Proportional representation: Corrupt?

[jiHymas]

In multi-party democracies which run their elections on a "first past the post" basis, there are frequent calls for proportional representation. The federal Progressive Conservative party iin Canada, for instance, is barely clinging to its status as an official party, despite widespread support across the country.

The great argument against proportional representation in government is the lack of direct accountability by the representatives; the major parties would have some number of virtually guaranteed seats which can be doled out by the listmakers to whomever they wish. As long as they didn't go too far off the deep end, their share of the vote would not be affected. With direct elections, at least the long-time party supporters in each riding have the opportunity to reject a specific candidate at election time.

Human nature being what it is, these places high in the electoral lists must be the object of intense lobbying, to say the least. In a worst-case scenario, the listmakers could simply auction off places on their list to the highest bidder.

What happens in practice in countries with this electoral system? What safeguards and scandals have actually occurred?

[Pjen]

Proportional Representation can be gained by having sufficiently large multi-member constituencies, thus obviating the need for reserved seats- look at Ireland's system.

[Gadarene]

PR is better than winner-take-all, that's for damn sure.

[Kantalooppi]

System where parties choose the order of the list is not the only way to deal out places in a system using proportional representation. Finland, for instance, uses a method where you vote for a candidate instead of a party, and the final order of candidates getting in parliament depends on order of their votes inside the party. Thus, if candidate A of party A gets 200 votes, candidate B of party A gets 500 votes, candidate C gets 300 and candidate D gets 600, and party A gets 2 seats, candidates B and D get in.

[Big Kahuna Burger]

It's not a good idea. For example, my Congressional District is represented by John Larson. He has to keep in mind our interests in Washington, which is mostly the insurance industry and United Technologies. Also, he knows our district is socially liberal so he votes that way. He would not represent people of Central Texas, Northern Minnesota or Seattle, Washington well even though those are all constituencies that elect Democrats to the House. So when you have people elected from districts people have their needs best represented in Washington. Also, the two party system is a positive in America because the likelihood of loonies (Stockwell Day, I know he didn't win, but he could've) coming to power is small because the two parties are both rushing to the center instead of having various extreme ideological factions forming coalitions.

[Kantalooppi]

Originally posted by Big Kahuna Burger
Also, the two party system is a positive in America because the likelihood of loonies (Stockwell Day, I know he didn't win, but he could've) coming to power is small

Canada uses first-past-the-post method as well as United States, doesn't it?

[Big Kahuna Burger]

Yeah, it does, but it similarly doesn't have a two party system, which I sensed some animosity toward so I tried to support that as well.

[PatrickM]

Originally posted by Big Kahuna Burger
It's not a good idea. For example, my Congressional District is represented by John Larson. He has to keep in mind our interests in Washington, which is mostly the insurance industry and United Technologies. Also, he knows our district is socially liberal so he votes that way. He would not represent people of Central Texas, Northern Minnesota or Seattle, Washington well even though those are all constituencies that elect Democrats to the House. So when you have people elected from districts people have their needs best represented in Washington. <snip>

I know what you're saying BKB, but proportional voting would work on state by state basis. Right now we have riduculous fights every 10 years over redistricting to conform the US House to the new census results. My state of Ohio keeps losing population relative to the rest of the country, so Ohio lost a House seat. I would be in favor of having all the candidates running on a statewide basis so as to eliminate the fiasco of redistricting every 10 years.

[jiHymas]

Originally posted by Kantalooppi
Finland, for instance, uses a method where you vote for a candidate instead of a party, and the final order of candidates getting in parliament depends on order of their votes inside the party.

How many votes does each elector get? Also, my concern about this system is the cost of running (never mind the fact that those running for election via PR are campaigning against members of their own party). Are there any figures/complaints about this aspect?

[jiHymas]

Originally posted by Big Kahuna Burger
[Canada] doesn't have a two party system, which I sensed some animosity toward so I tried to support that as well.

The animosity wasn't sensed in my post, I hope! The only reason I specified "multi-party" democracies is that PR tends to be a bigger issue - as when, for instance, the Conservatives, Alliance and NDP split the "anti-Liberal" vote, allowing the Liberals to take the seat with less than 40% of votes cast.

[Big Kahuna Burger]

Originally posted by PatrickM



I know what you're saying BKB, but proportional voting would work on state by state basis. Right now we have riduculous fights every 10 years over redistricting to conform the US House to the new census results. My state of Ohio keeps losing population relative to the rest of the country, so Ohio lost a House seat. I would be in favor of having all the candidates running on a statewide basis so as to eliminate the fiasco of redistricting every 10 years.

