Now That's What I Call Gerrymandering!

[Traitorfish]

You guys should really just switch to state-wide multi-member systems already, save yourself a headache. (edit: Presumably large states would be chopped up into two or three parts, just to pre-empt the obvious point.)

 

[bhsup]

Just using County lines was found unconstitutional in Baker v Carr.

Well I think it's better to say you cannot justify disproportionate districts because of county lines. Missouri does indeed use county lines for its districts wherever possible, but in the immediate areas around Kansas City, St Louis, Springfield, and one example out in the boonies, they do get split up.

 

[ace99]

You guys should really just switch to state-wide multi-member systems already, save yourself a headache. (edit: Presumably large states would be chopped up into two or three parts, just to pre-empt the obvious point.)

And we'd have to draw lines for that wouldn't we.

 

[Core Imposter]

Props to downtown for some of the information here. I would have been hard pressed to do as well. But as someone who has lived in a district essentially created for the sole purpose of electing a black representative I have always been rather energetic about the issues of districting.

I'd like to see a different method of election.

Establish absolute warrants that grant representative rights between electors and representatives within entire states with an absolute quantity required to secure a seat. No geographic boundaries. No election day.

If would be representatives can't garner the warrants in the particular state then the state should have no representation or less than the maximum. Serve apathy a cold entree.

This would empower the people to choose exactly the type of representation they want rather than choke over the slim pickings of the partisan system.

Edit: Its worth noting that the convoluted processes exist soley because of liberal efforts to corrupt the system in the first place.

 

[Traitorfish]

And we'd have to draw lines for that wouldn't we.

Drawing two or three big lines across California would be a hell of a lot more straightforward than drawing fifty little ones.

 

[Core Imposter]

There really exists little reason to tie seats to boundaries in these times when people are less united by geography than ideology. The Senate has geography covered well enough.

 

[downtown]

There really exists little reason to tie seats to boundaries in these times when people are less united by geography than ideology. The Senate has geography covered well enough.

I dunno about that. The practical needs of an urban Democrat and a rural one are pretty spectacularly different.

 

[Traitorfish]

There really exists little reason to tie seats to boundaries in these times when people are less united by geography than ideology. The Senate has geography covered well enough.

People aren't really any more united by abstract ideology than they are by geography. The news media prefers that narrative because it's simpler and makes for more ratings-friendly shouting-matches, not because it's any more valid, and people shrug their shoulders and go along with it because critical thinking makes their head hurt.