Here are two examples of peculiarly shaped Congressional districts. Does anyone think such gerrymandering serves the interest of democracy?
It’s a census year and will soon be time to [DEL]gerrymander[/DEL] redistrict again. Why doesn’t Congress pass a law making such gerrymandering illegal? (Yes, they might need help from mathematicians to phrase the law properly.)
First, it would be very difficult to write such a law. Gerrymandering is something that’s easy to recognize when you see it, but hard to define legally so as to prevent it.
Second, since gerrymandering benefits the party in power at the time redistricting is done, there’s little incentive for the majority to eliminate the practice, and you need a majority to pass a law.
Third, since it would effect how representatives are chosen, to make gerrymandering illegal would probably require a constitutional amendment. It is very hard to amend the constitution: it requires a two-thirds majority vote of both houses of congress and approval of three fourths of the states.
In the U.K. the Boundary Commission is more-or-less independent.
Well, Jeff, you said it all right there. It is a ridiculous practice, but you can’t really put a stop to it…
There are also good (or at least not bad) reasons for Gerrymandered districts. If you are trying to create a majority black/hispanic/whatever district in a state where there are many people of that minority but are always being overwhelmed by the majority population due to being dispersed, it’s sometimes useful to create an oddly shaped district. You can argue that this is an inappropriate use of redistricting but it has been used effectively to get increased black representation in Congress.
The example you show for NC was done on purpose to create a majority black district. Even though NC has a high percentage black population, no district just naturally has greater than 50% black. The gerrymandering here allowed, in theory, better representation for minorities.
At one time we all learned that gerrymandering was bad, it is basically the drawing of districts for political gain. But at some point (80s?) it was decided that it could or must be used to insure equitable representation. I seem to remember a court case.
Some of the oddness in the Illinois example is, I believe, due to the way some they draw their city lines there. Some cities will create long thin corridors when they annex only the road bed so that they can reach another area they want to annex, or to fence out other local governments.
In the USA, the arrangement of the Congressional districts is constitutionally a function of the respective states, subject under the Voting Rights Act to the mentioned goal of ensuring minority representation. A dozen or so states use an independent commission for redistricting so as to take it off the hands of the legislature itself.
A particular state may incorporate into its constitution and statutes a requirement like we have here, that “districts be compact and contiguous and organized, whenever possible, on the basis of population distribution and access to transport and communication”, but again, that is a state-by-state matter and VRA requirements may override it. Also, legislators represent people, not landmass, so districts made up of corridors between population centers will make sense in many cases.
Another peculiar districting is seen in Arizona 2nd District, where lines were drawn so that the Hopi reservation would not be in the same district as the Navajo.
Indeed, I think in this case the “gerrymandering” was a forced consequence of the Voting Rights Act requiring some representation for blacks in North Carolina.
And it isn’t just the majority party. For decades in Missouri the First Congressional district has been drawn to include the heavily Democratic City of St. Louis and northern parts of St. Louis County, while the Second District has been drawn to include the heavily Republican western suburbs.
There’s a racial component as well, but the general shape of the districts follow Democratic and Republican votring patterns more closely than racial lines.
I disagree with geryymandering. For example that district in Chicago that is so bizzare was drawn to give Hispanics a voice. Well you got it by combining Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. Outside of the fact they both speak Spanish, they groups have little in common.
You could say the districts should be drawn as compact and square as possible but the real reason it exists is that both parties like it. It suits them just fine. It’s the inmates being in charge of the assylum sort of thing.
You’d have to establish an independent organization. The UK has the Boundary Commissions while Canada has Elections Canada.
However given the fear and loathing Americans seem to have for centralized anything, you’ll never get it.
Gerrymandering could also be eliminated by getting away from a geographic system of representation. For example, proportional representation would make gerrymandering impossible. This sort of change would be a threat to the status quo, and I would expect both major parties to oppose it. Political realities often get in the way of reform.
Geographical representation is also entirely unfair. There’s no reason New York City, with 10 million people should have less representation than the entire state of Alsaka.
We already have State representation, via the Senate. The House of representatives are supposed to represent, proportionately, the US citizenry.
This is a different issue. Each congressional district has about the same number of voters, so the House of Representatives provides equal representation for each voter. I was referring to the fact that, since congressional districts are geographic, the drawing of these districts allows for gerrymandering. If you get rid of geographical districts, you eliminate the possibility of gerrymandering. One way to do this would be with a system of proportional representation where each state would have a single election where voters would vote for parties, and each party would select a delegation whose size would be based on the proportion of the vote each party got. For example, if a state had 20 representatives and the Republican party got 40% of the vote statewide, the state’s congressional delegation would have 8 Republicans. No districts, no gerrymandering.
Politicians work to get people they want to represent into their districts and the people they don’t want out of their districts. As awful as the districts look, the alternative is a system that doesn’t care who represents whom. I’m all for gerrymandering, which only sounds and looks bad, but in reality is the best thing for representation.
You could always allow multi-member constituencies.
The law was amended in 1967 to make single-member districts mandatory for the US House of Representatives, excluding multi-member constituencies and at-large state slates. The reason was again due to Voting Rights considerations: multi-member constituencies and at-large slates were considered to dilute the chances of minorities being represented by officials beholden to them.
Apparently at the state and local/municipal level you could still go for multiseat constituencies or proportional representation systems, as long as the representation basis complies with the “one man, one vote” rule
Political leanings follow a bell-shaped curve, with most Americans more-or-less centrist. Yet Congress increasingly seems bimodal, with little tendency to seek centrist consensus, and many or most of us would consider that dysfunctional.
It sounds like you might agree that gerrymandering is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Multi-member constituencies were one of the methods used to prevent blacks from holding office, so that’s not going to be allowed anytime soon.
Add the Australian Electoral Commission to the mix.
