Hacker News Reader

Comment by nemacol | Hacker News Reader

I am not sure I understand the goals here. Gerrymandering 2.0?

WV lost a seat in the 2020 census. Would move seats from Maryland to WV. From Blue to Red.

I like to idea just to square off WV's eastern panhandle. It would look nice on a map with a flat top.

The article lists several reasons: culturally they feel closer to WV, they want to be able to do things like fracking that MD has outlawed, they don't feel heard by the MD government on issues like gun rights and taxes. Essentially they have a cultural divide that has grown deep enough that they want to secede. It's unlikely to happen while Joe Manchin is in office, though; he would likely pitch a fit and get Democrats in the Senate to kill it.

If there are natural resources that can be extracted, taxed, and create jobs in those counties and WV already supports the avenue of fracking, I'm not entirely sure Manchin would immediately shut down the idea. I'm sure WV would rather have Frederick county MD to extend state boarders closer to DC and grow the state economy from there.

It surprises me though that citizens in those counties would want to have the state shift below their feet to WV, one of the poorest states in the union. Maybe taxes are cheaper which would be good for them?

I would have guessed the seat in western MD is already Red, but it turns out that it's grouped in with Potomac and is D+8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland%27s_congressional_dis...

Maryland has very aggressive gerrymandering

This is pretty common in a lot of blue states. It's been a thing in Illinois for years, and it's been getting louder for the last year and a half. The gist is the rural area's feel underrepresented compared to the metropolitan area's. So in Illinois case, the rural area's feel like the state puts more focus on Chicago.

Why shouldn't the state put more focus on Chicago? The rural areas are a net drain on state finances and are kept afloat by the "liberal hellhole" that they hate.

Rural IL would say that is only by design, pointing to better-run neighboring states that have implemented reforms, which are impossible to pass in IL, in addition to the financial benefits to the public of smaller, more transparent state and municipal governments.

I don't know... maybe because the rural areas grow their food?

Furthermore, I'm not sure your conjecture is even correct. Subsistence farming supported people for centuries before our megalopolises existed.

Western Maryland, like most states, is already gerrymandered and that is likely their key complaint. It wouldn’t make much of a difference if it wasn’t gerrymandered, but I am sure it feels like they lack a voice politically.

Fracking is likely the real motivator. There is rich natural gas reserves that were being fracked in Western Maryland before the state banned it.

Fracking was absolutely causing local environmental harm, but it was also bringing in jobs and tax revenue and people vote with their wallets.

My assumption is that some rural Marylanders want to live in a red state without having to move.

That's true with rural minded people everywhere. All of them dislike their nearby major city and paint it with the same brush, the same exact talking points whether they are describing Los Angeles or Atlanta, even if they visit once in a blue moon to drive to a baseball game. I think people might be surprised how conservative the rural areas of states are that are commonly considered deep blue politically.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com