California Re-districting experiment

[Souron]

People talk about safe districts as a bad thing, but I don't think that's the case. You do want districts to be of one demographic. What you don't want is a large minority in any district. So a 95% red district is good, a 65% red district is bad. A 50% red, 50% blue district is an unstable equilibrium -- good, but unlikely to last.

You also want districts to be stable, so that that 95% red will over time grow toward 100% from people taking politics into consideration in deciding where they want to live.

I'm using red and blue to make my point, but this applies to demographics that aren't split along the colors too.

 

[Left]

How often are new members added to the commitee? what consensus does the commitee need? 2/3rds?

It seems sensible to me. I guess my only concern would be that it would just end in cooperative Democrat-Republican gerrymandering that would result in a permanent 50-50 split no matter what the voter makeup of the state is.

 

[Cutlass]

Cutlass, this thread is cross-posted. *wink*

That said, you didn't really comment on the efficacy of this change from letting the politicians do it.

Yes, I saw that. But having already posted here, I didn't copy it over. As to the other, well, politicians are pretty much always going to try to gerrymander. But that aside, I stand by my other point. Districts, no matter who sets them, should be as coherent as possible. Maybe a commission will do this, maybe it won't. If it doesn't, then it is no better than politics, as far as I am concerned.

 

[Arwon]

Maybe "experiment" isn't the best word? Its a new law, passed by Proposition in 2008 (this year, we passed a similar Prop to have national Congressional lines drawn up by this same citizen committee), where state legislative districts will be drawn up by a citizen group. I may not be 100% right on the specifics, but the citizen group is composed of 5 Dems, 5 Repubs, and 5 Independents. To be part of it you had to submit an application to the Secretary of State office. There were 1000s of applicants. I was going to apply, until I realized that.

Here's some quotes from the article:



Now, this is combined w/ two other recent developments that should make governing in CA a lot more interesting and, hopefully, productive. The other two create open primaries (only the top 2 candidates from the primary are put on a ballot) and a removal the 2/3 requirement to pass a state budget.

I'm completely fascinated by this and am hopeful it will help us right the ship in CA.

RULES:
*No CA bashing. You hate CA, great, I get it, congratulations, go start your own thread.
*Stick to the topic. If you hate that CA has such and such environmental regulation, again, congrats, go start your own thread

Drawing up boundaries should obviously not be done by politicians, but I'm not actually sure 15 random dudes is much better. Especially since 2 3rds of them will be party-partisan. Don't you have a civil service or some retired judges who can do this?

 

[Arwon]

People talk about safe districts as a bad thing, but I don't think that's the case. You do want districts to be of one demographic. What you don't want is a large minority in any district. So a 95% red district is good, a 65% red district is bad. A 50% red, 50% blue district is an unstable equilibrium -- good, but unlikely to last.

You also want districts to be stable, so that that 95% red will over time grow toward 100% from people taking politics into consideration in deciding where they want to live.

I'm using red and blue to make my point, but this applies to demographics that aren't split along the colors too.

Uh. What? Why even bother having elections, if you're going to draw districts based on what party people there support?

 

[The Yankee]

I would love it if we did this in Minnesota, but only with the intent of eliminating most legislative seats in the state.

California has 120 state legislators and 34 million people.
Texas -- 188 state legislators and 20 million people.
New York -- 211 state legislators and 19 million people.
Florida -- 160 legislators and 16 million people.
Illinois -- 177 legislators and 12.5 million people.

And Minnesota has 201 state legislators and 5 million people. For only 5 million people, we have more full-time state legislators than 4 of the 5 most populous states in the U.S.

That's a sick statistic, though I did wonder why this state has so many state legislators.

How much fighting will there be with a split government (Emmer is not going to win this) and possibly the loss of one federal seat?

People talk about safe districts as a bad thing, but I don't think that's the case. You do want districts to be of one demographic. What you don't want is a large minority in any district. So a 95% red district is good, a 65% red district is bad. A 50% red, 50% blue district is an unstable equilibrium -- good, but unlikely to last.

