|
 |
February 22, 2004 GERRYMANDERING....I had dinner last night with a bunch of fellow bloggers. Our host was Ann Salisbury — sadly, an ex-blogger now — and we were joined by Martin Devon of Patio Pundit, Geitner Simmons of Regions of Mind, Matt Welch of, um, Matt Welch, and Henry Jenkins of Modern Middle Manager. So here's an interesting thing. Our little group spanned the gamut from pretty conservative to pretty liberal, and while we disagreed about almost everything, there was one thing we all agreed on pretty enthusiastically: gerrymandering is bad. And it's gotten a lot worse. Gerrymandering has been with us for a long time, of course, but in the past it had some natural limits due to its inherent complexity. Here in California, for example, Phil Burton was an acknowledged master of the art, but legislators of his peculiar genius do not come along in every state or every generation. For mere mortals, even pretty savvy ones, there was always a natural limit to just how unfairly you could draw the lines and still stay within the bounds of the law. Today that's all changed. Specially designed software allows even the most thickheaded legislative leader to instantly create a districting plan that meets all the requirements of the law but still maximizes the party's share of the vote to within microns of its theoretical limit. And in states like Colorado and Texas they've added the extra little fillip of proposing new redistricting plans whenever they want, instead of waiting every ten years as we've always done in the past. Not only is this self-evidently bad, but it's one of those odd issues in which, as near as I can tell, virtually everyone is in favor of making the system fairer and less partisan. The only people against change are professional politicians. But they're the ones who pass the laws, so nothing gets done. It's also an issue that almost certainly needs to be dealt with at a national level. At a state level, there will always be opposition from whichever party happens to be in power at the moment (and therefore gets to perform the next redistricting), whereas a federal level solution that created a level playing field would likely affect both parties fairly equally. What's more, a big part of current redistricting law is controlled by the federal Voting Rights Act, which means that any serious reform also has to be done at the federal level. Computer optimized gerrymandering has taken us to the point where no more than about 5% of House seats are seriously competitive in each election. The rest are mere shams, not much more real than elections in Iran or the old Soviet Union. What's more, this lack of true elections has contributed heavily to the increasing polarization of politics, since there's little need for legislators to compromise on anything if they know that their seat is completely safe. In this respect, unfortunately, I suspect that California is once again acting as a bellwether for the nation — and trust me, as bad as national politics is, you do not want it to become as bad as California politics. It's hard not to believe that if more people understood this there would be a groundswell of support to fix the whole mess. But they don't, and there's no one to make an issue of it. Too bad. UPDATE: Legal Fiction makes a similar argument and adds a few other points as well. He also has some depressing statistics. Note that California is in the forefront, which means that things in the rest of the country can indeed get worse.... Posted by Kevin Drum at February 22, 2004 05:07 PM | TrackBackComments
This isn't going to be fixed unless a court steps in and does everything for us...this is one case where judicial activism would be well worth it. Posted by: Skip Perry at February 22, 2004 05:18 PM | PERMALINKLegal Fiction has a post discussing this very point. Specifically, the post points out that it cannot be remedied through the legislative process, and must therefore by fixed by the courts or no one. There are also some statistics from the amicus briefs filed with current gerrymandering case in the Supreme Court http://www.lawandpolitics.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_lawandpolitics_archive.html#107526390729590739 Add to the existing districting requirements an upper limit for the ratio of perimeter to area of the district. Posted by: Hamilton Lovecraft at February 22, 2004 05:24 PM | PERMALINKIf voters get sufficiently fed up, there is a partial remedy (and I don't mean term limits, which has given us amateur hour in Sacramento rather than reform). "Safe" districts are coveted by candidates who like knowing that November elections will be easily won in all but the most cataclysmic years. However, the safe seat goes to the candidate affiliated with the party for whom the district limits were drawn. The contest moves to the primary election. Voters who find themselves in one-party districts need to seek candidates who are pledged to reforming the redistricting process. Incumbents will enjoy their customary edge, but incumbents retire and occasionally get defeated, too. It's no quick fix, but keep an eye on your primary election candidates. And voters in states with the initiative process might consider limiting redistricting to once a decade or establishing nonpartisan redistricting commissions. Of course, it's not a sexy issue and who is going to put money into it? Posted by: TonyB at February 22, 2004 05:24 PM | PERMALINKI agree with Perry. However, it's not going happen given the Supreme Court's makeup. I'm not sure of the phrase, but don't the people have the right to petition for the redress of grievances in the constitution? Seems to be the only recourse left to citizens of our country. Who will lead us? MoveOn.org? Posted by: John W at February 22, 2004 05:28 PM | PERMALINKHow long 'till the trolls blame it all on Clinton? Posted by: scarshapedstar at February 22, 2004 05:30 PM | PERMALINKIn many ways, yours is the greatest democracy in the world. But when it comes to elections, I think we (Canada) do it better. There is a truly independent election commission which sets the electoral boundaries and we vote by paper ballot - not high tec, but reliable. Posted by: Manitoban at February 22, 2004 05:31 PM | PERMALINKI've thought about this matter occasionally, and wondered at possible solutions, even wacko ones like making the congressional districts coincident with county lines but weighting the congressmen's votes according the population of their counties. Or, more reasonably, requiring that districts follow the boundaries of incorporated cities (although, come to think of it, this probably wouldn't work in states with great, sprawling megalopoleis such as Los Angeles. Are there distinct boundaries between L. A. suburbs?) Posted by: Ernest Tomlinson at February 22, 2004 05:32 PM | PERMALINKAdd to the existing districting requirements an upper limit for the ratio of perimeter to area of the district. The mathematics of redistricting is very messy, especially if you're going to toss in topological considerations such as ratios of perimeters and areas. It's especially problematical because the "ideal" district in terms of compactness would have a circle for its boundary (never going to happen) and every real-world compromise is going to run into the weird existing boundaries of cities and counties. Rick Gillman at Valparaiso University (Indiana) has written a short survey article on the difficulty of applying mathematical measures to define the "compactness" of an electoral district. It's just a 5-page pdf. See his list of references, too. Posted by: TonyB at February 22, 2004 05:38 PM | PERMALINK"...we vote by paper ballot - not high tec, but reliable." The more high tech the less reliable--that's the way it is. A
machine with more moving parts has more degrees of freedom to fail.
