Posted on 01/07/2002 4:50:48 PM PST by Rockinfreakapotamus
New York's 12th looks like a puppy jumping
Illinois 4th looks like someone spitting in 2 directions at once.
Louisiana's 4th looks like smoke coming out of a firecracker
Texas 30th looks like guy wearing a helmet, who lost all 4 limbs in a motorcycle crash. (With a stream of blood.)
Texas' 29th looks like a stumpy dragon, facing left.
Florida's 3rd looks like Tarzan swinging on a vine.
NC's 12th looks like a drop of black food coloring in milk.
Georgia's 12th looks like a monster with a tree on its nose. and on its back.
The plan that was deemed least disruprive to the current configuration was chosen - one county from D2 (Gilmer) was ceded north to D1, and a second county (Nicholas) from D2 was ceded south to D3. IMHO, since county lines cannot be crossed in WV, they should have examined the aspect ratios (width:height) of the three districts in each configuration and selected the plan with the lowest sum or average aspect ratio, i.e. the plan with the "squarest" districts. This would address your "convex" idea.
Again, let me reiterate that the root cause of this mess is that many states allow congressional districts to cross county lines (I guess then along precinct boundaries) and the politicians then mix race into this to make a big mess. I suppose this is necessary in high population urban areas, but IMHO should not be allowed elsewhere.
Well, there are some cities that cross county lines; I see nothing wrong with allowing a district to do so if it stays within the city boundaries near the 'crossover' point. Not sure how to best codify such a requirement, though.
On the other hand, I've sometimes wondered what would happen if one were to codify a specific procedure for drawing districts which, given a particular set of census data, would yield a specific deterministic result? Such districts would likely have boundaries which made no logical 'sense', but the goods and bads should pretty well balance out.
Yes. Well, she would be queen of greed except she's more qualified for "Queen of Clueless Incompetence."
This needs to be Federal law...
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