I understand where you're coming from, but do the Cincinnati burbs have that much in common with inner city Cleveland or the northwest corner of the state? Regional interests are better protected under our current model. Plus, majority-minority districts would be eliminated, giving minorities far less clout in the House. What should really be done with redistricting is to have independent redrawing commissions. The one in Arizona this year did an excellent job of looking at regional interests and ignoring partisanship as well as complying with the Voters Rights Act, which is the driving force behind majority-minority districts.

[jiHymas]

Originally posted by Pjen
Proportional Representation can be gained by having sufficiently large multi-member constituencies, thus obviating the need for reserved seats- look at Ireland's system.

I would have two concerns about such a system

• Poor representation of smaller groups within the larger constituency (as noted above)
• Cost of running for office. Does anybody have figures on what it costs to run for Senate in some of the larger US States, compared to running for the House? And is this a fair comparison?

[Big Kahuna Burger]

The most expensive Senate races last year cost almost 70 million dollars (New York and New Jersey). This year it's unknown if that'll be beaten because there's really only one competitive Senate race (Texas) with high media costs. The most expensive House races (A Pasadena-based district in California and a Central West Virginia one) both topped 10 million, and there are some races this year (Suburban DC in Maryland, Northwestern Connecticut) that could top those totals. Average Senate and House races are about half the record highs.

[woolly]

Corruption is independent of the voting system.

Recently Japan moved from multi-member constituencies to single member and at the same time Italy went to multi-members, both to reduce the possibility of corruption.

Originally posted by jiHymas

Human nature being what it is, these places high in the electoral lists must be the object of intense lobbying, to say the least. In a worst-case scenario, the listmakers could simply auction off places on their list to the highest bidder.

What happens in practice in countries with this electoral system? What safeguards and scandals have actually occurred?

In the Australian Federal Senate, at each half Senate election each state has 6 positions to fill. The main two parties will offer 6 candidates though they will each win two, the third is a struggle (minor parties usually pick up one, sometimes two).

Having an independent electoral commission means that the real stouch occurs in the internal party decision as to who gets the winnable places and who get relegated to the 3rd (possible) or 4th (impossible). At this point you see pure, raw factional politics at it's most viseral. Great theatre. You can see some genuinely talentless factional thugs pick up the 3rd spot. But it's no more susceptible to corruption than any other pre-selection system.

[SuaSponte]

Originally posted by Pjen
Proportional Representation can be gained by having sufficiently large multi-member constituencies, thus obviating the need for reserved seats- look at Ireland's system.

It may have worked in Ireland, but it has failed dismally in Japan.

Sua

[Hemlock]

This is really an issue for parliamentary systems, where the executive is formed from the biggest bloc in the legislature.

PR can be extremely undemocratic, because it can encourage single-issue fanatics (eg the Green Party). If they get just a small amount of representation in parliament, they can blackmail larger parties by saying "adopt our policy X [which only 1 or 2% of voters want] in return for us supporting you on your other policies, and thus having enough votes to form a government."

Under a 2-party, 1st-past-the-post system, both parties compete to appeal to more than 50% of the electorate. They are forced to adopt genuinely popular policies and avoid extremism. The UK Labor Party's abandonment in the 80s/90s of nationalization and other quasi-socialist policies (the original reason it was founded) is a tribute to the power of such a system. his system also, of course, encourages close links between communities and representatives.

In a system like the US, it's less relevant, though straight PR would threaten the 2-party system. You can argue that the US has forms of PR by virtue of the different methods of electing legislators to the House and Senate, and the electoral college in presidential elections. These systems grant additional weight to smaller groups (states) - a typical feature of PR.

[Measure for Measure]

Originally posted by Hemlock
PR can be extremely undemocratic, because it can encourage single-issue fanatics (eg the Green Party). If they get just a small amount of representation in parliament, they can blackmail larger parties by saying "adopt our policy X [which only 1 or 2% of voters want] in return for us supporting you on your other policies, and thus having enough votes to form a government."

1) I don't know whether this makes PR undemocratic. There is some justification for weighing strongly held preferences on a certain narrow set of issues more heavily than weakly held preferences that are supported by a majority.

2) Still, I sympathize, as I am not a big fan of the Italian or Israeli electoral systems.

