It’s commonly accepted that the Republicans have been busily gerrymandering every state where they can get away with it. But this seems to be belied by Nebraska: The state as a whole is very deeply red, and so the Republican party presumably could draw up the districts any way that they liked, and give the state three very safe Republican district.
Instead, though, they’ve districted the state in what’s pretty close to the most sensible manner possible, with one very compact district basically corresponding to Omaha, one forming a fairly compact chunk of the rest of the eastern portion of the state including Lincoln, and one for the vast western remainder of the state. As a result, Democratic wins are still possible in two of the three districts.
To call it into even starker relief, Nebraska is one of only two states that splits its electoral votes by district, making it even possible for a Democratic presidential candidate to get an electoral vote or two (a feat Obama accomplished in 2008).
So, why not? Do Nebraskan voters (even Republican Nebraskans) just consider such shenanigans to be unseemly, or is there some provision in the state’s constitution that prevents gerrymandering? If the latter, how does it work, that the rest of us might learn from it?
Nebraska only has three congressional seats, so you don’t have as much freedom to make all of those intertwining districts you see in Maryland, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where you have 10 or more to play with.
OK, so they did some. But it still wouldn’t be hard to make three wedges across the state that each contain a third of Omaha, or something of that sort. Yeah, it’d be blatantly obvious if they did so, but then, that hasn’t stopped them here in Ohio.
Recall though that Nebraska isn’t your typical corrupt red state like Louisiana or Georgia. A 2012 investigation ranked Nebraska the fifth least corrupt state in the country. Bear in mind though that New Jersey was #1 --that’s right 49 other states are worse–, earning a B+ in the report. After Watergate, Democratic reforms curbed a lot of the sleaze nationwide, but those efforts were squelched over time by the Supreme Court and their conservative allies in the GOP.
Like what “Democratic reforms” and what specific actions by the Supreme Court? Also, are you aware of the large number of Democrats at all levels of public office who have been charged with official corruption?
Technically Nebraska has a non-partisan State legislature. I won’t guess as to what practical effect that has, but it’s worth mentioning. (They also have a unicameral legislature.)
But I think the single biggest limiter is just that its only got three districts. There may be little shenanigans you can pull with three districts, but you’re significantly limited compared to States with far more.
Kansas has four, and while the lines have been shifted somewhat to the benefit of the GOP the Kansas districts aren’t drawn all that badly.
Basically the area around Kansas City, KS has to be its own district. It’s got a large population and it’s geographically compact. Then, you can’t really fit both Topeka and Wichita with their metro areas in the same district, so there are two large districts with those cities as the largest population center in each, respectively.
Then you have western Kansas which is lightly populated and by default is going to be the remainder, and it includes Manhattan as its largest city (but much smaller than Topeka / Wichita / Kansas City, KS.)
Now when it comes to districts in the Kansas State legislature, gerrymandering is apparently a big problem that has resulted in court cases and some level of Federal intervention.
I’m not sure. I would guess since it is officially non-partisan it makes it harder than your average political activist might want to figure it out. Because instead of just looking at the party affiliation of the legislators and their districts they’d have to actually look into each legislator and determine if they are Democrats or Republicans based on their positions and etc.
That wouldn’t be the whole picture, anyway, because there are two kinds of gerrymandering: That in favor of a party, and that in favor of an individual. The two often work at cross purposes, and at the state legislature level you’re more likely to see the latter.
The simpler test would be to look for the gerrymandering itself, not its effects. Pull up a map, look at the districts, and see if there are any that are twisted around all over the place. For instance, looking at Ohio, I can see that there’s something funny going on in district 2 (up around Sandusky), 5 (near Dayton), 7 (next to Cincinnati), 33 (looks like Springfield), and maybe 24 (Cleveland suburbs) and the cluster of 3, 15, and 16 (Columbus). I’d have to dig a little deeper to find out who that’s benefiting, but it’s clear that someone’s mucking things up. By contrast, Nebraska has some oddities like 40 and the corner of 44, but nothing that looks nearly as egregious.
1970s. Briefly and quickly. Campaign finance reform. SCOTUS enervated it during the 1970s ostensibly for free speech reasons. Limits on Presidential campaign spending, which by now have been eclipsed.
Bill Clinton asked Bob Dole during his Presidency whether politics was more or less corrupt than it was during the 1950s. Bob Dole answered (paraphrase) “Less, and it’s really no contest. People used to deliver money in paper bags”.
Of course some Democrats have been charged with official corruption. But the Democratic Party is consistently far more open to campaign finance reform than the Republicans are.
IMHO, it’s just because they’re good fair-minded people. As an Oklahoma football fan, I attended many OU-Nebraska games in Lincoln. My party was always treated as guests and there were never any threats of violence to us, even from the students. The rivalry was fierce but the fans weren’t. I’d like to think that we extended the same courtesy to their fans visiting our campus.
