponsible.
So if someone comes to your house how much property damage could they do before you'd want something done about it?
I would expect some kind of restitution after the defendant had been convicted. You’re talking about holding someone without bond over one of the most minor offenses there is. The jail doesn’t have room for these people, and if the guy is genuinely nuts, he doesn’t need to be getting brutally victimized in an overcrowded facility.
Also, the notion that your hypothetical swing voter is paying any attention to bond decisions by lower level judges and magistrates is a little far-fetched.
"he doesn’t need to be getting brutally victimized in an overcrowded facility."
Here is a thought - how about he try not destroying other people's property?
From whence would this "restitution" come? Pull it out of whatever this guy is getting from SSI?
I'm fine with THAT. In fact, we should feed and house him in a fucking mental facility!
I just don't want fascist fucks like Trump's DOJ getting away with civil rights violations NOR using these cases as bullshit propaganda.
We used to do that but in the Reagan era most such facilities were closed in order to cut taxes.
Not like we’ll actually, perish the thought, build housing, so sure
What are you talking about? Are you ok? Is this just some random pet issue totally unrelated to this article that you wanted to bring up?
You must be new here - the evening posts are for bringing up anything you want. You can comment on the topic offered or offer your own.
If we could get a group of amped up social justice white liberals and some churchgoing African Americans from the south in the same room to discuss this issue, I think we could solve it
"The could be a huge issue for swing voters if people see the problem get better because the law is actually getting enforced. Democrats are at serious risk by being perceived as caring more about the right of the vandal than the business owner."
A weak straw man argument if I ever read one. So are you condoning the current administration's blatantly lawless actions?
Enforcing the law as written is by definition not lawless. That you think it is is deeply problematic for liberal electability.
You didn’t answer my question
I did the incident in question didn't invoke any illegality on the part of the government.
Scott Weiner is my state senator, and I support his efforts to build more housing.
Some of you get Scott. Some of us get Anthony.
Both have Big Weiner Energy, but one uses it productively while the other used it reproductively.
The LA City Attorney sent an utterly unhinged opposition letter that was effectively an argument against allowing anyone to build anything or change anything in Los Angeles. It was the purest essence of NIMBYism that I've ever seen. https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/1279066b-c01e-4ab1-bed7-1eadc18fc0b5/downloads/a5e964f3-a006-4c73-840a-a940cde19e6f/05.23.2025%20SB%2079%20Opposition%20Letter%20.pdf?ver=1748056431352
I love how its argument is more housing ==> more people ==> more infrastructure ==> more costs for the city.
A great argument for taking the city's population down to zero.
Some people are just pathologically resistant to change. I think it's valuable for him to make these arguments if only to show that any objection isn't being made in good faith - they all serve a pathologies resistance to change.
My responses to each of those objections:
1. That's the idea. Local control of housing has done nothing but aid NIMBYs. It should go the way of the dodo bird.
2. That's letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The alternative to passing SB79 isn't to pass a perfect bill, it's to pass nothing and blow an opportunity to make things much better.
3. Those can be addressed mostly by individuals and builders. If there isn't demand for living in area, housing won't be built. Schools and other infrastructure will be fine just like they are here in Texas where housing gets built all the time. Yes, red states have schools and infrastructure, too, and we manage to get by alright. If you have congestion issues, a certain city in New York just showed a great way to deal with it.
4. That's the idea. Public oversight is a joke. Very few people take part in any of it. Those that do are wildly unrepresentative of the communities they live in and are usually NIMBYs who don't want anything built near where they live. See the ProPublica story about one woman single-handedly filing lawsuits to block wind power in Oregon. That's who community input empowers.
5. Who decides what constitutes "community interests"? In practice, it's NIMBYs. I'm more than happy to override them and take away their ability to block things. As mentioned in addressing objection 4, community input is nothing but a tool for a small number of people opposed to anything changing to use it to get their way. Anything to take away their ability to do that is good in my book.
"Some housing advocates say that while the bill acknowledges affordability, its provisions are insufficient to ensure access for low-income households." In my experience, many people demand that developers subsidize some low-income buyers or tenants, and many of those people say they are in favor of housing, but they tend to be, not housing advocates, but the same people who oppose actual housing projects in their neighborhoods. Usually, "but there aren't any affordable units" is just one excuse, like parking, neighborhood character, parking, traffic, parking, crowded schools, parking, and infrastructure, that's offered by housing opponents to prevent housing.
If you build luxury apartments without affordable units, they'll complain about the lack of affordable units. If you build luxury apartments with affordable units, they'll complain about how the affordable units will bring drug addicts and criminals to the neighborhood.
The most affordable housing is a homeless shelter but absolutely nobody wants one of those.
Actually homeless shelters aren't cheap. Average cost in NYC is about $2,200/person month.
well not near them anyway. For the record one might go up near my parents. I told them to move
These are often different people, and they both have points. As important as it is to build housing, there is a reason it’s a tough sell politically, and we shouldn’t shy away from that.
