Aren’t all political parties trying to persuade people that they have the right policies? The most persuasive usually hold more seats in both the legislative and executive branches of state and federal governments. There are several examples of both the Democrat and Republican parties resorting to gerrymandering in order to insure re-election of Democrat and Republican representatives. Some people believe that all gerrymandering should be stopped. Some people prefer to concentrate their efforts on ending Republican gerrymandering because that better suits their purpose.
As far as I can tell, some people become very frustrated, and angry, when the voters refuse to be persuaded by their arguments, tactics, Groupthink.
The 2008 election was something historically different for other reasons, wasn’t it? It drew Democratic voters into the polls who hadn’t usually bothered, in vast numbers. The result then is an illustration of how over-greedy gerrymandering works against you in a strong tide. Without it, there’s nothing to fear except the weakness of your own arguments.
I think that incumbents have, for a long time, had a big advantage in House elections, so most of the time, once you’re in , you’re in. There was a big change in 2010 which resulted in a 63 seat swing to the GOP, but the GOP also had a 52% - 45% advantage in the overall vote that year. In 2010, the economy was still bad and there was a lot of negative sentiment about the ACA (justified or unjustified, is debatable), which made it go against that norm.
So, normally you don’t see big swings in the House, but we’re still living with the after-effects of the 2010 election where the GOP won, and won big. But not because of some “fix” they put in place.
Guys, I realize emotions can run high. Ascribing motives and such to your interlocutors is never a good idea. Let’s everyone just dial back the personal cracks. I hate to see this become a train wreck with multiple warnings.
That’s an … interesting … phrase which, no, doesn’t make any sense.
I will state explicitly that I want a system in which intentional contrivances that attempt to rig it to be unfair (or further unfair) are disallowed, independent of which direction the effort is aimed and independent of how effective or ineffective the effort is.
I will further state that the benchmark for fairness (but not for intentionality) would be proportional representation, and that structural features that create systemic partisan advantages that favor one or the other party toward representation disproportionate to their vote shares should ideally be minimized. Creating a system that includes maximizing fairness, or perhaps better phrased as minimizing structural unfairness, as one of its goals, is not “rigging” it.
I am not yet convinced that any specific model to achieve that is best and I do not believe that fairness as defined that by benchmark overrides all other considerations. Nor do I believe that any major overhaul is remotely likely. The best we can realistically hope for is disallowing clear contrivances to intentionally maximize a partisan advantage. addie, do you agree that designing the system with the intent to produce a specific outcome, such as partisan advantage, is by its very nature unfair, whether or not it is a very effective effort?
In terms of the history of partisan gerrymandering, or at least extreme partisan gerrymandering with success in producing significant partisan asymmetry, here’s Wang’s analysis.
Again? My favorite example would be Illinois’ 4th Congressional District. It resembles the letter “C”.
*Illinois’ 4th Congressional District includes part of Cook County.
On March 30, 2012, the 4th District was included in a list released by the National Journal of the top ten most contorted congressional districts due to redistricting.[3]
[3] National Journal, “Modern Gerrymanders: 10 Most Contorted Congressional Districts—MAPS,” accessed March 31, 2012*
(please: take it!)
Seriously, the Democrats have had control of the Legislature in California so long that I barely recall the State Senate being Republican (1970), and with the brief exception of the '95-6 session in the State Assembly, that’s been in Democratic just as long. Yet the people of the state were so upset with the redistricting that they agreed to change the process to eliminate the direct control of the legislature in 2008. One can easily see why when one looks at the map for Assembly districts in 2001!
Note that, in the 2002 general election for the 80 Assembly districts, the Democrats polled 53.41% of the votes, but received 60% of the seats! Two years later, while the Republicans were winning the Presidency again, the Democrats were reduced to 52.61% of the votes for Assemblymen, but retained the same number of seats (60%).
In short, Democrats are just as good at playing the gerrymandering game as Republicans, when it suits them. The results in California probably would be even worse these days, given the advent of computer-based district drawing and the fact that the Legislature is almost filled with a super-majority of Democrats. But, of course, the districts are drawn by an independent commission now.
