Redistricting/gerrymandering Reform

[twa]

Me?,,,the voice crying out from a Dem hell district?

 

but ya'll like when those are drawn/gerrymandered

[Larry]

Me?,,,the voice crying out from a Dem hell district?

 

but ya'll like when those are drawn/gerrymandered

 

You.  The voice trying valiantly to claim that a district being overwhelmingly D somehow proves that gerrymandering isn't happening.  When, in fact, it proves that it is.  

[TheGoodBits]

Larry, your example of a state voting 50.5% R and having an 80% R delegation is not a good one. That could be an example of well drawn, balanced districts where Rs are narrowly edging out Ds in each one.

A better example would be Ds gaining >50% in a given state but having a sizable R delegation get elected. I'll follow this up with a few quick examples via edit.

2012 election results

VA: 50.8% Obama, Rs won 8/11 Congressional seats http://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/house/virginia/

PA: 52% Obama, Rs won 13/18 Congressional seats http://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/house/pennsylvania/

MI: 54% Obama, Rs won 9/14 Congressional seats http://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/house/michigan/

In each of these, with Michigan being the most blatant example, you see Dems winning their House seats with 70-80% margins. Rs win theirs with consistently 55% or so.

[twa]

You.  The voice trying valiantly to claim that a district being overwhelmingly D somehow proves that gerrymandering isn't happening.  When, in fact, it proves that it is.  

 

Strangely I have complained about gerrymandering for decades, not just when one side does it.

 

skinsfan_1215....look up the individual districts and see if the are not major Dem clusters

a side effect of incumbents protecting turf

[skinsmarydu]

like Rs going all TP crazy to avoid being "primaried"?

 

Pot, meet kettle.

[TheGoodBits]

Strangely I have complained about gerrymandering for decades, not just when one side does it.

skinsfan_1215....look up the individual districts and see if the are not major Dem clusters

a side effect of incumbents protecting turf

You don't gerrymander to create 30% of the districts that are safe and impenetrable while handing the other 70% to the other side. Having districts that vote 80% Dem is an example of a GOP gerrymander, NOT a Dem gerrymander.

Edit- unless there is an offsetting 80% GOP district, which there aren't in these examples.

[balki1867]

Honestly, in this day and age, someone could fairly easily write software to redistrict states and it'd be close to impossible to commit any sort of large scale systematic gerrymandering.  You could use a pretty easy algorithm too:

 

1) Districting must be done by zip code (the most populous zip codes in the US have ~100k people so this should not be an issue)

2) A district has to consist of contiguous zip codes (districts already have to be contiguous so this is an extension of an existing rule)

3) The districts need to be devised to minimize a) differences in populations amongst zip codes; b ) the total distance from the center of each district to each zip code. (ie two districts with ~700k is better than one with 300k and one with 1.1m; having 4 zipcodes forming a square is a better district than four in a line)

 

Using those really basic rules you could actually make some really sensible boundaries via computer.  In the end you'd end up with a map that slightly favors republicans -- this is unavoidable as the most democratic areas of the country are probably 95% democrat, whereas the most republican parts are ~65% republican, but this would seriously cut back situations like Maryland, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, etc.

 

You could have a college kid write this software in a week or two.  The bigger issue is that politicians don't want this.

[Corcaigh]

10 strange districts: http://www.stateintegrity.org/gerrymandering_state_redistricting_ten_strange_looking_u_s_congressional_districts

 

And maps of all districts nationwide:: 

 

http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/congress.html

[Larry]

Strangely I have complained about gerrymandering for decades, not just when one side does it.

 

skinsfan_1215....look up the individual districts and see if the are not major Dem clusters

a side effect of incumbents protecting turf

Of course there are "major Dem clusters".

That's one of the classic ways of disenfranchising the other Party.

If there's a bunch of people who vote D (I'm going to use D to represent "the party that isn't drawing the districts", cause it's easier to type), who you want to disenfranchise, the preferred method of making their vote not count is to divide them up among multiple districts, where each district has a small portion of the people you want to disenfranchise, and a larger portion of people who vote for you.

(That's what the R's have done with my city, which votes like 70% D. Divide the city into multiple Congressional districts, each of which has a sliver of Gainesville, and several counties worth of rural, red, voters. Result: A city that votes 70% D has several, R congressmen.)

But, if there's too many of them? If, say, Miami votes D, and you figure that you can't get away with dividing it up into 12 Republican districts?

Then the recognized way to solve that problem, if you can't completely disenfranchise every D voter in Miami, is to gerrymander one district that contains as many Ds as possible, thus allowing you to "divide and disenfranchise" the remaining people you want to disenfranchise.

