Redistricting/gerrymandering Reform

[TheGoodBits]

(Paging Predicto)

The political stunt currently being pulled by House GOP has brought this issue to the forefront for me, but the impact is certainly not limited to this shutdown. Gerrymandering is one of the key ways you can disenfranchise voters, effectively limiting the voice of the people in one branch of Congress. So I've been thinking about how this can change. What steps would need to be taken?

The end goal would be that legally all states MUST use independent, non-partisan commissions to draw their districts. I'm assuming this would take a Constitutional amendment, but I'm not sure. What are some other avenues that could be pursued? It seems like an issue the Supreme Court could rule on, but again I'm not sure about the process or any history the Court has with ruling on this.

The purpose for this thread is simply brainstorming and trying to generate discussion on it, with a goal of becoming more knowledgable on the topic.

I found some of the information in this article informative, and the diagram at the bottom particularly telling. http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/25/2676871/arizona-republicans-file-lawsuit-to-make-congressional-gerrymandering-even-worse/

[skinfan2k]

This and adding term limits will change the political corruption.  I think changing the president term to 6 years would work while all reps and senators are not able to stay in office more than 8 years. 

[@DCGoldPants]

Good luck with that. Redistricting is state corruption.

 

I do agree on Term limits. One 6 year term for President, Move the Senate down to 4 year terms and the House up to 4 year terms. They are allowed two each if they can win them. If you can't get something done in 16 years, you shouldn't be there anyways. If you did...good for you.

[Predicto]

You would need a constitutional amendment, I suspect.   Federal legislation would not work.  It's a political question, and drawing legislative boundaries is a task assigned to the individual states.  Basically, the courts won't intervene unless the constitution says they can.  

 

Here's a good summary.

 

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/why-the-courts-punt-on-gerrymandering/

 

Of course, individual states are free to create their own bipartisan commissions, but it rarely happens because the majority party enjoys being able to fix the deck in its favor.  It only happened in California because of a people's initiative - both political parties opposed it.   

Oh, and term limits don't solve anything, in my opinion.   They actually give the political parties more power, not less.  

[TheGoodBits]

Good link Predicto. Interesting angle with the Texas example, using the Voting Rights Act. I suspect you could make a similar argument in most of the states that have undergone extensive gerrymandering, though the examples would be significantly less egregious. The principle of One Person, One Vote is an issue, since if 50% of people vote one way and end up represented by under 30% of the representatives of that state their votes do seem to matter less. But that's viewing it from a voting for a party perspective, rather than individual districts voting for their representatives on equal footing. I'm sure that complicates things with courts.

[bearrock]

I think on this, California got it right with the citizen's board approach to districting.  And I would also propose two candidate from every party.

 

Is anyone other than the party officials and politicians against the idea of independent commission for redistricting?  If so, what would be the argument in favor of gerrymandering?

[Predicto]

I think on this, California got it right with the citizen's board approach to districting.  And I would also propose two candidate from every party.

 

Is anyone other than the party officials and politicians against the idea of independent commission for redistricting?  If so, what would be the argument in favor of gerrymandering?

 

States rights to control the ordering of their political affairs is the biggest legal argument.   I don't know of any practical arguments other than the fact that it is very, very effective.

[bearrock]

I certainly understand the legal argument, but meant more in the sense of whose interest is served by gerrymandering other than the politicians.  Is there any benefit to the voters as a result of gerrymandering?  I would say no.

[mhd24]

The solution is to expand the House.  When this country was founded, 1 congressman represented roughly 33k.  Today is is 1 congressman representing 777k.  The number of congressman has been fixed since the 1930s despite the massive population increase!  We could have 1 billion people in this country, and we'd still be stuck with the same # of congressman.

[skinfan2k]

The solution is to expand the House.  When this country was founded, 1 congressman represented roughly 33k.  Today is is 1 congressman representing 777k.  The number of congressman has been fixed since the 1930s despite the massive population increase!  We could have 1 billion people in this country, and we'd still be stuck with the same # of congressman.

 

What would that do?  We don't congress to be 1000 people.  It is already big enough

[chipwhich]

The Democrats would never back term limits.

[Predicto]

The Democrats would never back term limits.

 

Nor should they.  Term limits suck.

 

I live in a state with term limits in the state legislature.  All it means is that the staffs and lobbyists and parties have more power, with ever new party approved representatives rolling in who have no idea what they are doing and by the time they figure it out, they are gone, replaced by the new guy.   

[twa]

Good link Predicto. Interesting angle with the Texas example, using the Voting Rights Act. 

 

 

 I can't express how much I loathe being drawn into a Dem district

[mhd24]

What would that do?  We don't congress to be 1000 people.  It is already big enough

 

 

The UK has 650 people in their lower House despite having a much smaller population.  Expanding the house will result in potential independents and 3rd parties to actually have a chance.  Congress would never expand the house because it would dilute their own power unfortunetly.  

[Predicto]

 I can't express how much I loathe being drawn into a Dem district

 

I don't just blame Texas and Republicans.  The Democrats in Illinois, for example, are just as shameless.  

 

But it is kind of amazing that Austin Texas, the 11th largest city in America, doesn't have a single representative in the House.  The entire metropolitan area was split up like a pizza, with huge parts of neighboring counties added to each piece so that the city would have zero representatives.   It's a gerrymandering masterpiece.  

