[RD] "Race"-based Gerrymandering

[metatron]

I don't mean to attack you, as i am sure you are well informed about most of the arguments i am about to make...

...but the "racial gerrymandering" narrative of US Democrats has big loads of capital P Phony in it.



What people in these moments of outrage seem to overlook is that there are two opposing motives at play that are not naturally reconcilable and in practise usually prove contradictory:

The game theory for African Americans:

1) One can aim to maximise the number of majority minority districts with the expectation of having these districts elect minority candidates, thus maximising the number of minority delegates - in this case in the House of Representatives.

2) One can maximise the "efficiency" of the minority vote, their leverage in general.​

What the law actually said, until the 2013 Scotus decision:

1) African Americans (first and foremost) have to be enabled to elect representatives from their communities which supposedly could only be the case when they are as often as sensible and feasable put in the position of making up half of their district or more.
As per the Voting Rights Act.

2) African Americans can't be "packed", or in any way overrepresented, thus possibly rendering their votes less "effecient" for any reason other than compliance with the VRA.
As per the 14th ammendment.​

Tthe ways courts had ruled on this over the decades basically was: A district where i minority is overrepresented compared to the state's average must be a majority minority district but can't be unneccessarily ineffecient, i.e. the minority vote share has to be expected above 50% but as close to that as possible.

Then we have the game theory for white partisans:

1) Democrats get screwed by the VRA because their voters get packed. In most places 50% is just too much. They have white Democrats in those districts and this is all in states where Democrats are a minority in the first place. This is terrible from their view, a fecalshow.
They want to spread the African American vote accross an effecient number of districts to elect as many Democrats as possible. Typically white ones.

2) Republicans gladly - cynically - obey the VRA. They then try to distribute the remainder of Democratic votes in a state so that inefficiency (blue ineffeciency) is maximised.
​

The - now obsolete - NC 12th was such a district, forced upon NC Democrats by Scotus and subsequently forced to be altered by various decisions of other courts. The district in the form Cutlass is referencing was something on the order of 45%B, 40%W, 11%H, technically allready dubious, technically the district should be more inefficient, basically for fear of electing a white person.

I am pilfering 538's podcast on racial gerrymandering obviously.
And they correctly point out how this dubious district did what the law required it to do.

They travel to Greensboro, which used to be part of this district.
You know, that Greensboro:

Spoiler :

Now the new 12th, the one additional "black" district that had been so awkwardly created as mandated by the VRA, is now over a hundred miles away. It's a compact district; basically it's Charlotte.
We will get back to it.

As you can see in the above link, Greensboro - arguably too small to dominate its own district anyway - is split among two rural districts, represented by Ted Budd and Mark Walker. White, male, Republicans.

Obviously this whole set of conditions is also arguably not that terribly helpful anymore for African Americans anyway, particularly once we were to look at state legislatures:
The VRA doesn't pay respect to how African Americans have become a de facto virtual one-party minority and thus enables them to (inefficiently) elect representatives who are then doomed to permanent partisan minority.

The new 12th district is represented by Alma Adams. Easily. The district is inefficient. It's rated D+18. That's a lot.
This is deemed necessary to make the following bet:

The districts makeup is 48%W, 38%B, 14%H.
Alma Adams is, obviously, African American and a woman.
So the bet pays: What has to be achieved - white people helping to elect black congresspersons - actually happened.

Now, this is Charlotte. Look at the numbers.
Where are you willing to make the same bet with the same numbers?
Arkansas?
Mississippi?
Do i have to get the flag of Mississippi?
Do you see how far we are from Charlotte, NC?

Nevermind that all accross the South-West you have district after district with 35% hispanic population, electing boatloads of white persons.

Point is:
1) This is not as easy as one might at first think.
2) In many places there is no good solution for politicians to find, even if they tried in good faith (often enough they sure don't).
Often some blame has to be put back on the voters.

 

[Perfection]

I think most sides of US politics don't really have that good of an understanding of the intricacies of Gerrymandering. Pointing out that many democrats are confused with the implication that Republicans aren't would improper.

BTW, I highly recommend the excellent 538 podcast series on Gerrymandering Metatron alludes to:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/gerrymandering-podcast/

 

[Berzerker]

It would be nice if left, right and middle were all proportionally represented in every district, that would result in the most centrist government. The further we get from that ideal the more polarized we become as districts move toward the extremes.

 

[Perfection]

It would be nice if left, right and middle were all proportionally represented in every district, that would result in the most centrist government. The further we get from that ideal the more polarized we become as districts move toward the extremes.

