Gerrymandering Shoe on the Other Foot

[silverscreenselect]

I'm finding this all very amusing right now. Several Republican-leaning stage legislatures in North Carolina, Alabama, and Ohio, among others, drew up some highly gerrymandered Congressional maps to maximize the number of seats held by Republicans (all three of these plans are being challenged in court). Not a peep from Fox News and the Republican right wing media about any unfairness.

Now the New York legislature does the same thing. New York currently has 20 Democrats and seven Republicans in Congress. The state loses a seat in 2022, but the new map will result in 22 Democratic-leaning districts and four Republicans. Now the Republicans are doing all the complaining. I actually got an email this week from someone who usually sends me emails asking me to sign up for his overpriced writing classes. This time he was crying about how unfair the new Congressional districts in his home state of New York were and asking for my help (I'm not sure what I could do about that here in Georgia in any event).

The new map hasn't been approved by the legislature, where the Democrats hold a narrow supermajority. If two Democratic state Senators vote against it, the map wouldn't pass. And it's almost certain to get a challenge in the courts. Ironically, the New York constitution has stronger anti-gerrymandering language than most states, prohibiting drawing maps to favor or disfavor incumbents or other candidates or political parties (which is routinely violated in practically every single state redistricting nationwide) and to make maps as contiguous and compact as possible. But the New York state courts are heavily dominated by Democratic appointed judges. (The U.S. Supreme Court has essentially foreclosed a challenge on federal constitutional grounds.)

This continues a rather surprising pattern this term that Fivethirtyeight has tracked. It was widely assumed that Republicans would benefit substantially from redistricting, considering the number of Republican dominated legislatures. As of now, however, Fivethirtyeight projects a loss of two Republican seats and a gain of 10 Democratic seats for a net pickup of 12 for the Democrats on that basis (The reason this isn't a zero-sum situation is a reduction of eight seats that were formerly considered highly competitive.) If you eliminate the New York map, that Democratic gain is cut in half. Of course, actual election results often vary from a district's lean. The reason this redistricting hasn't been a disaster for Democrats is that in many cases, Republicans decided to shore up their advantages in the districts they currently hold rather than split up formerly Democratic districts.

[Bob78164]

The new map hasn't been approved by the legislature, where the Democrats hold a narrow supermajority. If two Democratic state Senators vote against it, the map wouldn't pass. And it's almost certain to get a challenge in the courts. Ironically, the New York constitution has stronger anti-gerrymandering language than most states, prohibiting drawing maps to favor or disfavor incumbents or other candidates or political parties (which is routinely violated in practically every single state redistricting nationwide) and to make maps as contiguous and compact as possible. But the New York state courts are heavily dominated by Democratic appointed judges. (The U.S. Supreme Court has essentially foreclosed a challenge on federal constitutional grounds.)

You're behind the times. New York's map has been approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Hochul. --Bob

[silverscreenselect]

The new map hasn't been approved by the legislature, where the Democrats hold a narrow supermajority. If two Democratic state Senators vote against it, the map wouldn't pass. And it's almost certain to get a challenge in the courts. Ironically, the New York constitution has stronger anti-gerrymandering language than most states, prohibiting drawing maps to favor or disfavor incumbents or other candidates or political parties (which is routinely violated in practically every single state redistricting nationwide) and to make maps as contiguous and compact as possible. But the New York state courts are heavily dominated by Democratic appointed judges. (The U.S. Supreme Court has essentially foreclosed a challenge on federal constitutional grounds.)

You're behind the times. New York's map has been approved by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Hochul. --Bob

Sorry about that. But the court challenges are sure to follow.

[Spock]

Don't forget about the Democrat's extreme partisan of gerrymander of Illinois as well.

[BackInTex]

Been trying to post a response here but keep getting the Internal Server error.

Edit: Cant' paste what I typed here, but I can type this.

Edit2: Maybe if I retype everything.

Edit3: Gerrymandering is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't things.

Edit4: No non-gerrymandered alignment would pass with the courts.

Edit 5: In a truly colorblind non-partisan process some demographic will get underrepresented.

[BackInTex]

Still having trouble responding.

