Gerry Mander

November 15, 2010 7:18 AM

How would an objective redistricting (e.g.) at the state and local level change the political landscape of the United States? In other words, who is getting screwed by the current gerrymandering?
posted by leotrotsky to Law & Government (9 answers total)

It depends on which party was in power and to what degree when the last districts were drawn. They both do it to maximum advantage when they have the power to do so. It's a pretty naked thing. With so long between redistricting, exceptions can be districts that may have been safe or advantageous years ago but may have shifted since then. You can also look at various attempts to give minorities a better chance at representation. Sometimes districts backfire by reducing the number of districts where they could be competitive and concentrating them into fewer though safer seats. These can be well intentioned moves that fail or deliberate shots that succeed, depending on who you believe in any given case.
posted by Askr at 7:33 AM on November 15, 2010

Who is getting screwed by the current gerrymandering? The people not doing the gerrymandering. I think the only states where federal districting is largely uncontroversial are Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Delaware, for obvious reasons, i.e. they only have one or two districts.

The problem with using an algorithm like the one to which you link is that communities aren't "objective." The population is not evenly distributed and follows historic and geographic contours. So, for example, the current map of Indiana has South Bend, Fort Wayne, and Indianapolis each mostly within their own district. The algorithmic map would divide them into multiple districts, two for the each of the former and four for Indianapolis. So in addition to flattening out party allegiance, you'd also flatten out local communities' ability to be accurately represented in Congress.

As it is, my current town, Fort Wayne, has a single representative they can count on to have more-or-less undivided loyalty in representing his district, and even serving the corporate interests to which he is presumably accountable can serve the people of his district by preserving jobs. With the new map, there would be two Fort Wayne representatives, one of which would also represent Elkhart and the other what appears to be the north end of Muncie. These are not areas which have much natural allegiance--they actually compete for some of the same regional business--but because Fort Wayne is a bigger town, Fort Wayne would wind up with two representatives mostly doing what it wants and Muncie and Elkhart would wind up with none, because they don't have as many people.

This isn't just an unintended consequence of the algorithm: it's precisely what it's been programmed to do. It's coming up with polygons with roughly equal numbers of people. That means splitting municipal areas along the boundaries rather than having them in the middle and trading large swaths of less densely populated areas around the borders.

So the problem here is not only that the current system is obviously political self-serving: it's that there may not be a way of drawing these lines that isn't.
posted by valkyryn at 7:55 AM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

The chief problem IMO with redistricting, as conducted now, is that it favors incumbents. A more neutral redistricting process would lead to more competitive elections, because the influence that incumbents and their allies have in drawing favorable districts would lessen. More competitive elections equals more challengers recruited equals more new ideas into the system.
posted by Mr. Justice at 8:08 AM on November 15, 2010

There is no unbiased way to draw election districts. In the example you posted, dense urban minorities would have their influence smushed into wastefully high levels (say 90%) in a tiny number of districts, whereas engineered districts can give them majorities (closer to 55%) in more districts.

In first past the post elections, two group are invariably "screwed" depending on your reference point. The overall majority can be spread out over all districts, giving them potentially 100% of seats (which you might think is unfair) or they can be concentrated into uncompetitive districts giving them fewer than half the seats (which you might also think is unfair). Geographic schemes always hit the more densely populated side unfairly.

If you think that the "right answer" to an election is something close to proportional representation, the only way to avoid those problems is to use districting which guesses at the answer to the election and views groups of voters as a monolith; by definition those are not objective.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 8:30 AM on November 15, 2010

The implicit assumption that nobody would be screwed by a shortest-splitline algorithm or other "objective" algorithm is false. Every possible set of district boundaries gives some people an electoral advantage while imposing an electoral disadvantage on others. The district lines might not be drawn with an intent to electorally harm some people and reward others, but it will still have that effect. Just eyeballing it, that "objective" district map of Alabama probably works against black voters.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:46 AM on November 15, 2010

It might be funny if they applied something similar to the Mom-logic of sharing baked goods with siblings:

One child cuts it in half and the other child gets first choice of the two slices.

Not sure exactly how this would work with redistricting: non-incumbents draw up the initial boundaries; incumbents get to make some small number of modifications?
posted by CathyG at 9:21 AM on November 15, 2010

To bring in the next layer of complexity, also imagine that the definition of "screwed" depends on larger context. In the example of black urban voters in the south, it might be desirable for them to be arranged into a smaller number of districts where their majority is stronger (even though that would be bad for them from the theory perspective); if their electoral coalition is going to control the House anyway, having one fewer allied representative could be worth having three who are from the black community and highly loyal to it instead of from marginal districts.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 9:34 AM on November 15, 2010

I can tell you that in Texas it's the Democrats getting screwed. Look at that shit!

It's sort of hilarious, but then I remember that half of the population is ideologically marginalized and the rest of the country thinks that the way that Texas "votes" reflects the way Texans really are.
posted by cmoj at 10:29 AM on November 15, 2010

Best answer: Everyone is getting screwed by the current gerrymandering.

cmoj, in Texas it's the Democrats getting screwed now, but believe you me—when the Democrats had control of the state legislature (which was basically every session prior to 2001), they were the ones doing the screwing. The majority party, whichever it is, will always draw gerrymandered maps to favor its incumbents. ALWAYS. Letting elected officials draw their own election maps is like letting elected officials determine their own salaries.

This is a hugely partisan problem for which both parties are equally guilty and neither party should be allowed to guard the henhouse.

Stateline.org did a great article the other day about how the recent Tea Party/GOP shift nationally is going to impact the maps during redistricting next spring.

When power switches suddenly—as it just has—lots of lawmakers who until recently were complaining bitterly about the other side’s abuses, suddenly are thrust into the majority. “Whoever is not in power is all for reform,” says Peg Rosenfield, of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, “and whoever is in power sees no reason.” Some relish the opportunity for payback. In Tennessee, Republicans endured decades of Democratic control. "We'll be just as fair to them,” Republican Representative Gerald McCormick told an audience last year, “as they've been to us."

The solution is not an algorithm or a formula, because that can't account for the human factor, as valkyryn pointed out. The solution is basically what CathyG suggested: make it fair by taking away any one party's advantage. This is done via an independent restricting commission, which has an equal number of members from both parties and does not take any partisan majority into account.

A quick scan of states with an independent or non-partisan or bi-partisan redistricting process include Arizona, California, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington.

Several of these commissions have created a rule that those who draw and approve the maps may not be up for an election in the 2-6 years following the redistricting. This is a smart way to eliminate self-interest.

Iowa's process is wholly unique: they have a dedicated nonpartisan map staff, who create the maps and then present them to the legislature to approve. The legislature can vote the maps down, but the same non-partisan staff team will simply go back to the drawing board.

Whether there can ever be a voting district map that is fair on all fronts (rural v. suburban v. urban, culturally, racially, majority v. minority party, haves v. have-nots) will always be arguable. But there are ways to do this correctly—at least in terms of making it politically fair.
posted by pineapple at 12:18 PM on November 15, 2010 [1 favorite]