Unfortunately, too many persons are distracted by computerization as
children are distracted by bright, shiny objects--I saw much of this
sort of thing on Slashdot immediately following the 2000 election.
"This 'dead tree' voting is so 19th century! Let's make everything
electronic!" My vote would be for "Scantron" methods of balloting;
ambiguous votes would be less likely with them than with hole-punched
ballots, they are easily machine-readable, yet leave a relatively
trustworthy paper record. Sometime in the past year I saw a page that was proposing a different way of allocating districts - completely computerized, using northern California as an example. It was basically that you decided how many districts you needed, then started at the northwesternmost point and started adding smaller blocks by distance from that center point. When the population of the whole reached the right point, you moved to the next area. Unfortunately I can't find the site at the moment, but it appeared to produce fairly regularly-shaped districts. Iowa has a good system -- a nonpartisan commission draws compact, contiguous Congressional districts that must include entire counties (a blessing to field organizers, and something that keeps county party organizations meaningful). It's produced reasonably competitive races for more than twenty years. Worthy of imitation in most other states, with necessary adaptation to less "level" literal and political terrain. Molly Ivins in 'Bushwhacked' mentions that in 2002 only one of the 53 Congressional races was at all close, for Gary Condit's seat. (Can that be?) "If we wait around for incumbents to become suspects in murder cases, change is going to take quite a while." Posted by: Nell Lancaster at February 22, 2004 05:49 PM | PERMALINK"The rest are mere shams, not much more real than elections in Iran or the old Soviet Union." Oh quit being stupid. It just means whichever party is voted into control of the statehouse controls which party will have more representatives in Washington. It doesn't bother me at all. It is basically the reverse of the situation the framers intended. With Senators now being elected rather than chosen by the state house, having the party of the House reps chosen by the state house gives some control back to the state houses. I'd prefer a repeal of the 19th amendment and have objectively drawn districts relating to geography rather than voting patterns, but this works nearly well to insulate one house of Congress from an excess of political pressure. Posted by: Reg at February 22, 2004 05:49 PM | PERMALINKGerrymandering is a problem as long as seats are allocated geographically, but that geography is not required by the Constitution or fairness. We could just as well elect congressmen by proportional representation within a state, by the first letter of the last name, by occupation, or by any other classification that can divide voters into even groups. ("Vote Republican Bob for Shoe Size 10.") Posted by: David Weigel at February 22, 2004 06:03 PM | PERMALINKReg, the 19th amendment gives women the right to vote. I assume that's not actually what you're talking about. Do you mean the one about direct election of senators, or the voting rights act, or something else entirely? Posted by: Lily at February 22, 2004 06:04 PM | PERMALINKAnother reason you need it done at the Federal level is that state legislatures aren't going to unilaterally disarm. State legislatures controlled by one party aren't going to give up the advantage of their partisans in Congress. (Their advantage is the state legislatures is another thing.) Historically, not all the redistricting has been done to maximize the advantage of one party or another. Sometimes they try to create safe districts for elected officials of both parties. I think that we have gotten away from this approach, however. Despite the deficiencies in the current approach, it is much different from that of Iran or the former USSR. Our system still allows for the consent of the governed, and those making the rules are directly accountable to the voters. Which is not to say we shouldn't reform the system. I am often skeptical of plans for electoral reform, but I think this is one that I can get behind. Posted by: rachelrachel at February 22, 2004 06:06 PM | PERMALINKThe answer is clearly to have proportional representation of some sort, at least enact it within states. However, the gerrymandered district, like our federal system, is one of those "traditions" that we'll never give up, because most people in this country think that, if it is American, it is, by definition, the best possible way of designing a liberal democratic republic. Posted by: dn at February 22, 2004 06:16 PM | PERMALINKColorado State Senator Ken Gordon mentioned this issue in one of his weekly "Under the Dome" email reports on the State of the Statehouse -- he said that several states have passed citizen initiatives that mandate bi-partisan commisions draw the Congressional Districts. He said that he would introduce a bill, or lead the fight for a citizen initiative, here in Colorado. Posted by: Charles K at February 22, 2004 06:18 PM | PERMALINKThe mathematics of redistricting is very messy, especially if you're going to toss in topological considerations such as ratios of perimeters and areas. OT, but I thought that topology (sometimes called "rubber sheet geometry") did not deal with dimensions such as perimeters and areas, but rather treated shapes as equivalent if one can be transformed into another without disconnecting any of the points. Posted by: rachelrachel at February 22, 2004 06:19 PM | PERMALINKReg: I don't see how having one house become the fiefdom of either party is at all beneficial. In this case, the House can't take on Senate's original role, as a check against the rabbling majority. If that's really what you're