3) But there is a straightforward fix: super-proportional representation, as practiced by Germany for example, can mitigate against these effects.
a) There is often a minimum threshold to gain seats (eg. 5%). This allows a Green Party but will block a Truck Driver Party.

b) Parties with larger majorities receive a greater proportion of seats in parliament. So, if a party gains 35% of the vote, it might secure 45% of the legislature. This encourages parties to appeal to wide groups and discourages niche politics. Those practicing niche politics can on occasion secure voice, but their actual power is diluted.

[woolly]

Originally posted by Hemlock
Under a 2-party, 1st-past-the-post system, both parties compete to appeal to more than 50% of the electorate.

Not correct. They are appealing to win 50%+ of the seats. Since no democracy is socio-politically homogenious, the distinction is important. Hence the focus on marginal electorates and, if voting is non compulsory, in getting their supporters to the polling booth. As an example the Le Pen result in France.

A policy that causes 2,000 of your supporters to swing away in a safe seat yet and picks up 500 votes to win a marginal seat is tactically astute politics.

IMHO minority parties are something that should be encouraged. A drift in voting to minor parties on "non mainstream" issues is a great way to get the magors to focus on them. If you have minority parties it is inevitable that they will periodically hold the balance of power. Que sera, sera.

[ruadh]

Originally posted by Hemlock
PR can be extremely undemocratic, because it can encourage single-issue fanatics (eg the Green Party). If they get just a small amount of representation in parliament, they can blackmail larger parties by saying "adopt our policy X [which only 1 or 2% of voters want] in return for us supporting you on your other policies, and thus having enough votes to form a government."

Under a 2-party, 1st-past-the-post system, both parties compete to appeal to more than 50% of the electorate. They are forced to adopt genuinely popular policies and avoid extremism.

Ireland's system has most certainly not led to control by single-issue fanatics or extremists. Although we have a multi-party system here, you could not slide an envelope between the major parties, and the smaller parties are virtually irrelevant at national level.

[jjimm]

Originally posted by ruadh
the smaller parties are virtually irrelevant at national level.

I'm not sure that this statement's totally correct. The Progressive Democrats (centre-right minority party in coalition with Fianna Fáil) seem to wield an undue amount of power than their overall 1997 mandate should allow them. Having said that, I can't find exactly what proportion of the vote they got at the last election (from my online research it appears to be 4-5%), but it definitely wasn't huge.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Hemlock
PR can be extremely undemocratic, because it can encourage single-issue fanatics (eg the Green Party). If they get just a small amount of representation in parliament, they can blackmail larger parties by saying "adopt our policy X [which only 1 or 2% of voters want] in return for us supporting you on your other policies, and thus having enough votes to form a government."

I don't see how is that undemocratic. You still end up with a government that runs on an agenda of popular compromises, be it the compromises are inter-party or not.

[Hemlock]

Wooly - I said "Under a 2-party, 1st-past-the-post system, both parties compete to appeal to more than 50% of the electorate." You said "Not correct. They are appealing to win 50%+ of the seats."

True. Guess I should have said "seats". But my point stands. They have an overriding incentive to occupy the nationwide middle ground. Hence all the opinion polls and focus groups. Doesn't such a system subject politicians to market forces effectively?

Urban Ranger - to me, that's profoundly undemocratic. It's what gives PR a bad name - some nuts sell their parliamentary votes in exchange for laws that 95% of the people don't want.

So far, the discussion seems to be about the supposed pros/cons of PR. I'd be interested in hearing some concrete examples of how the FPTP system has damaged the quality of governance in countries that use it.

In other words, how have countries with 2 predominant broad-church-style parties fared less well than those with a multitude of ideologically-driven groups each representing only 10-20% of the population? It seems to me that the US and the UK have systems that deliver the goods (assuming, let's say, that watered-down PR systems like Ireland's might do equally well).

[sailor]

Every system has its weaknesses and there is no such thing as a perfect or even a best system. I remember reading an article showing it is possible for the voters to prefer candidate A to B, candidate B to candidate C and yet prefer candidate C to candidate A. Preference is not a transitive property. I am sure someone can find the detailed explanation which was quite complex.

At any rate, different circumscriptions may suit different conditions and cultures. The American system where small geographical circumscriptions elect one representative assumes voters are most grouped and bound by geography which might have been true 200 years ago when people did not move too much, blacks did not vote, etc but today it is not so true and a voter here may feel he has more in common with a voter far away than with the guy next door. This system has the obvious flaw that 49 % of voters can vote for candidates of party A and yet not get a single seat.