[SkinsHokieFan]

Repeal the 17th Amendment so serious people can go back to the Senate and you don't end up with a Ted Cruz.

 

Bring earmarks back. As much as we all hated pork, especially when the "other" side did it, it was a very useful tool to keeping the crazies in check in the House. 

 

"You don't want to play ball and go along with our plan, you don't get that new bus station in your district" 

[Larry]

Honestly, in this day in age, someone could fairly easily write software to redistrict states and it'd be close to impossible to commit any sort of large scale systematic gerrymandering.  You could use a pretty easy algorithm too:

I like the idea. To me, as long as the computer has the Census data, but NOT how those people voted, then it's a pretty safe bet that the computer isn't going to have an agenda.

[TheGoodBits]

Repeal the 17th Amendment so serious people can go back to the Senate and you don't end up with a Ted Cruz.

Bring earmarks back. As much as we all hated pork, especially when the "other" side did it, it was a very useful tool to keeping the crazies in check in the House.

"You don't want to play ball and go along with our plan, you don't get that new bus station in your district"

Repealing the 17 amendment and having state legislatures elect Senators would result in FEWER crazies?

[twa]

Of course there are "major Dem clusters".

That's one of the classic ways of disenfranchising the other Party.

 

are you saying the court and federal govt are disenfranchising the other party here?

 

If so,I agree

[SkinsHokieFan]

Repealing the 17 amendment and having state legislatures elect Senators would result in FEWER crazies?

 

You would never have had a Sharon Engle nominated or come so close to winning. Rubio, Paul, Cruz probably don't sniff the Senate. 

 

Senators would go to DC representing their state, not some movement led by Jim DeMint 

[Elessar78]

Article from The Atlantic on redistricting.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-league-of/309084/

 

Every 10 years, after U.S. census workers have fanned out across the nation, a snowy-haired gentle­man by the name of Tom Hofeller takes up anew his quest to destroy Democrats. He packs his bag and his laptop with its special Maptitude software, kisses his wife of 46 years, pats his West Highland white terrier, Kara, and departs his home in Alexandria, Virginia, for a United States that he will help carve into a jigsaw of disunity.

Where Hofeller travels depends to some degree on the migratory patterns of his fellow Americans over the previous decade. As the census shows, some states will have swelled in population, while others will have dwindled. The states that gained the most people are entitled, under the Constitution, to additional representation in the form of new congressional districts, which (since the law allows only 435 such districts) are wrenched from the states that lost the most people. After the 2010 census, eight states (all in the South and the West) gained congressional districts, which were stripped from 10 others (in the Midwest and the East Coast, as well as Katrina-ravaged Louisiana).

 

[TheGoodBits]

You would never have had a Sharon Engle nominated or come so close to winning. Rubio, Paul, Cruz probably don't sniff the Senate.

Senators would go to DC representing their state, not some movement led by Jim DeMint

In a perfect world yeah. I'm not convinced you wouldn't see the same effect but at a more localized scale. State legislatures are a hotbed for crazy right now.

[Larry]

You would never have had a Sharon Engle nominated or come so close to winning. Rubio, Paul, Cruz probably don't sniff the Senate. 

 

Senators would go to DC representing their state, not some movement led by Jim DeMint

I suspect that your opinion is, shall I say, excessively idealistic.

You think your State Legislature is LESS partisan than the Senate is, right now?

----------

I'll also point out that the thread is about redistricting and gerrymandering, neither of which apply to the Senate. (Although, they would, under your proposal.)

[SkinsHokieFan]

In a perfect world yeah. I'm not convinced you wouldn't see the same effect but at a more localized scale. State legislatures are a hotbed for crazy right now.

 

 

I suspect that your opinion is, shall I say, excessively idealistic.

You think your State Legislature is LESS partisan than the Senate is, right now?

----------

I'll also point out that the thread is about redistricting and gerrymandering, neither of which apply to the Senate. (Although, they would, under your proposal.)

 

State legislatures would more then likely send more seasoned politicos who are part of that state's "establishment" (or party establishment to be honest)

 

These people generally do believe in getting things done, in particular for their state. 

 

Ted Cruz really doesn't represent Texas or else he wouldn't show up in DC just to stuff the tailpipe with crap. He would try to do his best for Texas, but he represents a small movement that help get him in office

[balki1867]

I like the idea. To me, as long as the computer has the Census data, but NOT how those people voted, then it's a pretty safe bet that the computer isn't going to have an agenda.