You also want districts to be stable, so that that 95% red will over time grow toward 100% from people taking politics into consideration in deciding where they want to live.

I'm using red and blue to make my point, but this applies to demographics that aren't split along the colors too.

These are the extremes, but what benefit could there possibly be in drawing districts like these?

Besides, no matter how the tide goes, one could quell popular opinion in the "people's house" by drawing their opponents out of existence.

 

[Arwon]

(AZ Number 2 has a non-gerrymandering reason. Its boundaries are actually drawn by an independent commission, so the state is otherwise well-districted.)

 

[The Yankee]

(AZ Number 2 has a non-gerrymandering reason. Its boundaries are actually drawn by an independent commission, so the state is otherwise well-districted.)

It was a useful page with a number of horribly (or skillfully) drawn districts.

It doesn't help things that the way the Voting Rights Act has also been interpreted, that some gerrymandered districts almost have to be included so as to be "majority-minority."

 

[madviking]

I just wanted to know that I'm not the only one that sees a lion rearing on its hind legs [Mount Vernon area are the legs, Annandale area is the mouth] in my congressional district.

On the semi-related topic of gerrymanders, the Virginia 3rd:

 

[Souron]

Uh. What? Why even bother having elections, if you're going to draw districts based on what party people there support?

The point of congressional districts is to make representatives in congress reflect the demographic distributions of the populous. It is not to have close races between political candidates.

These are the extremes, but what benefit could there possibly be in drawing districts like these?

Besides, no matter how the tide goes, one could quell popular opinion in the "people's house" by drawing their opponents out of existence.

I'm not supporting gerrymandering, I'm just saying that political balance in each district is not a good ideal. I agree those are some ridiculous districts.

 

[classical_hero]

In Australia this sort of thing happens all the time, so we are used to it.

 

[The Yankee]

These are the extremes, but what benefit could there possibly be in drawing districts like these?

Besides, no matter how the tide goes, one could quell popular opinion in the "people's house" by drawing their opponents out of existence.

Now I see that they had two additional pages which go on to describe supposed noncontiguous districts. While they still have a point, theorhetically, those districts are connected by the waterways and bodies.

In fact, even if you did it fairly, it may be impossible not to have a district in New York City jumping over into Staten Island, across the East and Harlem Rivers, or over the western tip of the Long Island Sound from Queens to the Bronx.

NY-8 still looks ridiculous, even though one could in take a ferry or some other vessel from one shore to the other. A lot of that gerrymandering in NYC is based on ethnicity, not party.

 

[Karalysia]

Also he's a Republican, the guy who wrote the article, so that naturally discredits him and all his work.

 

[The Yankee]

Also he's a Republican, the guy who wrote the article, so that naturally discredits him and all his work.

Maps are only Democratic or Republican when viewed with these lenses. The amount of energy that gets spent on these maps would make one think this was a Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border dispute.

 

[Godwynn]

This stuff has got to stop here in Illinois.

Yes, that is the same district surrounding Decatur that occupies Moline...

 

[Karalysia]

Look what is so terrible about like minded people being in the same district, is there some value to every single district being competitive or split 50/50? If so what?

 

[The Yankee]

On the plus side, a representative of such a district couldn't be very effective inserting pork if he/she has no idea who is actually in the district.

 

[Cutlass]

Look what is so terrible about like minded people being in the same district, is there some value to every single district being competitive or split 50/50? If so what?

When a district is gerrymandered to make one group certain to win, it denies the people who are the minority in that district the right and opportunity to try to elect someone that represents their interests.

 

[Karalysia]

When a district is gerrymandered to make one group certain to win, it denies the people who are the minority in that district the right and opportunity to try to elect someone that represents their interests.

No it doesn't, it just makes it less likely for their candidate to win. Also when it's split 50/50, all that means is that half of the population of that district loses, and is going to be unhappy, and basically unrepresented. Which is why it's better to have a 75/25 district or 90/10.

 

[Cutlass]

What's fair to all is to not have the district gerrymandered at all. That way elections really represent the decisions of people who live in an area.