OTOH, electing candidates at large has its own shortcomings which have been pointed out. Having several chambers elected in different manner is a way to alleviate this as the laws have to satisfy all chambers (which could be more than 2).

That regarding the practical aspects because then we have the ethical and moral aspects. In a winner take all system, is it ethical that the minority goes unrepresented? etc... It is a very complex subject. Ask that guy D'hont.

has the obvious flaw that

[Pergau]

First past the post seems fundamentally unjust to me.

Here in Ireland, in the middle of an election! I can rank the candidates in order of MY preference, choose from one or all of the candidates for a particular party and know that if my first choice doesn't get elected my vote isn't wasted as the second choice will be taken into account. I love the fact that I may have three candidates in my chosen party to chose from and also that my constituency will be represented by three, four or five people. This means that there is much fairer representation of the people and that an individual's local work can be recognised.
The Irish have taken this to an art form and people can vote tactically to get the most from their vote.

Having lived in England, where the party chose the single candidate, I found myself in the terrible position of having to vote for someone I detested because I had no choice. As some areas are predominantly infavour of one party, people who prefer the opposition have no hope of having a say. In Certain places, you could put forward a monkey, and as long as it is in the right party, it will get elected. where's the democracy in that???

[ruadh]

Originally posted by jjimm
I'm not sure that this statement's totally correct. The Progressive Democrats (centre-right minority party in coalition with Fianna Fáil) seem to wield an undue amount of power than their overall 1997 mandate should allow them. Having said that, I can't find exactly what proportion of the vote they got at the last election (from my online research it appears to be 4-5%), but it definitely wasn't huge.

I thought after I posted that that I should have made an exception for the Progressive Democrats (who, by the way, are neither) - except I think that in this case they really do prove the rule. The only smaller party that isn't virtually irrelevant, and - guess what? - there's also very little to distinguish them from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. So the Irish system still does not justify the argument that PR gives extremist parties more power.

[jiHymas]

Originally posted by Pergau
In Certain places, you could put forward a monkey, and as long as it is in the right party, it will get elected. where's the democracy in that???

In "first-past-the-post" the electors are consulted about the specific candidate - if the party leadership parachutes a monkey into a safe-seat, they may well end up with egg on their faces.

It would be much harder to defeat a monkey put at the top of party-list.

With respect to Ireland's system, my concern is the cost of running: a much more practical impediment to democracy than the specifics of electoral mechanics. The US experience suggests that there are no economies of scale in running for office - getting your message out to 200,000 voters is four times as expensive as getting it to 50,000.

[sailor]

The topic of voting systems is extremely complex. Some sources:
ALTERNATIVE VOTING SYSTEMS by Steven J. Brams, Department of Politics, New York University, and Peter C. Fishburn, AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Perl, Politics, and Pairwise Voting: Perl as the Activist's Friend by
Rob Lanphier.
A document in Spanish.
And P. C. Fishburn, S. J. Brams. Paradoxes of preferential voting. Mathematics Magazine, vol. 56, no. 4, (1983), 207-214. (I could not find it online)

[jiHymas]

Originally posted by sailor
The topic of voting systems is extremely complex. Some sources:
ALTERNATIVE VOTING SYSTEMS by Steven J. Brams, Department of Politics, New York University, and Peter C. Fishburn, AT&T Bell Laboratories.

Thank you "sailor" - this looks like just the thing I want!

[RTFirefly]

America has a problem in that few of its Congressional districts are genuinely competitive - Congress has managed to carve out 'safe' seats for most of its members, with the result that only a relative handful of seats can change parties in a given election.

Consequently, very few Americans are in a position to affect the outcome of a Congressional race, which is a pretty ridiculous state of affairs.

Proportional representation is one cure for that. But it could be done equally well by defining some measure of geographical cohesiveness of Congressional districts, and mandating that the most cohesive set of district boundaries be used. This would still produce a certain number of safe seats, but not nearly so many as under the current system: to get this many safe seats requires intelligent design, rather than mere chance.

[Measure for Measure]

Sailor alluded to Kenneth Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, and perhaps the narrower Condorcet's paradox.

Originally posted by sailor
The topic of voting systems is extremely complex.

Nice cites. Thanks.

