Maybe I’m too much a geek, but it seems like the best solution is to load up a computer with census data and have it draw the lines in a perfectly neutral way.
Check out http://www.redistrictinggame.org/
ETA: IIRC, the game points out in entertaining fashion the various reasons why random district, even contiguous random districts, aren’t permitted under current law.
Who said “random”? I’m saying feed the population values into a computer and have it base the districts on that.
And I’m saying that’s not the only variable necessary to lawful districts.
Ok. First of all, I don’t believe you were saying that until this post I’m replying to. Secondly, would you care to elaborate on that?
And no I’m not playing a web game that has loud obnoxious music and gives me pop-up ads.
Suit yourself. It’s a nice introduction to the intricacies of districting.
The main factor you’re ignoring is race. Under federal law, lines cannot be drawn in a way that divides districts in a way that substantially reduces minority representation. Random lines would frequently do so.
AFAIK, every ten years the census numbers are used to determine how many U.S. Congressmen each State has. Its up to the individual States to decide how it’s districts are drawn. The courts have denied efforts that it believes would have negatively affected racial districting.
The original “Gerry-mander” looked something like a salamander and was created under Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry. Gerry + salamander = Gerry-mander.
So I guess it depends on the individual State’s redistricting efforts. If there is a State rule that states districts must be physically contiguous, then so be it. However, you could say that a salamander is physically contiguous. In the case of Illinois’s (aka Chicago’s) 4th congressional district, two Hispanic areas are joined by a stretch of Interstate 294. There are NO residential home on I-294 in Chicago. Just concrete and potholes.
Making districts compact or rectangle-shape is a rather arbitrary criterion, especially given today’s high-speed communications and transportation.
Imagine for a moment, a totally arbitrary apportionment, e.g. dividing Texas’ voters into Districts by digits from their social security numbers. Texas’ Congress vote split 4.43 million GOP and 2.95 million Democrat. With totally arbitrary districting the GOP would have won all 36 seats. That’s just a trivial statistical fact.
With a “party list” system, or something like what Left Hand envisions, GOP would have got 21 or 22 seats; Demos 14 or 15. (The actual split was 24-12.) Of course that was not the most egregious gerrymandering. Indiana’s seats were split 7-2 when 4.9-4.1 would have been correct based on the popular vote. Ohio’s seats split 12-4 for the GOP, while 8-8 would have been the fairest split based on the popular vote.
But again, a totally arbitrary districting would lead to majority party sweeps in any state.
Almost by definition, I doubt that any proposal to improve democracy will appeal to the vested interests who are in control. For now the three biggest priorities, as almost all intelligent non-hypocrites agree, are to
[ul][li]Reduce the influence of money in politics,[/li][li]Reduce the influence of money in politics, and[/li][li]Reduce the influence of money in politics.[/li][/ul]
Sounds great! Just give us your definition of perfectly neutral and we’ll get right on it!
Gerrymandering can only work if there’s an uncoupling of the demographic (sex, race, age, income) data with the population data, otherwise, politicians are just tempted to use this data to carve out districts based on demographics. The Census Bureau should be prevented from releasing demographic data and only report on the change of population.
- Honesty
Washington State has done the same thing - top two primaries.
Here is a recent article about it. Well worth a read.
You’d have to get rid of election results too. I could make you a pretty good demographic map of Ohio with just presidential election results at the precinct level.
Yeah, have a computer randomly generate districts every year or so
There’s not much point in having districts if you’re going to do that. The point of districts is that different places are different. If every district is going to have the same characteristics as the whole state, why bother dividing people up?
But isn’t that essentially a pre-modern approach? Maybe in the past the most important distinction between people was where they lived, but today, I’d say other factors (economic class, religion, race etc.) are far more important. People in different places may be different, but individuals with a certain background in one place have much more in common with people with the same background elsewhere than they do with their physical neighbors.
Maybe there isn’t a point in dividing people up. Maybe the entire assumption needs to be questioned.
People feel that they are different from people who live elsewhere. As an urban Bay Area dweller, I certainly feel that my views are very different from someone who lives in rural Kansas.
In fact, as the result of a lawsuit, in San Mateo County they just switched from countywide to district elections for the Board of Supervisors, specifically so that they would represent more local interests and have more minority representation:
But districting doesn’t necessarily help, though. Here is a picture of Utah’s districts. Southwestern Utah is in the same district as the eastern half of Salt Lake City. Not only are those two areas far apart but the inner-city SLC is vastly different from rural southern Utah. The more I think about it the more I like having one big district for each state.
As I said, the trend is the opposite. For their Board of Supervisors San Mateo County had “districts” that encompassed the whole county, and because of a lawsuit they are now being forced to go to smaller, regional districts. It had been the last county in California with at-large supervisors.
Now of course, the details of how districts are divided can be debated and argued forever. But whether to have districts vs. at-large representation seems to be settled law.
But does being a member of your local community form a stronger bond than being black or gay or whatever? I would argue that race, gender, and sexual preference are far more important factors in a person’s identity than location. I expect I could come up with even more factors that trump location if I cared to. So it doesn’t make sense to me to privilege geography when it comes to voting. Far better to let people decide how they want to be grouped for themselves. That’s what you get with at large elections.