arguing, wouldn't it violate equal-treatment provisions? Each state gets two Senators, so the votes of New Yorkers would be worth less than the votes of, say, Mainers. That's exactly why the House has proportional representation, and why this kind of gerrymandering is especially damaging. Wasn't there a big Supreme Court case a few years ago that took up a similar issue? Something about ballots and different counting methods, if I remember right. Posted by: dix at February 22, 2004 06:20 PM | PERMALINKDon't we have a well-established ZIP code system? I don't think they were drawn along partisan lines, but they do take both geography and population into account. Maybe they would serve as objective units for building congressional districts, especially in those sprawling megalopoliseseses. Posted by: Robert E at February 22, 2004 06:30 PM | PERMALINKYou can help end partisan redistricting in the nation's fourth largest state. Check out fairrepresentation.com. As a bonus, this will also piss off Jeb Bush. Check out the video. Tell the pathetic Florida Democratic Party to get their act together and actively support this initiative: email@fladems.com Posted by: Concerned Citizen at February 22, 2004 06:32 PM | PERMALINKCome to think of it, there's no reason to divide voters into groups by geography or other method at all. Proportional representation essentially lets voters divide into groups of their own making. Ireland combines geography with PR by electing multiple members within large districts, more populous districts electing more members. See http://tinyurl.com/228xg. Posted by: David Weigel at February 22, 2004 06:33 PM | PERMALINKfollowing upon remarks by rachel above while I agree completely with the essential substance of the post (I simply can't undertand how, since the Constitution is so explicit in directing apportionment redistricting every ten years, it could possibly be legitimate to do it more frequently), I take exception to the comparison with old Soviet elections the Patriot Act notwithstanding, the GOP hasn't yet undertaken to intimidate voters, by coercive force of punitive law, to choose its preferred candidates (as I say, not yet, anyway) Posted by: bz at February 22, 2004 06:35 PM | PERMALINKLet us leave the chicken and the egg arguing over which of them came
first, and simply say that the recent gerrymanderings reflect the
self-imposed mutual isolation of the two Americas. Trying to put more
House seats in play is like shining the brass on the Titanic. Superb post. Kevin. This is how you got your reputation. Just excellent. I can only hope SCOTUS will save us this year in the Pennsylvania case. Posted by: bob mcmanus at February 22, 2004 06:46 PM | PERMALINKWhat's more, a big part of current redistricting law is controlled by the federal Voting Rights Act, which means that any serious reform also has to be done at the federal level. Indeed, today gerrymandering is FORCED by the provisions of the VRA, which mandates protection of minority voting strength. The only way to accomplish that when redistricting is to draw gerrymandered districts. Posted by: x at February 22, 2004 06:47 PM | PERMALINKWow. A CalPundit post with which I agree VERY STRONGLY. Hmmm... I'll disagree with the posters (and the Legal Fiction blog) that this is a problem that cannot be solved legislatively and must be solved by the courts. The example to follow here is term limits. How were they implemented? After all, it is against professional politicans' interests to implement term limits. But insurgent politicians used that to their advantage, by arguing that term limits would solve a political problem (of entrenched career politicians) and promising to implement term limits. Yes politicians are self-interested. But Kevin's on the right track. More people need to be made aware of the problem. That should create a demand for politicians who promise to fix it. Then we need to support politicans who will fix the problem, and hold their feet to the fire. Posted by: Al at February 22, 2004 06:47 PM | PERMALINKCan we draw a similarity between an independant commission on electroal boundries and the FED, independant commission on monetary policy? We long ago decided that there was an inherent conflict of interest in allowing the people who appropriate the money the authority to decide how much the money should be worth...is there a similar conflict of interest between congress & gerrymandering? (and apologies to FED aficionados who have a better understanding of the histroical rationale for the creation of the FED than I) Posted by: Matt at February 22, 2004 06:47 PM | PERMALINK..any serious reform also has to be done at the federal level. Isn't it funny how more and more control seems to just keep creeping to Washington. Set the "districts" as the existing county boundaires and then leave it alone. This business of re-drawing the lines to suit is absurd in the extreme. Posted by: Flaming Liberal at February 22, 2004 07:06 PM | PERMALINKThe solution does NOT require Federal intervention (though that would doubtlessly speed things along). As pointed out above, Iowa (for example) has a bipartisan redistricting commission that takes redistricting out of the hands of the legislature. If Iowa can do it, so can other states--and I think there may indeed be one or two others that have managed something similar. What would be helpful is information on those states (like Iowa) who have found a solution: how did they manage it? what forces opposed and what forces pushed the reform? how can it be implemented in other states? What I'm talking about is a kind of "best practices" analysis. People often talk about the problem, but seldom explore how it has already been solved in some states. The very fact that the problem concerns people across the political spectrum implies that a bipartisan effort to solve it is