 

Seriously, if I had a file with census information containing ONLY the following: population (by zipcode), central latitude/longitude (by zipcode), I could write this myself over a long weekend and it'd be 100x more fair than what we have.  And thats why it'll never happen.

[Corcaigh]

Seriously, if I had a file with census information containing ONLY the following: population (by zipcode), central latitude/longitude (by zipcode), I could write this myself over a long weekend and it'd be 100x more fair than what we have.  And thats why it'll never happen.

 

Census data by zip code is available. Well it was prior to the shutdown. 

 

I think there are commercial programs that do this too. The problem is that they are misused as they allow too many other factors to be taken into account so that the side in power can simulate the best arguments to manipulate the boundaries to their benefit.

[nonniey]

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

 

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

Problem is lawyers then start writing laws and or enacting regulations to specifically benefit lawyers (This is especially true at State levels). An example: a friend of mine Mother's will isn't good enough to transfer what needs to be transferred. Apparently in Texas some law or regulation requires him to hire a lawyer to prove the validity of the will (note he is the only heir and there is no-one contesting). Until he spends 3-5k on a lawyer he can't get what was left ot him. The legal system has turned into one giant extortion racket.

[Renegade7]

I also don't agree with term limits. Its hard for people to stick with public sector as opposed to private sector because of the difference in pay. Term limits ruin the opportunity to have people in congress with multiple terms of experience to help manage the government and new-comers.

The real issue is the primaries and the amount of money being spent on these campaigns. The money is drowning out people that make sense and issues that matter to people. We need to come after citizens united for the better of the country and limit the resources of these campaigns so they have to win based on making sense, not who has the most money for negative advertisement.

Its the only way to save the moderates and give independent/3rd party candidates a chance. Redistricting only makes sense if you have people in office that aren't crooked about it or easily controlled/manipulated...

Edit: All this is truly irrelevant if GOP doesn't at minimum disown the Tea Party to help force out these freshmen extremists, imo. Nothing will get passed to help this issue as long as they hold up everything the way they're trying to

[Predicto]

Of course there are "major Dem clusters".

That's one of the classic ways of disenfranchising the other Party.

If there's a bunch of people who vote D (I'm going to use D to represent "the party that isn't drawing the districts", cause it's easier to type), who you want to disenfranchise, the preferred method of making their vote not count is to divide them up among multiple districts, where each district has a small portion of the people you want to disenfranchise, and a larger portion of people who vote for you.

(That's what the R's have done with my city, which votes like 70% D. Divide the city into multiple Congressional districts, each of which has a sliver of Gainesville, and several counties worth of rural, red, voters. Result: A city that votes 70% D has several, R congressmen.)

But, if there's too many of them? If, say, Miami votes D, and you figure that you can't get away with dividing it up into 12 Republican districts?

Then the recognized way to solve that problem, if you can't completely disenfranchise every D voter in Miami, is to gerrymander one district that contains as many Ds as possible, thus allowing you to "divide and disenfranchise" the remaining people you want to disenfranchise.

 

 

It's called "packing and cracking" and it is down to a science these days.

Problem is lawyers then start writing laws and or enacting regulations to specifically benefit lawyers (This is especially true at State levels). An example: a friend of mine Mother's will isn't good enough to transfer what needs to be transferred. Apparently in Texas some law or regulation requires him to hire a lawyer to prove the validity of the will (note he is the only heir and there is no-one contesting). Until he spends 3-5k on a lawyer he can't get what was left ot him. The legal system has turned into one giant extortion racket.

 

That is a problem, no doubt.  

 

I like to think that there are solutions to that problem that don't involve "having our laws written by people who know nothing about law or how it will be applied and interpreted."  

I also don't agree with term limits. Its hard for people to stick with public sector as opposed to private sector because of the difference in pay. Term limits ruin the opportunity to have people in congress with multiple terms of experience to help manage the government and new-comers.

The real issue is the primaries and the amount of money being spent on these campaigns. The money is drowning out people that make sense and issues that matter to people. We need to come after citizens united for the better of the country and limit the resources of these campaigns so they have to win based on making sense, not who has the most money for negative advertisement.

 

 

 

I agree.  The real solution is campaign finance reform, not term limits.  

[balki1867]

If you are so inclined, there is actually a set of online games that teaches you how gerrymandering is done (warning: VERY ADDICTIVE).  For games 2 and 4, it plays out differently depending on the party affiliation you choose.

 

http://www.redistrictinggame.org/

[twa]

.  The real solution is campaign finance reform, not term limits.  

 

Doesn't that favor the incumbents?

Most spend half their time in office campaigning and sending out garbage to the voters