It's a little more complex then that, because of a whole state has a consistent lean then all the districts will also have a consistent lean.

What Arizona did is made a lot of competitive districts with much more even Dem/Rep split and a few non-competitive districts to pack Dems and Rpublicans. The result was some very moderate districts and some partisan districts. If they just went straight proportional it would be almost all party-line republicans.

It is really well described in the Arizona episode of the podcast series I listed above.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It would be nice if left, right and middle were all proportionally represented in every district, that would result in the most centrist government. The further we get from that ideal the more polarized we become as districts move toward the extremes.

What Perf said. This would effectively mean that most states would serve up a "representative block" supporting a single party, which would not likely be anything like centrist.

 

[Berzerker]

proportional districts would be more competitive, 'safe seats' increase polarization.

 

[Perfection]

proportional districts would be more competitive, 'safe seats' increase polarization.

Proportional destricts can create relatively safe seats if the population being divied up is itself has a significant lean. (If it's a red state all the destricts will be red, which is not competitive)

It can be more competitive to make some destricts more balanced than the state overall, but to do that one must make some destricts less competitive.

 

[uppi]

Just distribute the seats proportionally by votes, already, and you get all that without having to fool around with districts.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Point is:
1) This is not as easy as one might at first think.
2) In many places there is no good solution for politicians to find, even if they tried in good faith (often enough they sure don't).
Often some blame has to be put back on the voters.

Blame the voters for a series of court decisions that were entirely out of their hands and the actions of one party or the other (depending on the state and the time frame) to game the system? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Particularly when you accept that in many locations, the politicians have picked their voters and not the other way around. I mean yes, concerned voters should speak up on this issue and vote their values on this issue. But when you live in one of these gerrymandered districts the point is that you can't actually affect any changes.

Gerrymandering has been a problem in the US forever. What's different about it today is the use of computers to micromanage the gerrymandering process for maximum advantage and a consistent, nationwide push by the Republicans to rig the entire country's electoral map after the 2010 census. Yup, some Democrats went along with it to ensure they got their own safe districts. And yes, Democrats have engaged in gerrymandering. However, the system we have arrived at is highly unfair.

Redistricting should be handled by non-partisan computer algorithms with only minor tweaking by humans allowed, in my opinion.

Do other countries use electoral districts in the same manner as the US?

 

[AdrienIer]

Just distribute the seats proportionally by votes, already, and you get all that without having to fool around with districts.

This works, but you lose representativity. Instead of voting for a person (and potentially refusing the person despite party affiliation, like in the case of Roy Moore) you'll vote for R vs D every time.

Edit :

Do other countries use electoral districts in the same manner as the US?

Most countries have districts for their legislative body election. In France we have an independent commission that takes care of it every time the old districts are outdated

 

[hobbsyoyo]

People basically already do vote for R or D every time in most cases.

 

[AdrienIer]

People basically already do vote for R or D every time in most cases.

Look at how many districts voted for Trump yet for a D representative (or for Hillary but for a R rep). It's not entirely true.

 

[warpus]

I'll never understand why Americans have such a big problem figuring out gerrymandering. Nobody else seems to have problems with it

Y'all must have taken a really bad turn there somewhere..

 

[uppi]

Do other countries use electoral districts in the same manner as the US?

In Germany, half of the regular number of seats of the federal parliament are elected like in the US. The other half is distributed proportionally (to parties that received at least 5% of the vote), but taking into account the seats that were already assigned by personal election. For example, a party that gained 20% of the vote, but has already 10% of the seats gained by winning in electoral districts, it will get the remaining 10% in the second step. Obviously, there is a problem, when a party wins more electoral districts than seats it would gain by proportional vote. The fairly recent solution has been to add seats to the parliament until all seats can be filled proportionally.

Electoral districts are suggested by an independent commission, but decided by the normal legislative process. So it is possible to gerrymander, but it is rare. There would be no benefit for the party, only for the individual, and that is usually not worth the political costs of going against the recommendations. As a result, electoral districts mostly follow existing administrative boundaries.

This works, but you lose representativity. Instead of voting for a person (and potentially refusing the person despite party affiliation, like in the case of Roy Moore) you'll vote for R vs D every time.

First, this would open up opportunities for smaller parties or lists, so there would be other (realistic) opportunities than R and D.
Second, there are plenty of options to make representation more proportional without losing the voting for a person bit. For example, the hybrid system used in German federal elections. Or you could have lists that can be modified by the voters, who would have a number of votes they could use to upvote people further down on the list, but would still count towards the party if that person doesn't make the cut.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Second, there are plenty of options to make representation more proportional without losing the voting for a person bit. For example, the hybrid system used in German federal elections.