Should we take any of the arguments against seriously? I suppose the local control argument is serious, but where is the stopping point? They claim to believe in community but they define it so far down that community becomes meaningless.
No. We should take none of the opposing arguments seriously. Also, opponents lie about what is in the bill. For example, we hear over and over that poor little Pacific Palisades shouldn't have to be affected by SB 79. Well it isn't, despite the contemptible SB 79 opponents' lies.
"Poor little Pacific Palisades"
I don't like them raising their voice against SB 79, but come on. I hope what happened to that community never happens to yours.
I hope so too, the fire there was horrific, but that does not excuse waving the burned flag to oppose SB 79. Pacific Palisades would be unaffected by this law, and the opponents are lying as usual.
"Waving the burned flag" is a great turn-of-phrase!
Oh, I agree! But I still feel bad for them. It's terrible to see all the destruction.
I would argue that community is significantly more likely to become meaningless the farther *up* you define it. The more geographic distance and population you include the less likely I am to have affinity and shared interests with the residents.
Fair. The concept of community is definitely contextual. But if a community lacks cosmopolitan values (i.e., it is merely defined by some narrow benefit for a particular group of people), then it is an interest group more than a community. I think a true community (regardless of its population) must have a broad set of stakeholders and must work to meet the needs of all or most of its members. To me. that is what a community is.
Should I as a California voter support the Democrat mid-cycle redistricting in retaliation for the Republican efforts in Texas? It looks like the effort is going to this November’s ballot as Proposition 50.
On one hand I really want the GOP to lose the House and Senate in 2026, and this redistricting supports that effort. On the other hand, I am opposed to partisan gerrymandering as a matter of principal, I like California’s independent commission system, I don’t think that tit-for-tat damage to the institution of free and fair elections is something I want to put my vote behind. On the third hand, that high minded attitude is being taken advantage of by champions of illiberalism, winning means bringing a knife to a knife fight. On the fourth hand it’s rose-tinted thinking to believe that accelerationist escalation will lead to a happy ending where gerrymandering is ended on the Federal level – it could far more easily lead to an even more broken system. Thoughts?
Yes, you need to support it as a dem. Think of it as a prisoner's dilemma, where Republicans will always choose to defect (gerrymander). The best strategy in this case is to go tit for tat, unless you want to spend the rest of your life in political prison.
The best way I saw it put is, if you’re against gerrymandering (as I am), there needs to be some recourse when new or especially egregious gerrymanders happen. Counter-gerrymandering is the recourse. Otherwise, the thing that’s bad about gerrymandering—that the representation is unfair—is at its worst, as states are punished for playing by the rules.
Why wouldn't you support a tit-for-tat strategy? The GOP constantly breaks norms because they think that they can get away with it. The only way back to a more stable system is to make it worth it for the GOP to play along.
If I could vote on it, I would support the plan because of the reasons you mentioned.
In 2018 I would not have supported the plan because of the reasons you mentioned.
Of course. Shouldn’t even be a question. But you should be pushing for a 52-0 partisan gerrymander
Easy to do that. Virginia elected its House delegation at large in 1932 and Alabama did the same in 1962.
Under the Uniform Congressional District Act of 1967, multi-member constituencies are now illegal.
Californian here. Yes, support it. Not only is it fair, but it's our only chance to support norms. If only one side supports a norm, that norm doesn't exist.
And this isn't the end of the issue. The act explicitly states that it only applies to the elections of 2026, 2028 and 2030. After that, it reverts by law back to the independent commission.
Yes, you should! It’s fight-fire-with-fire time!
Yes, you should support it. It doesn’t matter whether any individual state is gerrymandered, the important thing is whether the country as a whole is gerrymandered such that Democrats would need to win more than half the vote to get half the seats. California shifting more seats to Democrats makes the country as a whole less gerrymandered.
Yes. I genuinely believe Trump and the Republican Party are a threat to democracy and am willing to at least temporarily compromise my democratic ideals in its defense. If it abolished the commission I'd be struggling, but I'll vote for it once legally and 10x illegally.
My only regret is that it isn't gerrymaxxing.
There isn't going to be a happy ending... The last opportunity for that was November. Maybe bittersweet is still on the table.
Yes. I genuinely believe Trump and the Republican Party are a threat to democracy and am willing to at least temporarily compromise my democratic ideals in its defense. If it abolished the commission I'd be struggling, but I'll vote for it once legally and 10x illegally.
My only regret is that it isn't gerrymaxxing.
I think we should gerrymander to make as many swing districts as possible so that politicians are more concerned about the general election than the primary.
That will also make more wave elections.
Cross-posting a dumb joke from my Notes because we all need some laughs tonight:
I know that you’re supposedly wasting a small African village’s worth of water whenever you tell an AI “please”, but I also kinda feel like maybe there’s an off-chance that our future AI overlords will be nicer to the people who said “please”.
Call it “Roko’s Garter Snake”.
They can learn from me and not from my enemies.
Is it just me, or are half the "cons" things that look more like pros?
"It undermines local control." Yes! It does! That's the whole point!