Mmm…nnaah, not really. Remember, in the modern USA, legislative districts have to be apportioned on the basis of roughly equal populations, so you can’t just tesselate the state map, you have to account for points of high population density and empty spaces, and even in jurisdictions with “compactness” requirements, this means you have to stick or cut dovetails, notches, panhandles and the such to the boundaries in order to make the population numbers add up.
You know, I’m really starting to wonder if this comment doesn’t point up a major political/cultural difference between the U.S. and some other countries, like the Commonwealth countries. It just doesn’t ring true to me, for the political culture I’ve grown up in, but it may well be true for the U.S.
That is, in the Canadian system, it is well-accepted that there are public figures who are not partisan, and therefore will not take politics into account if given a task that requires political neutrality. Boundaries commissions are one such example, and the electoral officers are another - they are neutral, non-partisan public servants whose task is to run the system as impartially as possible. I’m still baffled, for example, by the fact that the official in Florida who was ultimately responsible for certifying the electoral votes in 2000 was an elected, partisan official, and was also co-chair of George Bush’s campaign in Florida. That sort of conflict of interest makes no sense to me. (Note: to avoid triggering yet another debate on the 2000 election, I want to make it clear that I’d be just as baffled if she had happened to be a Democrat and co-chair of the Gore campaign. It’s the acceptance of a partisan official in that post that I have trouble with, not the particular stripe.)
The difference in the political culture may have to do with the fact that in the U.S. a lot more officials are elected than in Canada, particularly in the legal system. We don’t elect judges, or sheriffs, or prosecutors; we don’t elect the officials who run the electoral system; the Speaker of the House is an elected member, but is expected to act in a neutral fashion; the public service is non-partisan.
Hence, perhaps in our political culture, with a greater separation between partisan and non-partisan public officials, we are more willing to accept non-partisan electoral boundaries commissions, but in the U.S. system they are viewed with more skepticism, as evidenced by JohnBckWLD’s comment.
The Committee for Fair Elections’s proposal does not, strictly speaking, assume the continuation of the two-party system. Three members of the commission are to be nominated by the speaker of the house of representatives, three by the president of the senate. Those officers have always been the leaders of the majority party in that chamber. If there were no majority party, I expect they would be chosen by a coalition of two or more parties. The “members of minority parties” (note the plural) in each house are to “elect one from their number” who shall choose three commissioners. These mechanisms would still work if we had three or more parties represented in each house.
Go to http://hq.demaction.org/dia/organizations/karin/images/3petitions.pdf and read the second of the three petitions.
Which is not in all respects a bad thing. See this thread (now locked): http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269169
Nope. You only qualify for appointment by the Chief Justice if you’ve been a registered Florida voter, and of neither of the two largest parties, for the previous two years.
The Florida Supreme Court justices are appointed by the governor, confirmed by the senate, and have to stand for “retention” every 6 years – i.e., the voters can turn one out. They’re officially nonpartisan.
See posts #18 and 43.
Does Florida have automatic party registration, where, when you register to vote, you also can join a party by clicking a box on the form? I know, from personal experience, that New York does and Virginia doesn’t.
Yes. When you register you are asked to specify a party or register as independent. Until recently your only choices were Democrat, Republican and Independent, but now they allow registration under the names of third parties.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Piper, have you ever heard any accusations of gerrymandering levelled at Elections Canada?
Certainly there are mutterings every time there’s redistricting, but they usually consist of this or that community claiming that a particular division makes no sense or splits up the community, without any intimation of unfair partisanship that I’ve heard.
(Another datum re. partisanship is that our system of party membership is entirely private to the party, not a matter of public record as I understand it is or can be made to be in the US.)
Well, strictly speaking we don’t have “party membership” here at the ordinary-voters level. The parties do not collect dues from members, issue party ID cards, or keep a list of members. You “join” a party simply by registering to vote as a Dem, Pub, or other. In most states this simply entitles you to vote in that party’s primaries, if it has primaries (only the Dems and Pubs do). And yes, your registration is a matter of public record. But not every “registered Democrat” is a loyal Democrat – some people register with the party they oppose, so they can strategically vote in its primary for the candidate perceived to be least electable in the general election. And then some states even have “open primaries” where anybody registered voter, regardless of registered party affiliation, can vote in the Democratic or Republican primary.
Okay, but this is what I meant. Up here, there is no such thing. Nobody except the party involved knows or cares about anything regarding party affiliation. Nominations are conducted entirely by the party according to its own statutes (and certain regulations from Elections Canada).
What’s the rationale for the American practice?
I believe it’s the primary elections. (Do you have those in Canada?) They were introduced as a way for a party’s actual mass base, instead of the traditional caucus of party bosses in “smoke-filled rooms,” to choose the party’s nominee for a given office. Since the party primaries use the same public voting facilities as the general election, it’s necessary for a voter to specify party affiliation when registering in order to determine in which party’s primary the voter is eligible to vote (except in “open primary” states, and even they ask for your party affiliation when registering, I’m not sure why).
Better late than never. No, we don’t have primary elections in Canada, at least not as a public event.
Each party has its rules for nominating its candidates and leader. In general, the candidates are elected by the party membership in a given riding. The party leaders are elected at conventions, either by delegates from each riding, or by vote from the entire national membership (as in the NDP and Conservative Party).
There was an allegation of gerrymandering when the federal map was re-drawn in Saskatchewan after the last census. One riding in the first draft of the map was huge and although not oddly shaped (I think it was generally rectangular), it certainly didn’t match up with any community links. I thought the gerrymandering allegation was overblown - the boundaries commission was chaired by a superior court judge, with a Liberal and a Conservative appointee, and all three recommended the tentative map. I didn’t see a) how the Liberal was supposed to have pulled the wool over the eyes of the judge and the Tory, and b) how that riding was supposed to favour the Liberals. Ultimately the boundaries commission took the criticism into account and re-jigged the map without the objectionable riding, taking community links into account.
And of course there was this case which went to the SCC, but the allegation there was based on the instructions the Legislature gave to the boundaries commission, not the actions of the commission itself in carrying out those instructions.
But we in Oklahoma enjoy hosting the Democratic contingent of the Texas legislature for weeks at a time.
This tactic in Texas, preventing a quorum so that Texas Republicans could not gerrymander the ever-loving sh*t out of Texas at Tom Delay’s behest, provided us with great amusement a couple of years ago. The (State) Speaker even threatened to send the Texas Rangers to arrest the House members and force them back to Austin (something within his power had it not involved crossing state lines).
If there was ever an arguement to remove redistricting power from the legislators…
What if you don’t want to to vote in the primaries, just the general election, and don’t have a party affiliation (or don’t want it to become a matter of public record)? Can you register for the general elections without having to declare a party affiliation?
Yes. First, keep in mind that not all states have partisan registration–in my state of Illinois, you can’t register with a political party even if you want to. Any registered voter can vote in any party’s primary or in the general election. In states that do have partisan registration, you can also register as an independent. The consequences of doing so vary by state, I believe–there are (or at least there were) some states that allow independents to vote in general elections only, whereas others allow them to vote in general elections or in any party’s primary. (Under the latter circumstances, you might wonder why anybody would register with a party, since all it does is limit your options, but some people just like to declare their preference.)
The odd thing about American primaries is that they nominate party candidates, but they’re run by the state. This joins the major parties and the government at the hip in a way that may not be entirely healthy, but I’ve never seen it generate much debate.
Yes, you can register as an independent/no party affiliation – and that will be part of the public record just as if you had chosen a party affiliation.