possible. Let's find out how the problem has been solved. Posted by: BayMike at February 22, 2004 07:09 PM | PERMALINKI don't have much hope for independent commissions. Isn't the Supreme Court independent? Thought so. The way I'd divide things is by income. That way, each district would have a similar net worth as far as the voters are concerned. Then we'd all have districts with the poor and the rich, the struggling and the prospering, and hopefully minimize the subject of race. It wouldn't be perfect, but I think it would change politics for the better. Posted by: jon at February 22, 2004 07:17 PM | PERMALINKMy mother, born in 1928, use to say to me, "You'll never see real progress in the South until you outlaw gerrymandering." This is a problem that has gone on way too long. I can't understand why we are letting people with a vested interest set these districts. If anyone has a movement going, a petition to circulate - just anything, email me. I'll get on board. Posted by: tings at February 22, 2004 07:18 PM | PERMALINKOkay, I did a little Google searching. Iowa, New Jersey, and Arizona have solutions to the problem. Some links that provide info: http://www.fairvote.org/redistricting/ Here's a description of how Iowa and New Jersey manage the process: http://www.fairvote.org/reports/monopoly/redist.html From the latter: Iowa's Legislative Services Bureau (LSB) must
produce three sets of redistricting plans. Each set contains three
individual plans: one each for the state house, state senate, and
congressional districts. In drawing these plans, the LSB is expressly
barred from using partisan criteria (the addresses of incumbents,
voters' party affiliations, etc.). The LSB is instead limited to the use
of four neutral criteria, in descending order of priority: population
equality; contiguity; unity of counties and cities; and compactness. Contiguity and compactness are two criteria which address the shape of a district. Districts which are not contiguous or compact are those which are often called "bizarre" or described in the manner that one describes the shape of clouds in the sky. Contiguity requires that a district be all in one piece; in other words, a person should be able to travel through all parts of a district without needing to cross through another. (In Iowa, a district in which two of its parts meet only at the corners is not considered contiguous). Compactness is more difficult to measure. The Iowa LSB considers
compactness to be the ratio of length to width as measured from the
"centroid" of a district, which is determined by adjusting the geometric
center for the distribution of population. Not stupid at all While Reg offers a refreshing historical counterargument, whether one
party or the other controls a seat at a particular time is not the
point. The suppression and elimination of electoral competition is.
Party loyalty suppresses the intellectual candor of primary challenges
as a matter of course. Gerrymandering suppresses or eliminates
meaningful intellectual competition as a matter of design. Without
competitive districts the clash of ideas—the actual purpose of
elections—is thwarted, threatening the long-term vitality of the state. Though scholars of the Constitutional Convention would be better
placed to explain the original intent of the Founding Fathers, the
effect of having a decennial Census, reapportionment and benighted
redrawings of electoral district boundaries was a regular rejuvenation
of the American political system. Traumas that have driven other
political systems off a cliff--the shift of population from rural to
urban areas, industrialization, immigration, the rise in the status of
women--have been accommodated (with slavery as the exception) by the
safety valve of regular, underinformed redistricting. That inadvertent
capacity for reflecting social, economic and technological change is at
risk. My vote would be for "Scantron" methods of balloting; ambiguous votes would be less likely with them than with hole-punched ballots, they are easily machine-readable, yet leave a relatively trustworthy paper record. That's how we do it here and I think it's a great system. Easy to scan, hence mechanically reliable; and if push comes to shove they're *incredibly* easy to manually recount. It's almost a pleasure to vote using those things. Posted by: Anarch at February 22, 2004 07:34 PM | PERMALINK"but don't the people have the right to petition for the redress of grievances in the constitution"
Oh quit being stupid. It just means whichever party is voted into control of the statehouse controls which party will have more representatives in Washington. It doesn't bother me at all. Perhaps you'd feel differently if the district you lived in were redrawn so that you had a representative that you found totally obhorrent. Any system that 's inherently unfair to any voters is bad for our democracy. So maybe you should quit being stupid. While you're at it, quit being an asshat. Posted by: four legs good at February 22, 2004 07:48 PM | PERMALINKWe could just as well elect congressmen by proportional representation within a state... Actually, that's not a bad idea, since the populations of current congressional districts means that they are basically no longer tenable as representative units, unlike, say, the ridings in Canada or the constituencies in the UK. So: replace districts with a state-wide list system. The point being that the main objection to the list system is that it breaks the 'traditional bond' between the elected and the electorate; but frankly, most people don't know their Congresscritter's name, let alone have any contact with him or her. The big problem with gerrymandering, and the slow death of the competitive district, is that it creates legislative fiefdoms and a political class made up of dullards: too many House members have basically never