I recall reading a paper which studied a Union election in Britain, where the voters had ordered their candidate preferences in great detail. Using that data, the reseachers were able to test the extent whether different voting systems produced different outcomes.

Basically, however, all of the various systems produced similar outcomes with one exception. The exception was first past the post voting. This suggested that voting reform is an easier problem than it appears: merely avoiding FPTP will produce better results. So 1) we don't have to get too bogged down in the technicalities and 2) we can choose a simpler alternative voting system such as Approval Voting.

Examples of Problems with FPTP
In the US, there is periodic discussions of "spoilers", such as Perot, Ralph Nader and Jesse Jackson. In any three way race, the winner becomes the one whose side of the ideological spectrum has fewest candidates. This effect can be seen most clearly in primary elections: if a cluster of candidates cover a similar ideological space (not unlikely, nor undesirable) that sort of position loses. Winners therefore try to pursue an uncrowded ideological space, even if it isn't especially popular.

One might argue that such an event occurred during the 1980 Republican primary, when the most conservative candidate (Reagan) beat a handful of moderates (including George Bush I). The policies that followed, labeled "Voodoo Economics" by candidate Bush, had (shall we say) consequences that were not predicted by its advocates.

[sirjamesp]

Originally posted by Pergau
In Certain places, you could put forward a monkey, and as long as it is in the right party, it will get elected. where's the democracy in that???

It's happening right now: H'Angus for Mayor!

[jjimm]

I remember the following example from my History class at school (when I was 14) to illustrate why FPTP can end up being underrepresentative of the entire population's wishes:

Imagine a country of only three constituencies. There are two parties, the Xenophobes and the Yentls. The consituency breakdown of the vote is thus:

Constituency A: 10,000 voters 75% X, 25% Y: An X seat
Constituency B: 10,000 voters 45% X, 55% Y: A Y seat
Constituency C: 10,000 voters 49% X, 51% Y: A Y seat

In this result, the Ys have a majority in two constituencies, and thus have a parliamentary majority to form a government. However, the actual numbers who voted accross the country are:

Y: 13,100 votes
X: 16,900 votes

The Ys have formed a government with a minority vote.

The flip side is, if you use one of the PR systems in this example, you may have to give an X candidate to one of the constituencies that voted for Y.

I guess that's why, ridiculously complex though it is, the Irish system of having second, third, fourth, etc. choices is more fair.

[Sparc]

Originally posted by jjimm
...the Ys have a majority in two constituencies, and thus have a parliamentary majority to form a government. However, the actual numbers who voted accross the country are:

Y: 13,100 votes
X: 16,900 votes

The Ys have formed a government with a minority vote.

Ah but you see jjim this has been remedied in both the US and the EU by the allocation of seats per constituency based on relative size. As pointed out in earlier posts this has other inherent problems, but it does safeguard us from ending up with a minority domination of parliament formed on the faux majority vote your example describes.

Now as we might remember this was debated hotly as a part of the end phase of the 2000 presidential in the US, were it was feared that once the smoke settled the winner would have an effective minority of the vote but a majority of the elector seats. As it turned out the two followed each other.

[sirjamesp]

Originally posted by Sparculees
Ah but you see jjim this has been remedied in both the US and the EU by the allocation of seats per constituency based on relative size.

So is jjimm's example - each consituency has one seat per 10,000 voters.

[Sparc]

Originally posted by sirjamesp
So is jjimm's example - each consituency has one seat per 10,000 voters.

Indeed, I stand corrected and somewhat dumbfound at my own stupidity!

Sorry jjim and thank you sirjamesp.

[manwithaplan]

The system has worked reasonably well here in Ireland and generally the politics of compromise and consensus have been encouraged by the exigencies of inter-party post-election Government formation. Also, the argument that instability is an inevitable consequence of PR hasn't held true in the Irish context. A two party Government supported by four independents has survived a full five year term (it was helped by the fact that none of the independents could be described as ideologically driven - I would have worries about the stability of a Government involving the Green Party or similar). I would also agree with Ruadh's view in relation to the distinct lack of extremism in Irish politics - parties have increasingly clustered around the centre. This is obviously not necessarily a good thing - the current disillusionment with politics stems at least partly from this.