[mhd24]

Oh, and another thing.  I think partly the reason why congress is SO DISFUNCTIONAL is the utter lack of technical backgrounds in its members.  Its appalling how few engineers, scientists, etc. there are in congress.  Maybe if the members of congress came from a background of solving problems instead of a law school background (mind you, I am a lawyer), there would not be so much disfunction.

[Predicto]

The UK has 650 people in their lower House despite having a much smaller population.  Expanding the house will result in potential independents and 3rd parties to actually have a chance.  Congress would never expand the house because it would dilute their own power unfortunetly.  

 

The British system is completely different.   I still don't see any point to expanding the House.  

Oh, and another thing.  I think partly the reason why congress is SO DISFUNCTIONAL is the utter lack of technical backgrounds in its members.  Its appalling how few engineers, scientists, etc. there are in congress.  Maybe if the members of congress came from a background of solving problems instead of a law school background (mind you, I am a lawyer), there would not be so much disfunction.

 

The job description of a legislator is "writing laws."  I think this is something that you need some legal expertise in, actually.

[chipwhich]

Nor should they.  Term limits suck.

 

So does allowing people to die of old age in office.

[twa]

I don't just blame Texas and Republicans.  The Democrats in Illinois, for example, are just as shameless.  

 

But it is kind of amazing that Austin Texas, the 11th largest city in America, doesn't have a single representative in the House.  The entire metropolitan area was split up like a pizza, with huge parts of neighboring counties added to each piece so that the city would have zero representatives.   It's a gerrymandering masterpiece.  

There is some value to splitting metro areas like Austin(and here) though, and it is not like the metro areas are not represented

 

I do think it adds to the sprawl here

[Burgold]

While normally I like the term limits argument for this go-around it seems it is the pups and not the old-timers who are doing the damage. The tenured Reps and Senators seem mighty annoyed at the less senior Tea Party Congressmen.

[skinsmarydu]

I certainly understand the legal argument, but meant more in the sense of whose interest is served by gerrymandering other than the politicians.  Is there any benefit to the voters as a result of gerrymandering?  I would say no.

I believe we are the exception.  My old house (15 miles away from hubby's & in a different county) was Cynthia McKinney's old district...Hank Johnson(D) holds that seat now.  Hubby's house is now part of that district.

As a matter of fact, we had our neighborhood picnic a couple weeks ago, and he showed up.  *familiar to me, I voted for him way back when*.   I went bananas with applause when he was introduced.  He worked the crowd & spoke with almost everyone (everyone who could speak English, that is  ). 

And you know when hubby got the chance to talk with him, our views were clear.  We've got to control 2014 or else.  This **** cannot happen again.

[CrabR]

All states gerrymander. Now you know why it is so important to control the sate house in Census years because that party redraws the distracts

 

I am for term limits. We can make state distracts uniform there are ways to do this. The most important is campaign finance reform. Put a limit on what you can spend and anything over goes into your war chest or charity. Put a amount on each person that a congressman can raise. Say they can raise 20 dollars per person in their distract  if you have 100k in your distract you can spend 2m. That would apply to senators as well. That would be fair to all as they get to spend the same amount per capita. This would cut down on the lobbyist and the robber money barons

 

We also need a viable 3rd party.

[chascougs]

See South Carolina 6th congressional district....

[TheGoodBits]

All states gerrymander. Now you know why it is so important to control the sate house in Census years because that party redraws the distracts

.

Right, but the point is that it has no place in our government and should be done away with. No reason one party should have a sizable advantage for a decade at a time. It's certainly not what the Founders intended. Yet we've been doing it for 200 years with few limitations (other than a few states that do use independent commissions to draw districts).

I'm also curious about what degree gerrymandering is an issue today vs in the past. It's certainly always been used since the early 1800s, but I truly wonder if one party has ever won the House by such a sizable margin while losing the popular vote by so much. Today it seems more... coordinated.

[Larry]

I asked in another thread, but never really got an answer.

How does one show that gerrymandering is occurring?

The reason I asked was because it occurred to me after The Florida Election, of 2000. The state had (obviously) just voted R by the tiniest, tiniest, of margins. (In fact, I think it's pretty obvious that the state voted majority D, but that The Butterfly Ballot caused enough people to mis-vote that an honest counting of the ballots came up R.)

And yet both houses of our state legislature, and our Congressional delegation, are overwhelmingly R. Almost entirely so.

When a state votes 50.5% R, but the Congressional delegation is 80% R, does that prove gerrymandering?

And the answer that occurs to me is that no, it doesn't. That, for example, if the state had voted 50.5% R, uniformly, then the Congressional delegation would be 100% R, no matter where the districts were drawn.

 

In short, I have to admit that I can't think of a really good, unarguable, way to prove that gerrymandering is even happening. 

 

(Despite the fact that it's glaringly obvious that it is.  The Republicans around here have made it very clear, for decades, that they have no ethics whatsoever, and frankly, not even any shame, when it comes to altering our election laws to give maximum political power to their party.  You'd have to be a twa-level partisan to even attempt to claim that they wouldn't "go there".)