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Gerrymandering - Is it just an inherent fault of our system or can it be "fixed"?


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This Supreme Court Case Could Make Elections Even More Undemocratic

ap_wire.png | By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a reversal of the usual worries about political influence on electoral map-making, the Supreme Court is being asked to let raw politics play an even bigger role in the drawing of congressional district boundaries.

The court hears argument Monday in an appeal by Republican lawmakers in Arizona against the state's voter-approved independent redistricting commission for creating the districts of U.S. House members. A decision striking down the commission probably would doom a similar system in neighboring California, and could affect districting commissions in 11 other states.

The court previously has closed the door to lawsuits challenging excessive partisanship in redistricting, or gerrymandering. A gerrymandered district is intentionally drawn, and sometimes oddly shaped, to favor one political party.

Independent commissions such as Arizona's "may be the only meaningful check" left to states that want to foster more competitive elections, reduce political polarization and bring fresh faces into the political process, the Obama administration said.

The court fight has one odd aspect: California Republicans are rooting against Arizona Republicans.

If the Republicans who control Arizona's Legislature prevail, the process for drawing district lines in California for the nation's largest congressional delegation, with 53 members, would returned to the heavily Democratic Legislature. Three former California governors, all Republicans, filed a brief with the court defending the independent redistricting commission that voters created in 2008.

California' GOP chairman, Jim Brulte, though officially neutral, said "most of us understand that this could have a negative effect on Republicans in California."

"Redistricting is perhaps the most political activity that government can engage in and a partisan gerrymander of the congressional seats could lead to more Democrats in Congress from California," he said.

But Paul Clement, the lawyer for the Arizona Legislature, said the likely differing outcomes in Arizona and California demonstrate that the issue is not partisan.

"An unelected commission may benefit Republicans in one state and Democrats in another. But that simply underscores that once congressional redistricting is taken away from the state legislatures and given to another entity, there is no guarantee that such an entity will be neutral, or favor one party, or reflect the will of the people. Whatever their shortcomings, state legislatures are elected, politically accountable and hand-picked" by the Constitution's authors for the map-drawing task, Clement said.

The argument against independent commissions rests in the Constitution's Election Clause, which gives state legislatures the power to set "the times, places and manners of holding elections for senators and representatives." It also allows Congress to change those plans.

The case could turn on whether Congress did so in a law passed in 1911, around the same time it was considering Arizona's statehood. The justices also will weigh whether the Legislature even has the right to sue over the commission's maps.

Only Arizona and California essentially remove the legislature from the process, the National Conference of State Legislatures said in support of the Republican lawmakers in Arizona.

Lawmakers' only contribution in those states is picking commission members from a list devised by others. In the other states — Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Washington — lawmakers either get first crack at drawing districts, approve plans drawn by commissions or appoint commission members of their choosing, the conference said.

Supporters of the commissions point to more competitive races in both Arizona and California since the commissions were created.

"When the district-drawing process is controlled by elected officials, the result too often is a process dominated by self-interest and partisan manipulation," political scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein said in court papers in support of the independent commission.

States are required to redraw maps for congressional and state legislative districts to account for population changes after the once-a-decade census.

Arizona voters created their independent redistricting commission in 2000 after complaints that the Legislature was gerrymandering districts to keep one party or one member of Congress in office. The five-member commission has two Republicans and two Democrats, chosen by legislative leaders from a list drawn up by the state's Commission on Appellate Court Appointments. Those four members then choose a political independent to be chairman.

The first crack at redistricting after the 2000 census pleased Republicans, and they did not sue.

Democrats did, though unsuccessfully. But after the 2010 census, Republicans were unhappy with the commission when it left Republicans with four safe congressional seats, Democrats with two, and three tossup districts.

The three tossup seats all went Democratic in the 2012 election, but one turned Republican in 2014.

State Senate President Andy Biggs, a Republican, said the suit that resulted is not meant to ignore the will of the voters.

"I would like to make this very, very clear for people who look at this — this isn't the will of the people, these lines," Biggs said. "These are unelected people, they are appointed people, they are now, we know, not even held accountable to elected people. These people who draw these lines are the most ... detached, tyrannical people, because it all boils down to one person. And that will be the chairman of the commission."

Democrats, naturally, disagree.

"The bottom line is they had no problem with the independent redistricting law when the lines were drawn to their liking," said Sen. Steve Farley, the assistant Democratic leader. "They're having problems and suing to overturn it now that the lines weren't drawn to their liking. And that's frankly not fair and frankly not legal."