However, one negative consequence of the Irish PR system has been overlooked. Because candidates are competing against party colleagues, there is no room for differentiation on policy grounds (Irish parties are much more homogeneous than their US counterparts). This means that candidates must compete on non-policy grounds and this leads to a dangerous level of political clientelism. National legislators are reduced to making meaningless enquiries in relation to minor issues on behalf of their constituents just to be seen to be doing something. This is despite the fact that the representations, in the vast majority of cases, have no effect at all. They need to perpetuate the myth that its 'who you know' rather than rights and entitlements that secures services. At it's most extreme, the system is a powerful impetus to corruption, albeit of a different kind to that suggested in the OP.

This focus on 'parish pump politics' means that representatives don't dedicate enough of their efforts to national issues and influencing policy, examining the executive, monitoring public expenditure, shaping legislation etc. The national parliament suffers as a result.

There are ways of tackling this without changing the electoral system (e.g. strenghtening the role of local Government and local elected representatives) but it needs to be acknowledged.

[manwithaplan]

I'm usually an apostrophe Nazi so apologies for my reversal of 'its' and 'it's' in the last post. I'm off to get my petard (I think it's in the garage under the ab isolater and the gutbuster I bought when I was drunk) upon which I shall be hoisted.

MWAP (who couldn't just leave it alone)

[Sparc]

Originally posted by Sparculees

Indeed, I stand corrected and somewhat dumbfound at my own stupidity!

So there I am in my shower, thinking to myself...how can I be so stupid? Obviously I can’t be that stupid. Or? Well...maybe my previous missive in reply to jjimm wasn’t exactly founded on clear and focused thoughts I’ll get back to my conjecture.

In the US and the EU the constituency break down of seats is over such wide geographies and hence focused on such different interest groups that I believe this remedies the problem. For these two cases it makes no sense to assume that neither the Yentls nor the Xenophobes will be identical from one constituency to the other. It is the elected representative that counts and it makes some sense to let each constituency decide what flavor this representative should have without interference from the general majority vote. Granted that once they assume their seat it is probable that they will vote and legislate along general party lines. But let’s face it, GOP representatives from California are very different from GOP reps from Texas. Just like Socialists from France are damned well different from from Labour reps in England. It gets even more complicated when we consider constituencies within the constituencies... But that too much for someone who just went from stupidity to addled thinking in the time span of a shower.

My point? An argument could be made for constituency based seats on the basis of regional autonomy in political bodies which rule large populations over large areas like the US Congress or the EU Parliament. I do however believe that it makes little sense within a smaller state like Ireland, where it will inevitably lead to misrepresentation and your current system seems better.

[jiHymas]

Originally posted by manwithaplan
National legislators are reduced to making meaningless enquiries in relation to minor issues on behalf of their constituents just to be seen to be doing something.

...

This focus on 'parish pump politics' means that representatives don't dedicate enough of their efforts to national issues and influencing policy, examining the executive, monitoring public expenditure, shaping legislation etc. The national parliament suffers as a result.

Toronto used to have two aldermen per ward, with municipal politics supposed to be non-partisan. Most wards would end up with one who focussed on city issues and one who specialized in barking dogs & pot-holes.

This system ended before I became interested in municipal politics and I have no opinion on how well it worked. Municipal politics is so basic-service and name-recognition driven that the analogy is not very good - but I thought I'd mention it.

[Big Kahuna Burger]

Originally posted by RTFirefly
America has a problem in that few of its Congressional districts are genuinely competitive - Congress has managed to carve out 'safe' seats for most of its members, with the result that only a relative handful of seats can change parties in a given election.

Consequently, very few Americans are in a position to affect the outcome of a Congressional race, which is a pretty ridiculous state of affairs.

Proportional representation is one cure for that. But it could be done equally well by defining some measure of geographical cohesiveness of Congressional districts, and mandating that the most cohesive set of district boundaries be used. This would still produce a certain number of safe seats, but not nearly so many as under the current system: to get this many safe seats requires intelligent design, rather than mere chance.

Arizona has a good system for this. They created two minority-Hispanic districts, one in urban Phoenix the other hitting parts of Tuscon, Yuma and Phoenix, three suburban Phoenix districts, a Tuscon-based district, an entirely rural district and a suburban/rural district that's basically what's left over (the Navajo and Hopi reservations legally have to be separate. It's a system I think all states should use, because it tosses partisan interests out for regional cohesiveness. Other states that have independent commissions aren't as good (Iowa uses a computer to draw its districts, but they don't keep communities of interest together well, and New Jersey basically has Dems and Reps submit maps and a professor decides which is the least gerrymandered). We should implement the Arizona model nationwide, but redrawing of lines is a state matter so it would be a long and slow process.