High Court Weighs Minority Voting Rights

Associated Press ^ | Apr. 29, 2003 | GINA HOLLAND

[PetroniDE]

Here is the solution. Very simple and NO gerrymandering.

Make all the congressional seats in a given state AT - LARGE. No boundaries (and therefore no gerrymandering).

[lepton]

Make all the congressional seats in a given state AT - LARGE. No boundaries (and therefore no gerrymandering).

Gee, and then all representatives in NY would be the choice of the people of NYC.

[farmfriend]

pinging & marking for later read.

[PetroniDE]

Oh shoot - forgot about that.

OK - I give up. Give New York back to the British. If they don't want it, give it to the French. If they don't want it, then we invade France and make them take it (they get the Clinton's as a bonus).

[mabelkitty]

I like that idea.

[ampat]

Bad title. It should read "block voting rights" instead of voting rights. I didn't know the constitution discussed block voting rights.

[supercat]

To play Devil's advocate, why should state legislators be forced to only take geography, and not demographics, into account when drawing districts?

The idea is not so much that geography is more important than demographics, but rather that it's less-easily manipulated.

Suppose that there are to be ten districts in a state which is 60% Republican, but I'm an evil nasty Democrat and I get to draw them.

If I am not bound by geography, I can make seven districts each 57% Democrat and 43% Republica, and the remaining three districts 0%% Democrat and 100% Republican. Net result: I have a veto-proof majority in the state legislature even though the Republicans have a substantial majority of the population.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Actually, even an evil Democrat couldn't gerrymander a 60% GOP state into 7 RAT districts and 3 Republican districts, since in the real world there are no 100% Republican areas (although there are many 90% Democrat areas that have been made into minority-majority districts, which is one of the reasons why the GOP took the House in 1994 and kept it since). A 60% GOP state could be gerrymandered anywhere from 9 Republicans and 1 Democrat (if GOP strength is pretty evenly spread out and the GOP controlled the process) to 5 RATs and 5 Pubbies (if the RATs control it). But if we drew the districts randomly, it would not necessarily result in 6 Republicans and 4 Democrats--it may well be 8 Republicans and 2 Democrats. And in fact, if we have a state split 50-50, I propose that it would be fairer to create X number of Dem districts and GOP districts, since if every district was 50-50 it would result in 10 Republicans elected on a good year and 10 Democrats elected on a bad year. Taking a population's voting record into account when drawing districts may actually be fairer than doing it blindly.

But as I wrote in post #20, a system of proportional representation would ameliorate some of the evils of gerrymandering while preserving the right of like-minded communities to be kept together.

[supercat]

Actually, even an evil Democrat couldn't gerrymander a 60% GOP state into 7 RAT districts and 3 Republican districts, since in the real world there are no 100% Republican areas (although there are many 90% Democrat areas that have been made into minority-majority districts, which is one of the reasons why the GOP took the House in 1994 and kept it since).

All depends how accurate my information is, and how finely I decide to draw the districts [is there anything that requires different apartments within a building to fall in one district? I don't think so!]