A decision in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, 13-1314, is expected before July.

___

Associated Press writers Bob Christie in Phoenix and Juliet Williams in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.

___

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It doesn't have to be. I guess it is a natural thing for the parties to do. I don't know of any way you could change it. It gets ridiculous with the way some districts get drawn but outside of that I don't have too much of a problem with it. It is not impossible to overcome.

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Cream will rise to the top. No matter the rigging that takes place on either side.

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Districts should be carved up in square or rectangular shapes, and tampered with as little as absolutely necessary to maintain 600,000 per district, or close to it. In most cases the end result would be more moderate, less safe districts, more Congressional turnover, (desperately needed) and consequently, less catering to kooks.

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I live in a gerrymandered State district, but it was done under order of the feds to increase the number of minority voters. Such a weird thing. When looking at a map the question comes to mind "What madman drew this?" Anyway, it doesn't bother me a bit but I can see where letting political parties do the mapping is a system that could be improved upon.

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Districts should be carved up in square or rectangular shapes, and tampered with as little as absolutely necessary to maintain 600,000 per district, or close to it. In most cases the end result would be more moderate, less safe districts, more Congressional turnover, (desperately needed) and consequently, less catering to kooks.

You know, I was thinking of some sort of geometric solution to the problem that would eliminate "tortured" districts.

That's a good start.

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I thought this was interesting:

http://www.vox.com/2014/4/15/5604284/us-elections-are-rigged-but-canada-knows-how-to-fix-them

If you do not wish to read the entire article, here are the highlights:

"a nonpartisan agency that's not permitted to take party registration into account"

"Canadian ridings [districts] are simple and uncontroversial, chunky and geometric, and usually conform to the vague borders of some existing geographic / civic region knowable to the average citizen who lives there,"

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I thought this was interesting:

http://www.vox.com/2...how-to-fix-them

If you do not wish to read the entire article, here are the highlights:

"a nonpartisan agency that's not permitted to take party registration into account"

"Canadian ridings [districts] are simple and uncontroversial, chunky and geometric, and usually conform to the vague borders of some existing geographic / civic region knowable to the average citizen who lives there,"

That was interesting! Especially the first paragraph:

When Americans voted for the House of Representatives in 2012, Democratic candidates won 1.4 million more votes than Republicans. Yet after the dust settled, the GOP ended up with a 234-201 majority in the chamber. And notably, in several states, Republicans had won about half the vote or less — but ended up with a far greater share of the states' Congressional seats:

Of course, the problem is not really a partisan one. This just illustrates the recent history.

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I thought this was interesting:

http://www.vox.com/2...how-to-fix-them

If you do not wish to read the entire article, here are the highlights:

"a nonpartisan agency that's not permitted to take party registration into account"

"Canadian ridings [districts] are simple and uncontroversial, chunky and geometric, and usually conform to the vague borders of some existing geographic / civic region knowable to the average citizen who lives there,"

That was interesting! Especially the first paragraph:

When Americans voted for the House of Representatives in 2012, Democratic candidates won 1.4 million more votes than Republicans. Yet after the dust settled, the GOP ended up with a 234-201 majority in the chamber. And notably, in several states, Republicans had won about half the vote or less — but ended up with a far greater share of the states' Congressional seats:

Of course, the problem is not really a partisan one. This just illustrates the recent history.

You just had to go there, didn't you! ;D

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I thought this was interesting:

http://www.vox.com/2...how-to-fix-them

If you do not wish to read the entire article, here are the highlights:

"a nonpartisan agency that's not permitted to take party registration into account"

"Canadian ridings [districts] are simple and uncontroversial, chunky and geometric, and usually conform to the vague borders of some existing geographic / civic region knowable to the average citizen who lives there,"

Canada has only 10% the population the US has and that population is heavily located within 100 miles of the US border.

The big split in Canada has always been French vs English speakers. They mostly solved that problem up front by keeping French Canada as Quebec province and making Canada's central government a weak federation that allows a bilingual country. Quebec from time to time makes noises about leaving their confederation.

Canada is about 76% European and 14% Asian with the remaining groups being very small minorities. Not having to deal with large numbers of black and Hispanic populations spread across the country simplifies defining of districts. They can just focus on parties.

Since Canada has a parliamentary government, there are multiple political parties represented in the parliament. The US Congress really only has 2.

Canadian House members are elected from the ridings and a candidate merely needs a plurality of votes. So there may be House members that were not elected by a majority of the voters in the ridings.