had to fight an uphill, losing battle and drawn experience from that defeat. Posted by: ahem at February 22, 2004 07:58 PM | PERMALINKAbsent a system whereby the House of Representatives is chosen based on a proportionate system of some kind (i.e., if the XYz party get 40% of the vote in a state they get 40% of the Congressional delegation) I am all in favor of gerrymandering (the Senate is another matter, but if we made the South all one state with two Senators, what the hell?) Party discipline has its place, and cannot be disregarded entirely. Proportionate representation reinforces party leadership and discipline. This also speaks to accountability. Sooner or later, the Republicans will face a tidal wave of defeat. Democrats will be emboldened to gerrymander the republican party out of existence, since the republicans have re-established the precedent of "redistricting at the whim of political advantage". Fair is fair. The republican party has fouled the nest, and they will have to live with the consequences. Screw 'em, I say. Posted by: bobbyp at February 22, 2004 08:18 PM | PERMALINKWho is in charge of drawing the state legislature's districts? It's the state legislature again, right? If you think the U.S. House of Reps is non competitive come check out the Massachusetts House....(this fall might be an exception, on account of the gay marriage brouhaha). NY and California's legislatures are, by all accounts, worse. In NY and Mass, there's this horrible tendency for the whole thing to turn into the majority leader's fiefdom. How many votes did Tom Finneran get in his last election? Posted by: Katherine at February 22, 2004 10:14 PM | PERMALINKWhat's the theory behind districting? To me, it's always seemed hard to reconcile democratic principles with the arbitrary borders of political geography, unless you accept the principle of self-determination. I mean, what's the difference between Americans and Mexicans that means they should have different governments? The problem is even worse when you look at sub-national units, and it just gets worser the farther down the political structure you go. So, when Kevin says that the elections in gerrymandered districts are shams, what's the justification? Just because everyone in the district agrees doesn't make the election a sham. The alternative, it seems to me, is to divide the electorate up according to its political views rather than its geography - i.e. to institute proportional representation and do away with districts. Now, I think, tying representatives down to particular places and fairly small numbers of voters is a good idea, so I don't favour PR, but I just don't know of any good theory of districting. Maybe someone can help me out. Posted by: dalai at February 22, 2004 10:37 PM | PERMALINKIn California at least we can put it on the ballot. Although the current proposal, now garnering signatures from the man who brought us the recall, leaves it to judges to make the final call. This is bad because a judge is just a lawyer who is a friend of the governor, ie very political. I think we should just turn it over to the geography departments of the UC schools and let them draw the map based on the criteria used in Iowa. No information about party affiliation, and the boundaries must be as uniform as possible. Octogons or circles or whatever single shape best fits, but that is it. No regard for where any incumbant lives. Do it every 10 years. Posted by: Cal at February 22, 2004 11:29 PM | PERMALINKDemocrats should register as Republicans in a district and vote for a moderate. A stealth campaign to elect a Democrat as the Republican nominee would make people sit up and take notice. Posted by: esg at February 23, 2004 12:12 AM | PERMALINKIf a court would rule (only) against gerrymandering it will just get physical: "If we can't move the lines we can move the people or force them to stay". The best way for voters to counter gerrymandering is probably to keep moving, to unexpected places. :) Posted by: John Wayne at February 23, 2004 02:15 AM | PERMALINKEven if California created its congressional district map by some nonpartisan process, I don't think it would make much difference in the number of safe districts. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there's just no way to carve up Sonoma, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties with more than one or maybe two districts where Republicans have a fighting chance. Democrats Lynn Woolsey, Nancy Pelosi, Tom Lantos, Anna Eshoo, Mike Honda, Zoe Lofgren, Pete Stark, and Barbara Lee represent a heavily Democratic region, and no matter how you draw the lines, It's going to be just about all Democrats. Only Ellen Tauscher, who represents parts of Alameda and Contra Costa county east of the Berkeley-Oakland hills, has a district that could be redrawn to be more competitive. There's no way to make Pelosi's San Francisco district competitive, if you require districts to be contiguous. Well, you could if you had a narrow snake connecting San Francisco to somewhere way out in Contra Costa county, but that would be pathologically worse. I have less familiarity with other parts of California, but of the districts that include parts of Orange county, i.e. Dana Rohrabacher (R), Loretta Sanchez (D), Christopher Cox (R), Darryl Issa (R), and Dana Cunningham (R), is there really a way to carve up this region that would avoid having at least 3 if not 4 safe Republican districts? After the 2002 election, California's House delegation is 31 Democrats and 20 Republicans. By sheer force of a heavily Democratic Bay Area, heavily Democratic Los Angeles, heavily Republican Orange County, and heavily Republican Inland Empire, I don't think most districts could be made much more competitive than they are now. Perhaps Republicans Wally Herger and John Doolittle, who represent parts of California