There is no outcome that will make everyone satisfied. The party in power get to decide.

There should be controls and limits but I don't know what those would be where they could be applied consistently without bias.

Even with today's supercomputers I don't think there could be a result that would distribute the population equitably among demographics using only geography (as I assume the founders intended).

Done! Finally. I don't know what the problem was but I could only post 1 line at a time and had to keep going back with edit to add additional lines.

[Pastor Fireball]

Don't forget about the Democrat's extreme partisan of gerrymander of Illinois as well.

Maryland says, "Hold my beer."

Now the New York legislature does the same thing. New York currently has 20 Democrats and seven Republicans in Congress. The state loses a seat in 2022, but the new map will result in 22 Democratic-leaning districts and four Republicans. Now the Republicans are doing all the complaining.

Whatever you do, don't show the Repubicans my non-gerrymandered New York map that produces only two red House districts:

https://davesredistricting.org/join/1be ... 39617f0dcb

[Ritterskoop]

There is no outcome that will make everyone satisfied. The party in power get to decide.

There should be controls and limits but I don't know what those would be where they could be applied consistently without bias.

Even with today's supercomputers I don't think there could be a result that would distribute the population equitably among demographics using only geography (as I assume the founders intended).

Yes, the more I think about geography, the more I wonder if we need to figure out some other way. The concentrations of population in cities means pure geography is going to make this hard to accomplish.

We have 14 districts now in NC, if we can ever get maps nailed down, and I am just trying to think of a way where you could vote for a slate of 14 people for Congress. Like, for Charlotte City Council, we vote for some districts based on geography, but then we have I think three at-large positions. Maybe we could still do 10 NC districts, with four in the cities and six in the rural areas, and then three at-large positions? You could then insist that anyone running in a district has to live there (this is not a current requirement, as though the voters can be trusted to weed out the outliers), and anyone else would have to run at-large.

Not that anyone will read it, but I am going to send this in to someone for consideration in 2030, when we get new districts again after the Census.

My dad redrew the NC districts 50 years ago when he was in college, and everyone who looked at them said they were too good to be passed by any legislature, because they couldn't be any fairer to both parties.

[Bob78164]

You could then insist that anyone running in a district has to live there . . . .

This part would require a constitutional amendment. --Bob

[Ritterskoop]

I assumed my entire proposal would require an amendment, so that's no problem or surprise.

[Bob78164]

I assumed my entire proposal would require an amendment, so that's no problem or surprise.

The rest of it could be implemented by statute.

But at-large seats have frequently been attacked as violating the Voting Rights Act by making it impossible for minorities to elect representation of their choice. It's not clear to me how this argument would play out in a hybrid model such as you're proposing. --Bob

[Ritterskoop]

I assumed my entire proposal would require an amendment, so that's no problem or surprise.

The rest of it could be implemented by statute.

But at-large seats have frequently been attacked as violating the Voting Rights Act by making it impossible for minorities to elect representation of their choice. It's not clear to me how this argument would play out in a hybrid model such as you're proposing. --Bob

Didn't know this. My only experience has been with our city council and even smaller situations like our homeowners board.

I thought this proposal might make it easier for a group that is shoehorned into a few tiny geographical counties to have a say in some of the other races. Charlotte, Asheville, and the Research Triangle would be my four city districts, but that is well over half of the state's population, and they are only getting four of my ten districts (so, less than half). If those voters could also choose among folks running at large, they might have a larger voice than they did previously, while still being fair to rural voters.

I have watched our districts be sliced and diced in grotesque ways these past couple of years -- and I am gather that other folks did it in other ways when they were in power -- but wouldn't it be nice for someone to just stop, and say we are more interested in some kind of balance, rather than in re-electing whoever happened to win the most recent time.

[silverscreenselect]

The US Supreme Court by a 5-4 vote today reversed the decision of a lower federal court blocking the Alabama Congressional redistricting. They set the case for oral argument on the merits next term but the decision means that the new Alabama map will be in effect for the 2022 elections. The map means that in all likelihood Republicans will have the same 6-1 House majority they have now. The Chief Justice and the three liberal justices dissented and would have allowed the lower court decision to stand.