How to End Gerrymandering -- A Simple Plan

Human Events Online ^ | February 28, 2005 | Mac Johnson

[camle]

get a third grader from out of state to draw the precinct boundaries.

[Teacher317]

The difference between the two forms is simply the ratio of their areas to their perimeters. Jurisdictions that have been honestly grown by time and community have a small perimeter relative to their area. Gerrymanders, by comparison, have very large perimeters defining their modest areas. Banning gerrymandering could be as simple as passing a law defining a maximum allowable perimeter to area ratio, corrected for scale.

Add this to the 2008 Contract with America.

[Brilliant]

"Gerrymandering is obviously a problem..."

Isn't it interesting that the liberal media suddenly says that gerrymandering is "obviously a problem" now that it is boomeranging on the Democrats? Why wasn't it obvious over the last 60 years when it was keeping Republicans out of office?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Just do a Voronoj tessellation on the population density.

[Terabitten]

Or, alternately, do not allow district lines to cross county lines. In other words, whole counties must be included in a district. One county cannot be in two districts.

Not only does that help end gerrymandering, it simplifies access to their elected officials by the people.

[Congressman Billybob]

Once again, a reporter begins a story with a false anecdote because of lack of easy research. The "gerrymander" did not come from some conversation. It came from a cartoon published in Boston in which the cartoonist took the outline of a district around Boston, added wings and claws, and named it the "Gerrymander."

How can one seek to be a competent reporter without knowing how to use Google to source one's historical (or other) key points?

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "By Dawn's Early Light"

[Jim Noble]

Everyone has their favorite "king for a day" project.

Ending partisan districting is mine. Let's do it.

[Atlas Sneezed]

I'm no fan of moderates, but it has been reasonable pointed out that having the nation divided into mostly secure congessional distracts makes politics more polarized, because few need to reach the other party in an election.

[You Dirty Rats]

With the advent of computers and voter registration data available on CD-Roms, the drawing of districts has become progressively more ridiculous recently. The Wall street Journal was complaining about this over ten years ago when districts were drawn in California and North Carolina.

One recent trend has been an alliance of Black Democrats and Republicans. The Republicans draw as many "black districts" as possible, and clean up on the rest.

Personally, I think democracy means voters selecting politicians, not the other way around. Our House of Representatives can no longer be considered "democratic". That's a problem IMHO.

[Brilliant]

It's interesting, though, that the media is always ranting about the gerrymandering in Texas, but completely ignores the much more extreme gerrymandering in CA and NY. The primary reason the Dems retained control of the Congress after Reagan is because of the extreme gerrymandering that was in place. Of course, the media said nothing about it because the Democrats were the beneficiaries. Now that the GOP has turned the tables on them, though, they are going ballistic.

[Strategerist]

The Republicans draw as many "black districts" as possible, and clean up on the rest.

I think it's more Democrats trying to eliminate "Black districts" by parceling out blacks (particularly in urban areas) by cutting the city into 4-5 "pie slices" that extend out to the white suburbs so they have a bunch of 55-60% Democrat districts that will elect a bunch of white democrats.

[mvpel]

This author pans the current redistricting initiative in California, but it's not quite as simple as he makes it sound. There are Federal laws regarding minorities that must be addressed in the process of drawing districts, which seriously complicates prospects for automated district-drawing.

[sittnick]

Or, alternately, do not allow district lines to cross county lines. In other words, whole counties must be included in a district. One county cannot be in two districts.

Then how do you deal with Cook County, Illinois, which encompasses a whole lot of population, and is also known for corruption?

Another problem, similar to some of the forced busing questions, is how we deal with results that may be at odds in certain places over judicial orders regarding race issues in certain districts.

Finally, while this setup would reduce gerrymandering, it would not eliminate it. At some point human beings have to decide which set of contiguous rural counties go together. Even with an honest effort, natural topographical features (e.g. rivers, mountains and lakes) and the odd shape of some states (Michigan, Tennessee) may help force salamander type results.

[tx_eggman]

In other words, whole counties must be included in a district. One county cannot be in two districts.

So, Harris County, Texas, with 4 million people can only be in one district

How about one district can't span county lines?.

Nope, won't work here either. You've got to lump more than one county into a Congressional district out in West Texas - population is pretty sparse in places.

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

[Terabitten]

Okay, so it was a dumbass idea. :)

[mrsmith]

"Thus, one of America's oldest and most-questionable political practices was born and named, surprisingly in Massachusetts."

FALSE!

The first federal gerrymander was in Virginia in the first federal election.

"To humiliate Madison, (Patrick) Henry managed his rejection by the (Virginia) Assembly for a seat in the Senate, referring to him as one unworthy of the confidence of the people.....in an attempt to exclude Madison from the House of Representatives as well, Henry, a master of the "gerrymander" long before that term had been invented, placed Orange County (Madison's home area) in a Congressional district otherwise composed of counties considered heavily anti-federal." (Ketcham, p. 275).

Of course, state district gerrymandering predates the union.

[CGTRWK]

On the national level, one house seat represents around 675,000 Americans. There can be no representative government on this scale because outside of a few cities, there are no homogenous communties of that size

Districts drawn by county lines, circles, or squares will shake up Congress once, but at the end of the day they will no better reflect the will of the people within than the "salamanders" do now. Most Americans would remain lumped together with other communities far away with which they have little interaction or common ground. But that lack of representation would be inflicted by geography and not politics, which at least takes some of the malice out of it.

Reasonably representative government would require 10,000 representatives, to be conservative. 20,000 would be better. A body of fulltime legislators this large would be paralyzed by its own size and not pass anything at all, which would be great. More reasonable would be for those 20,000 to meet once and vote amongst themselves on 400 or so fulltime representatives.

Americans would have a chance at real, one on one input with their representative, and the serving politicians would have no state to send pork back home to, so that function could fall back on the Senate.

[Radix]

"Ballot initiatives are a proven way to force the will of the voters unto an unwilling legislature."

Ha, not in this state (Massachusetts) where the legislature has overturned certain ballot initiatives.

The best thing for solving the problem here in Massachusetts is the census. Massachusetts is bound to lose a seat after the 2010 census. I think that is terrific.

[djreece]

marking