north of Sacramento, could have more more competitive districts by including parts of Sacramento in their districts. But this would be a bad thing, because Sacramento is a natural constituency and the large rural districts held by Herger and Doolittle are also natural constituencies. Posted by: Joel Rubinsteinn at February 23, 2004 02:19 AM | PERMALINKHere's a slogan for you: Democracy is when the constituents choose their representatives, not the other way around. As for fair redistricting, you could do it in a least-squares manner. (WARNING: severe math-geekness ahead!) You know how, after every Census, they recalculate the center of population of the USA? (See here (http://www.census.gov/geo/www/cenpop/cb01cn66.html) if you've forgotten.) My reform proposal would be this: (1) for each proposed congressional district in a state, compute the center of population, (2) compute the distance D from each voter in each district to the center of their district (had to do that already to figure #1, actually), then finally (3) sum up the squares of all the D's across the state. The plan with the smallest sum of the D-squares wins. This would get you the most cohesive districts possible, in a standard statistical sense. And it would take redistricting completely out of the hands of the gerrymanderers. Posted by: RT at February 23, 2004 03:51 AM | PERMALINKAs a conservative republican, I agree wholeheartedly with Kevin that gerrymandering is awful and should be stopped. I also disagree with all who think that the courts should fix it. You can make a very good case that the Supreme Court's one-man, one-vote cases contributed greatly to the current situation by destroying customary boundaries based on geography and municipal boundaries. This has to be fixed legislatively or not at all. States with popular initiatives/referenda probably have the advantage here. Posted by: DBL at February 23, 2004 04:12 AM | PERMALINKTullymander That stops things, Jim Tully for The FG/Labour coalition in Ireland in the seventies drew up a perfect gerrymander that was supposed to ensure the return of the Government. (the mecnhanism was complicated because the irish electoral system is complicated). The opposition seeing the fix, did two things - they put a manifesto pledge to have an electoral commission and manifesto had something (expensive) for everyone in the audience. They did this to thinking that they were beaten no matter what. However the goodies on offer were so good that it swung a few voters their way. These were enough to reverse the intention of the Gerrymander and hand them the LARGEST majority in the history of the State (again it is complicated how this happened). Unfortunately the electoral commission was the only good thing to come from the government which spilt form more red ink than Bush could imagine (Defecit of 12% of GDP and Debt /GDP ratio went over 100%) Posted by: Taig at February 23, 2004 04:23 AM | PERMALINKIt can't really be done on a state-by-state basis, as the
conservatives seem to be arguing, because states which voluntarily make
their House races more competitive are going to reduce the seniority of
their Representatives. That still matters a bit in terms of committee
memberships, chairmanships, and therefore power. Good for Iowa, for
voluntarily doing so, but - like term limits - not something that is
going to get done in every, or even most, states for Congressional
representation. "The republican party has fouled the nest, and they will have to live with the consequences. Screw 'em, I say. Posted by bobbyp at February 22, 2004 08:18 PM" bobbyp is right. After Texas, I always felt that the Dems should do the same thing in the blue states and increase our share of representatives in exactly the same way. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Posted by: Shelley at February 23, 2004 06:46 AM | PERMALINKWell. we certainly know DeLay of de land here in Texas. I'm sitting on the whippy ass-end of a new district that snakes over 200 miles south to the border and helps to split the generally progressive populace of Austin into three seperate and disenfranchised chunks. Charming... Posted by: Jim in Austin at February 23, 2004 07:52 AM | PERMALINKA couple of comments suggested "at-large" voting for representatives instead of single-member districts. As mentioned in one of the articles I linked to above, Congress passed a statute in 1967 requiring states with more than one representative to use single-member districts. So at-large representatives are not allowed by the current rules of the game. The problem with gerrymandering is that representatives with safe districts typically become more extreme and less willing to compromise, increasing partisanship. Now, with a huge majority in the House coming from safe (generally gerrymandered) districts, partisanship is at a peak, which is not in the public interest. Posted by: BayMike at February 23, 2004 07:58 AM | PERMALINKSpecially designed software allows even the most thickheaded legislative leader to instantly create a districting plan that meets all the requirements of the law but still maximizes the party's share of the vote to within microns of its theoretical limit. Gerrymandering for maximum partisan advantage is the exception rather than the rule; usually, gerrymandering is done more to preserve safe seats, which is in direct opposition to maximizing the number seats with a favorable tilt toward the majority party. Not only is this self-evidently bad, but it's one of those odd issues in which, as near as I can tell, virtually everyone is in favor of making the system fairer and less partisan. The only people against change are professional politicians. But they're the ones who pass the laws, so nothing gets done. Professional politicians may be the only ones against change in general (although often they voice support