Compared to the US Senate, the Canadian Senate is a rubber stamp chamber.

House of Commons

Senate

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I thought this was interesting:

http://www.vox.com/2...how-to-fix-them

If you do not wish to read the entire article, here are the highlights:

"a nonpartisan agency that's not permitted to take party registration into account"

"Canadian ridings [districts] are simple and uncontroversial, chunky and geometric, and usually conform to the vague borders of some existing geographic / civic region knowable to the average citizen who lives there,"

That was interesting! Especially the first paragraph:

When Americans voted for the House of Representatives in 2012, Democratic candidates won 1.4 million more votes than Republicans. Yet after the dust settled, the GOP ended up with a 234-201 majority in the chamber. And notably, in several states, Republicans had won about half the vote or less — but ended up with a far greater share of the states' Congressional seats:

Of course, the problem is not really a partisan one. This just illustrates the recent history.

You just had to go there, didn't you! ;D

It is what it is. :gofig:

And I did say this is not really a partisan issue.

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I thought this was interesting:

http://www.vox.com/2...how-to-fix-them

If you do not wish to read the entire article, here are the highlights:

"a nonpartisan agency that's not permitted to take party registration into account"

"Canadian ridings [districts] are simple and uncontroversial, chunky and geometric, and usually conform to the vague borders of some existing geographic / civic region knowable to the average citizen who lives there,"

Canada has only 10% the population the US has and that population is heavily located within 100 miles of the US border.

The big split in Canada has always been French vs English speakers. They mostly solved that problem up front by keeping French Canada as Quebec province and making Canada's central government a weak federation that allows a bilingual country. Quebec from time to time makes noises about leaving their confederation.

Canada is about 76% European and 14% Asian with the remaining groups being very small minorities. Not having to deal with large numbers of black and Hispanic populations spread across the country simplifies defining of districts. They can just focus on parties.

Since Canada has a parliamentary government, there are multiple political parties represented in the parliament. The US Congress really only has 2.

Canadian House members are elected from the ridings and a candidate merely needs a plurality of votes. So there may be House members that were not elected by a majority of the voters in the ridings.

Compared to the US Senate, the Canadian Senate is a rubber stamp chamber.

House of Commons

Senate

Since Canada has a parliamentary government, there are multiple political parties represented in the parliament. The US Congress really only has 2.

Canada must be a PR system then. Britain is a parliamentary system but only has two major parties.

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Looking at our wonderful congress, I think we should just adopt the parliamentary system. The House can stay as it is with 4 year terms of office. The Senate can become a rubber stamp for domestic legislation and also approve treaties, appointments, etc.

We'd have a Prime Minister that represents the majority party in the House. We'd spend a lot less money on elections too.

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Looking at our wonderful congress, I think we should just adopt the parliamentary system. The House can stay as it is with 4 year terms of office. The Senate can become a rubber stamp for domestic legislation and also approve treaties, appointments, etc.

We'd have a Prime Minister that represents the majority party in the House. We'd spend a lot less money on elections too.

Why? The interests of the 49% would be largely ignored. I don't see how that would help our situation.
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Looking at our wonderful congress, I think we should just adopt the parliamentary system. The House can stay as it is with 4 year terms of office. The Senate can become a rubber stamp for domestic legislation and also approve treaties, appointments, etc.

We'd have a Prime Minister that represents the majority party in the House. We'd spend a lot less money on elections too.

Why? The interests of the 49% would be largely ignored. I don't see how that would help our situation.

You'reassuming that we'd still have just 2 national parties. Parliamentary systems normally have multiple parties. The democrat and republican parties might still exist but a liberal and a conservative party might spin off. That allows for coalitions to be built to pass legislation. If the voters dislike the direction of the government that they change it out in one election. New house and new prime minister.

The 49% is being ignore today for the most part. They only have a possible filibuster capability under senate rules that are not part of the constitution and get it's suspended by the senate majority as they please.

The problem with the senate is that the founders intended for it to represent the state governments with senators appointed by the state legislatures. By admendment that was changed to election by the state voters so the senators no longer represent the state governments. Since only 1/3 of senate seats are up for election at a time, it is very difficult to change the direction of the government. If senators are to be direct elected, then they should all stand for election every 6 years.

The founders represented their states and the had a fear of a strong central government. They would not be entirely unhappy with a dysfunction Congress. Probably why they did implement the British style parliamentary system as part of the US Constitution as the federal government would be too efficient and powerful. It has become powerful anyway via the courts and the executive branch's administrative powers, but it is inefficient and not easily controllable by the voters.

