Is America A Natural GOP Gerrymander?

[muon2]

Suppose there was a fair congressional map in the 2012 election. Would the GOP still have won a majority of seats?

I'd recommend this DKE diary.

I'm not wild about many of the maps. The author seems too willing to chop counties, even through he references the WV SCOTUS decision that would permit greater latitude on population deviation to preserve counties and munis. I'd like to see more effort put into criteria beyond his subjective sense of CoI.

[muon2]

You can't answer this question without an objective standard, IMO, and drawing maps are inherently subjective, as muon's reply implies. So unless someone can come up with a mathematically "objective" way of drawing maps, I don't think we'll be able to answer this. What is clear is that the GOP has gained a disproportionate amount of seats from gerrymandering.

This board has put a lot of work into various objective criteria and we have applied them to a scattered few states. Perhaps we should make a dedicated effort to see if we can answer the question better than DKE.

[muon2]

As an aside, I wish you Americans would name your districts. Do you know how bloody annoying it is to hear TX-3 or whatever and have to look it up on a map every time? Just call it Dallas-East or something

I tend to agree. Saying someone is the representative for Tennessee's 3rd district tells you absolutely nothing about where they're actually from unless you're a Forum junkie who knows all districts by heart.

As long as states can gerrymander it won't help much to provide names. I have no idea what names to use with some of the CDs in MD or OH.

[muon2]

It's not that America is per se a natural GOP gerrymander; rather, an America composed of single-member congressional districts, where political opinion in areas of high population density tends to be more homogeneous, is a natural GOP gerrymander. One way to obliterate a lot of this problem would be through multi-member congressional districts.

How many members would there be per district, and what does one do about single-district states? What about large states with multiple major urban areas that have distinct issues (eg. CA). There once were a number of reps elected from statewide at-large districts, but Congress abolished the practice in 1967 out of fear that states would use at large multi-member districts to dilute minority voting strength. A cumulative voting system might address that, but Congress would have to create an act that would be applicable to all states equally.

[muon2]

As an aside, I wish you Americans would name your districts. Do you know how bloody annoying it is to hear TX-3 or whatever and have to look it up on a map every time? Just call it Dallas-East or something

Hearing Sam Johnson's district described as Dallas-East is just bizarre to me, given that the district is almost totally located in the suburbia north of Dallas.

I was pulling numbers/names out of my butt.

As long as gerrymandering is legal and used extensively in the US, named jurisdictions won't really be very useful. TX-3 is at least a compact CD, unlike many others that would be near impossible to describe (help me with my home state of IL ). But even with TX-3 one has to choose how to name it: Plano (about a third of the CD) or Plano/McKinney or TX-Collin (most of it is in that one county, but not exclusively) or Metroplex NE.

[muon2]

Getting back to the original thread question, a "fair" map is an impossibility...

Isn't it?

http://www.vox.com/2014/5/8/5695350/this-is-what-america-would-look-like-without-gerrymandering

I also think a fair map is possible, though the splitline algorithm in the link is not the way to get there. I would go a step further than the video in the link which suggests the commission route, and instead crowdsource the map. Set up criteria and tools and let the interested public decide.

[muon2]

I noticed that the spline ignored populated areas.  I think there are advantages and disadvantages in doing that, but I liked the commission route as well.  muon's suggestion about crowdsourcing is intriguing, but it has the disadvantage of potentially making itself for sale to the highest bidder, whereas a commission of highly-vetted, thoughtful people might be less susceptible to marketing.

If there's a clearly defined set of measurable criteria, then there's little to worry about marketing. Some deep-pocketed interested party could invest in a plan, only to be bested by some netizens in their parents' basements or a couple of science professors playing with numbers in their spare time.

[muon2]

Ha.  Ye of goode faith.  I hope that it would work out so well, owing to netizens and bored scientists.

Of course the state lege would have to go for it.  What would be the odds of getting your colleagues in the state assembly to go along with such a plan?

The idea has gotten some nice media, but it will take the pressure of a citizen petition amendment to move the needle. The trick is getting the citizen groups to take off the blinders of a sole alternative of a CA-style commission drawing the map.

The core language might look like this:

The Commission shall provide to the public data and tools to create Legislative and Representative districts. The Commission shall accept maps for the redistricting of Legislative and Representative districts.

The Commission shall evaluate all submitted maps according to criteria as implemented by law and assign each map a score. The Commission shall eliminate maps by a majority vote of the members appointed that fail to meet federal and State law and shall eliminate maps that are substantially the same as other maps of equal or better score. The Commission shall give to the Senate and House the maps for Legislative Districts with the best three scores.

If the Senate or House has failed to file a redistricting resolution with the Secretary of State by the deadline, the Secretary of State shall certify the redistricting map that received the best score from the Commission.

[muon2]

Ha.  Ye of goode faith.  I hope that it would work out so well, owing to netizens and bored scientists.

Of course the state lege would have to go for it.  What would be the odds of getting your colleagues in the state assembly to go along with such a plan?

The idea has gotten some nice media, but it will take the pressure of a citizen petition amendment to move the needle. The trick is getting the citizen groups to take off the blinders of a sole alternative of a CA-style commission drawing the map.

The core language might look like this:

The Commission shall provide to the public data and tools to create Legislative and Representative districts. The Commission shall accept maps for the redistricting of Legislative and Representative districts.

The Commission shall evaluate all submitted maps according to criteria as implemented by law and assign each map a score. The Commission shall eliminate maps by a majority vote of the members appointed that fail to meet federal and State law and shall eliminate maps that are substantially the same as other maps of equal or better score. The Commission shall give to the Senate and House the maps for Legislative Districts with the best three scores.

If the Senate or House has failed to file a redistricting resolution with the Secretary of State by the deadline, the Secretary of State shall certify the redistricting map that received the best score from the Commission.

It's only fair that some Republican states disarm themselves before any more Democratic states do.

I have and will continue to promote the idea in states (or Congress) controlled by both parties.