for it), but lots of other people are against any particular change that gets recommended. Letting "unaccountable judges" do it doesn't sit well with many conservatives, for instance -- and its doubtful that judges, who are often pointed based on political patronage, would be any less likely to gerrymander for personal interests than politicians. Being unelected may insulate judges from some political pressure, it doesn't make them immune to their own political preferences. And "bipartisan" commissions -- the usual non-court solution proposed -- are just as likely to gerrymander for safe seats as legislatures are, but do so for partisan advantage. No big advantage there, and no surprise that they are usually recommended by the minority party. It's also an issue that almost certainly needs to be dealt with at a national level. At a state level, there will always be opposition from whichever party happens to be in power at the moment (and therefore gets to perform the next redistricting), whereas a federal level solution that created a level playing field would likely affect both parties fairly equally. This seems based on the mistaken idea that gerrymandering is principally done for partisan advantage rather than incumbent protection, and furthermore that the federal government is somehow less likely to have the kind of majority/minority polarization that allegedly prevents compromise on the issue in the states. I don't see either as likely. Furthermore, most members of the House of Representatives are beneficiaries of gerrymandering for incumbent protection. It's hard not to believe that if more people understood this there would be a groundswell of support to fix the whole mess. But they don't, and there's no one to make an issue of it. Too bad. Plenty of people understand that there is a problem. Many of them realize that the main proposed "solutions" -- passing the responsibility to courts or to special party-balanced commissions -- don't solve the problem at all, they just reduce what little input elections have on the outcome of gerrymandering. The simplest solution is multimember legislative districts with seats assigned by some form of proportional representation, which reduces the effect of any attempts to gerrymander. Of course, the major parties of all kinds of incentives to oppose that, but it might be the kind of thing someone could sell to voters. Posted by: cmdicely at February 23, 2004 08:17 AM | PERMALINKHow about eliminating congressional districts and going to an electoral list system? Any party that receives more than a certain threshold (probably 5%) of total votes received proportional representation. Candidates higher on the list are rewarded first. The upside: More representation for single-issue and alternative groups would make for a more vigorous political climate and weaken the two establishment parties. The D's and R's would have to define themselves more narrowly. Also, the end of gerrymandering at the congressional level (states being free to choose their legistlators however they see fit). Increased voter identification with the political process = more participation. Wouldn't it be fun to watch a resurgent Green party (8%, 36 congressional seats) and the Pro-Life party (11%, 49 congressional seats) argue over trade policy? Arguments against and answers: - The Constitution. Amend it. - Accountability for local politicians. Since when are they accountable for anything other than bringing pork into the district? - Geographic representation for small states. Two senators would still be from each state, and a would-be nationwide party that doesn't run a geographically diverse list will lose support in regions it won't represent. - True independant candidates. Yes, they would have to coalesce into some of the smaller parties. Posted by: bizutti at February 23, 2004 08:44 AM | PERMALINKGerrymandering only works because the politicians who draw the boundaries make correct predictions about how people are going to vote. Put differently, they have to know their constituencies, which is a good thing. Since the Supreme Court ruled that congressional districts have to have approximately equal populations, I have no quarrel with the practice at all. All people have to do to change things is change their votes. Posted by: MatthewRMarler at February 23, 2004 09:15 AM | PERMALINKI agree that something needs to be done to draw Congressional boundaries in a fairer fashion--perhaps the bi-partisan (or multi-partisan, if we can ever get away from two-party dominance) commission approach would work. However, there may be additional approaches that can be taken to try to counter the problems that stem from gerrymandering. CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM is obviously difficult to enact. However, something needs to be done to counter the huge financial advantage of incumbency. PRIMARY REFORM. I live in a closed-primary state (Pennsylvania...actually a Commonwealth). I don't know much about open primaries, but I have read a lot about how the ability in some states to cross over to vote for candidates in the other party has kept things interesting in the presidential primaries. I'm sure that there's a downside to open primaries, but I would think that they would help counter the current tendency in congressional primaries to elect extremist candidates who are attractive only to the rabid core constituencies of each party. If people could cross over to vote against some loony, perhaps more moderate candidates would get elected. AT-LARGE REPRESENTATIVES. This would require a Constitutional amendment, and it gets into the whole federalism/states rights argument, but it may have some merit. In my home town (Philadelphia) we have City Council members who represent geographic districts and other at-large members who represent the whole city. Why not do the