Well to be fair German representatives are not comparable to their American counter-parts. It does make them a bit more independent from the party, but they also are more independent from the voters. Mainly requiring their parties nomination for the post, and winning with a relative majority. Which can be 20%.

 

[dutchfire]

Some thoughts

1) Single-member first-past-the-post districts is the Velocipede of electoral systems.

2) The contemporary USA is incapable of creating and maintaining effective, neutral, non-partisan institutions (at the federal level). I suppose the FBI was one of the last remaining examples, but, well, yeah...

3) The current American electorate is very polarized geographically, economically, culturally and racially. There are few swing voters.

4) It is impossible to guarantee minority representation in a colour-blind system.

1) with the help of 3) causes 2), 3) makes 1) much worse, 1) and 3) make 4) much more poignant.

Now, we come to the sausage district making. 2) means that redistricting is an inherently political process. 3) makes redistricting a lot more potent.

Now, the goals of districting are not defined constitutionally, and are mostly controlled by a patchwork of 1960s federal law and SCOTUS decisions. The latter, by construction, are made ad-hoc when a specific issue comes up, are remedial, and only represent the opinion of 5 particular dudes (and the occasional dudette) at a particular moment. It's hard to build up a doctrine based on that for any non-trivial topic.

a) Should districts be designed in such a way that minorities are explicitly represented? [See issue 1), if you want this, why are you doing first-past the post districts anyway]
b) Should districts be based on geographic/social/economic/administrative/cultural boundaries? If so, which of these.
c) Should districts be competitive?
If you answered yes to more than one of these questions, you have a problem. At least, in the mathematically rigorous sense. In practical situations, everything might still work out. In the US, it currently doesn't.

The present situation in the US is that the congressional districts give a significant efficiency gap in favour of the Republican Party. As a result, most of the energy for redistricting reform is coming from the Democratic side, and is mostly aimed at reducing the efficiency gap instead of addressing the fundamental questions of how to design the system. There are some non(less?)-partisan efforts towards better districting, such as in Arizona and California, that were passed by referendum and that seem to be working reasonably well.

Not that just reducing the efficiency gap is necessarily a bad thing. If the districting power was less potent, the associated problems would probably be less intense.

 

[metalhead]

2) In many places there is no good solution for politicians to find, even if they tried in good faith (often enough they sure don't).

Therein lies the problem. Politicians are generally terrible at solving problems, as they have no experience doing so. It's not really in their job descriptions.

Plenty of states are not gerrymandered to any noticeable degree. The problem has already been solved. The political will to implement it in a given state, however, means the people in power have to cede a very significant tool they use to hold on to that power. Absent a SCOTUS ruling that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional - which is blatantly obvious unless you're one of those idiots who doesn't believe the constitution should be applied with practicality - this is likely not going to change in most places.

If you commit to nonpartisan districtmaking, the problem of racial gerrymandering disappears entirely.

 

[Berzerker]

The only gerrymandering I'd support is designed to make districts more competitive, racial and ideological gerrymandering make districts less competitive. Course that means carving up terrain where these are concentrated and wont always be possible, but I'd rather have members of Congress concerned about angering independents and the other side too much. Unfortunately it also means fewer minorities in Congress and there is value in a diversity of experience in legislative bodies.

 

[uppi]

The only gerrymandering I'd support is designed to make districts more competitive, racial and ideological gerrymandering make districts less competitive. Course that means carving up terrain where these are concentrated and wont always be possible, but I'd rather have members of Congress concerned about angering independents and the other side too much. Unfortunately it also means fewer minorities in Congress and there is value in a diversity of experience in legislative bodies.

Making districts competitive is a laudable goal, but impossible without creating noncompetitive districts in the process. For example, if the vote distribution in a state is usually 60-40, there is no way to make all districts 50-50. You can do so for some of them, but in the process you would have to create a few 70-30 ones to compensate.

There is no way to avoid safe seats in a first-past-the-post system.

 

[metalhead]

The only gerrymandering I'd support is designed to make districts more competitive, racial and ideological gerrymandering make districts less competitive.

Making districts competitive is a laudable goal, but impossible without creating noncompetitive districts in the process.

This isn't actually true. The districts are competitive, only the competitive part happens in the primary for the dominant party, rather than in the general election.