CA: Redrawing the Electoral Maps - Let's put redistricting in the voters' hands

SFGate.com ^ | 11/3/03 | Ted Costa - People's advocate

[NormsRevenge]

The two-party gerrymander imposed by our Legislature in 2001 is absolute proof that our elected officials are out of touch with the people. The arena, said Theodore Roosevelt, is where politics is played out. The arenas in California are the districts for state Senate, Assembly, Board of Equalization and U.S. House of Representatives. These are where our modern-day politicians have rigged the game in their own favor and cut the voters out.

[NormsRevenge]

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[farmfriend]

OH great! LA and SF deciding on our redistricting. Lovely!

[Iolaus]

They're more likely to reject gerrymandering than the legislature is.

[Bob]

The initiative also states that the districts should be as equal in population and as compact as possible, to avoid oddly shaped districts, where tentacles stretch out to give one party an advantage over the other.

I bet an artificial intelligence algorithm could easily do exactly that.

The program's only inputs should be population data and existing political boundaries. If race and party affiliation data were kept out of the program's input, you'd end up with a race-neutral, party-neutral redistricting. (Of course, the politicians would never go for that.)

[Uncle Hal]

You are never going to take the politics out of redistricting. Never.

[pogo101]

Anyone know where I can learn more about this proposal? Costa's Peoples' Advocate site is hopelessly out-of-date.

[Amerigomag]

Athough Costa's plan is unneceassarily complex (special masters followed by about 4 layers of review) at least he's addressing the problem.

Two things are certain. The state legislature should have nothing to do with political districts and district boundries should reflect geographic considerations, not political, cultiral or racial.

The coordinate data from the census, processeed by any of a mutitude of programs could redistrict without human interference.

The electorate simply has to have the will to say no to the legislature. The rest is so elementary that even a child evaulate the fairness of the results based on the shapes of the districts.