Arnold Schwarzenegger says his campaign for more democratic elections may not make for a “sexy headline” — but at least he knows his facts.
PolitiFact California confirms that the former California governor was telling the truth when he recently tweeted about the effects of gerrymandering, the process by which politicians alter the boundaries of an electoral district — sometimes in absurd-looking ways — to ensure an advantage for one party or another.
The “Terminator” star said recently that thanks in part to gerrymandered districts, the “average margin of victory in the House of Representatives was 37%. There are dictators who win by less.”
It's doesn't make for a sexy headline, but it's time to fix our rigged system and end gerrymandering once and for all, like we did in CA. https://t.co/Bt35DRdWtz
— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) March 8, 2017
PolitiFact checked Schwarzenegger’s source — a breakdown of the 2016 election on the independent website Ballotpedia.org. It confirmed the figure. PolitiFact also checked with Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College and former director of the Republican National Committee’s Research Department.
Pitney said the number is actually a little worse than the Governator and Ballotpedia.org indicate — and that House members averaged a 39 percent margin of victory. He wasn’t sure of the reasons for the slight difference.
“But the bottom line is that Arnold’s point — House members win by big margins — is essentially correct,” Pitney told PolitiFact.
Looks like someone hasn’t just been spending his time fighting with the president over who’s to blame for those “Celebrity Apprentice” ratings.
“Gerrymandering has created an absurd reality where politicians now pick their voters instead of the voters picking their politicians,” the former Republican governor, who recently quashed talk of a presidential run, said in a recent video.
Here’s PolitiFact’s confirmation that Schwarzenegger knows what he’s talking about:
This tweet is True! https://t.co/9kCiBfADQ0 https://t.co/PLFRtfpCRr
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) March 17, 2017