same in the U.S. House and Senate? Let's add 10% more members in each legislative body who are elected by the whole nation rather than by districts or states expecting mountains of pork in return. These seats wouldn't be "safe." If the country is unhappy with the direction of congress and its pork-loving ways, then we would all have the opportunity to make more dramatic changes in election years. Congressional leaders, aware of this possibility, would have to act more moderately and responsibly. Food for thought. Posted by: Steeve at February 23, 2004 10:57 AM | PERMALINKKevin: I disagree on the need to federalize the response to state-wide gerrymandering. The Voting Rights Act did a lot of good in terms of preventing southern states from disenfranchising black voters, but it also did a lot of harm as well, in terms of driving the creation of districts based on race. Any amendment to the VRA would likely substitute one devil for another. Here in CA, we should go the initiative route. The problem is getting the necessary forces together to start gathering signatures. Hey, why don't you found CAG (Californians Against Gerrymandering)? We'll use your blog to debate the text of the initiative. Once you pick the one you like, we'll see if your blog can act as a forum for signature-gathering! Francis More statistics here on California, and even more depressing: A few quick notes on the CA gerrymander:
Other possible reforms instead of fixing gerrymanders involve changing the district model:
Posted by: Kevin Murphy at February 23, 2004 01:51 PM | PERMALINK I'm so glad, glad, glad that no one has mentioned Louisiana in this particular political discussion. How pleasant to hear that other states are worse! Posted by: Jamie at February 23, 2004 03:22 PM | PERMALINKYou didn't invite me, Swopa or Fubar of Needlenose :( Shame on you! ;) Posted by: Green Boy at February 23, 2004 11:03 PM | PERMALINKKevin Drum wrote: And in states like Colorado and Texas they've added the extra little fillip of proposing new redistricting plans whenever they want, instead of waiting every ten years as we've always done in the past. With respect to Texas, unless you believe that redistricting performed by an ill-equipped, reluctant panel of three unelected federal judges is equivalent for all purposes to redistricting done by a duly-elected state government — and it's clearly not equivalent if you understand and value small-d democracy as envisioned by the federal Constitution! — then this statement is simply factually wrong, Mr. Drum. It's effective propaganda, but a misstatement at best — and when made by those who know or ought to know better, it's an outright lie. In 2003, during the third special session of its Legislature, Texas completed its first Congressional redistricting since the 2000 Census and subsequent Congressional reapportionment. The earlier redistricting attempt by the Texas Legislature in 2001 was never completed because of an unbreakable deadlock back when one party controlled each chamber of the Legislature. By their votes in 2002, Texas voters broke that deadlock, and that's in turn why the Legislature's 2003 redistricting efforts eventually succeeded (albeit after bitter partisan fighting that included efforts by the Democratic legislators now in the minority to again force a deadlock by fleeing the state to prevent each chamber from achieving the necessary quorum for a binding vote). What you may have been thinking of, Mr. Drum, is the 2001 decision of a three-judge federal court that imposed a new Congressional district map on Texas. In a number of important respects, that's quite a different thing from the state completing a redistricting on its own. And as two different three-judge panels have since confirmed, the judicial imposition of that map in 2001 in no way prevented the Texas Legislature from again taking up, and again trying to complete, the Congressional redistricting function assigned to state legislatures by the US Constitution. Current federal law would permit legislative redistricting more than once in a decade. I agree that such would be unwise, and I would support new federal law that limited state legislatures to one legislative redistricting per decade. Regardless, no one from either party has suggested that the Texas Legislature should embark on another attempt to redistrict until 2011, after the 2010 Census returns and resulting reapportionment of Congressional seats among the states. Posted by: Beldar at February 24, 2004 02:03 PM | PERMALINKBelieving in God does not require believing in religion. Posted by: Fried Zach at May 2, 2004 05:28 PM | PERMALINKYou know what's interesting about Washington? It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature. Posted by: Cramer Heather at May 3, 2004 04:22 AM | PERMALINKSome nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men. vegastowers | vegasvilla | videopokerclassic | vipcasino | vipsports | virtualcitycasino | virtualcitypoker | windowscasino | windowscasinolight | yukongoldcasino | zodiaccasino24kt gold casino.com | 3 diamonds casino.com | 49er casino.com | 777 dragon.com | 7 sultans.com | 7 sultans poker.com | aces high.com | all poker casino.com Posted by: the sands casino at July 1, 2004 12:30 AM | PERMALINKBest XXX Sites - Best XXX Sites - 8925 check out the hot blackjack at http://www.blackjack-p.com here you can play blackjack online all you want! So everyone ~SMURKLE~ Posted by: blackjack at August 24, 2004 06:16 AM | PERMALINK7126 Herie http://blaja.web-cialis.com is online for all your black jack needs. We also have your blackjack needs met as well ;-) Posted by: blackjack at August 25, 2004 02:51 AM | PERMALINK7569 check out http://texhold.levitra-i.com for texas hold em online action boodrow Posted by: texas hold em at August 25, 2004 06:16 PM | PERMALINK |
|
|
Powered by Movable Type 2.63 
|
||||