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  • 3 months later...

Necroposting here to provide the result.

The US supreme court has ruled that states can appoint independent commissions to draw the boundaries of congressional districts, rejecting a challenge by Arizona Republicans in a decision that could have wide-ranging effects on the partisan congressional redistricting practice known as gerrymandering.

The court’s decision affirms the constitutionality of an Arizona state ballot measure approved by voters in 2000, which allowed an independent commissioner to determine congressional districts in the state.

State legislatures determine congressional district boundaries after each census, as dictated by the constitution, but the Arizona measure sought to undo this model, which is widely understood as a tool for partisan lawmakers to divvy up districts to favor the political party in power – also known as gerrymandering.

The supreme court ruled 5-4 that the elections clause of the US constitution does not disallow such commissions from being created.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the majority opinion that the clause “doubly empowers the people” for redistricting purposes.

“They may control the State’s lawmaking processes in the first instance, as Arizona voters have done, and they may seek Congress’ correction of regulations prescribed by state legislatures,” she wrote.

Two Republicans, two Democrats and an independent commissioner formed the committee, which Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature challenged in 2012. The supreme court agreed in 2014 to consider the case and on Monday decided that the system falls within the constitutional guidelines for determining congressional boundaries, and that the commission does not harm the state legislature.

The supreme court’s oral arguments for the case in March focused on what precisely a “legislature” is – and its decision could have changed the look of the state house. California has a similar commission; this ruling effectively affirms its validity too.

Chief justice John Roberts dissented from the majority opinion and was joined by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Scalia and Thomas also wrote dissents.

The Republican-dominated Arizona legislature sued to challenge the commission, saying that it undermined the legislature’s constitutionally protected authority to determine aspects of the election process.

Had the legislature won, the Republicans were ready to hold a special session to redraw district boundaries, which would have likely further strengthened their dominance in the state.

The supreme court’s ruling could help limit the practice of gerrymandering, which the Republican party used to great effect after the 2010 census.

With control of most state legislatures, they were able to redraw districts to maximize potential Republican wins. Then, in 2012, Republicans achieved a 33-seat majority in the House, though the party had 1.4m fewer votes across the board.

Roberts said that the constitution’s election clause did not give authority to the public, but was instead meant for elected officials.

“The amendment resulted from an arduous, decades-long campaign in which reformers across the country worked hard to garner approval from Congress and three-quarters of the States,” Roberts said.

“What chumps! Didn’t they realize that all they had to do was interpret the constitutional term ‘the legislature’ to mean ‘the people’? The court today performs just such a magic trick with the elections clause.”

Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for liberal thinktank Common Cause, said that with this ruling, “the supreme court recognized that gerrymandering has to be addressed”.

She is optimistic that the decision will encourage citizens to push for initiatives that would make for a more transparent electoral process.

Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, celebrated the decision in a statement. The ACLU filed an amicus brief in the case.

“This ruling affirms that voters have the flexibility to adopt a commonsense reform to address the problem of partisan gerrymandering by using an independent nonpartisan commission to draw congressional districts,” said Ho.

“In essence, it says voters can keep the fox from guarding the henhouse.”

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First of all: Thanks, Homer, for an interesting topic that can be discussed in a non-partisan manner.

Gerrymandering will most likely exist as long as two other conditions exist:

1 There are corrupt politicians who will put the self-interests of themselves and their cronies above the good of the people, and

2. Those politicians have the power to exploit such tricks.

I know we can't do anything about #1 and no party will ever be free of them. So the best we can do is take the power out of their hands. I do think some sort of algorithm or computer model could be developed that would optimize compactness in districts, while even factoring in such things as demographics, economic interests, school districts, etc. if such were considered legal and important. But it would still take a commission of some sort to establish or commission such a project.

Which begs the question: Who picks the committee, and who guarantees its impartiality? Can a truly independent, non-partisan commission even be put together in the divisive minefield of current politics?

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...Which begs the question: Who picks the committee, and who guarantees its impartiality? Can a truly independent, non-partisan commission even be put together in the divisive minefield of current politics?

The fact that both parties have sued is a good indicator that it must be working. ;)

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...Which begs the question: Who picks the committee, and who guarantees its impartiality? Can a truly independent, non-partisan commission even be put together in the divisive minefield of current politics?

The fact that both parties have sued is a good indicator that it must be working. ;)

:thumbsup:
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