One of our favorite topics is in the news again. I sure hope SCOTUS puts an end to this wasteful practice. It seems a simple computer program could do a much better job and take a lot less time and money.
VOX Might Yield Blow to Gerrymandering
NR SCOTUS Should Not Strike down Gerrymandering
USA Today Gerrymandering
WAPO What Districts Could Look Like
Isthmus Slaying the Gerrymander
VOX Might Yield Blow to Gerrymandering
NR SCOTUS Should Not Strike down Gerrymandering
USA Today Gerrymandering
WAPO What Districts Could Look Like
Isthmus Slaying the Gerrymander
16 comments:
The whole point of putting right wing Republican extremists on the court is to protect things like gerrymandering.
In thinking about drawing distant lines, it's important first to consider what the goal is. One goal would be to create districts that are responsive to the popular will. That will favor one party when it's popular, and the other party when it's popular. Another way is to draw districts in ways to ensure the victory of one of the parties. There are a lot of other ways to draw districts, but as with much else in life, there isn't much point in looking for directions if you don't know where you are going.
The fact is, it is very easy to draw election lines that serve the goal you have previously decided on. There are lots of computer programs that do it, some proprietary, some even in the public domain, I have been told. It's not a difficult thing to get done, the difficulty is in deciding what to do.
--Hiram
Oh Hiram... Please remember that both parties do this stupid, wasteful and un-democratic thing.
computer programs have made gerrymandering much more effective for the party in power in picking their voters to win the maximum number of seats. Computer programs do this so well it might motivate scotus to make a ruling that this is not fair to voters.
right now this problem is mainily GOP winning extra seats- like win 50 % of the vote and 60% of the seats. the dems have very few places in which they have been able to do this.
I could look up some links explaining where this has been done most effectively ( I know Pennsylvania is bad and wisconsin) I am not going to do this, however, as any information I present will just be dismissed out of hand.
I never dismiss your comments out of hand. I give you a great deal of questions and data, then you get frustrated and call me impolite names and accuse me of terrible things... I personally was looking for programs that avoided gerrymandering.And if you had looked at the links you would know that. :-)
If you wouldn't so frequently have a stupid viewpoint I would be better able to refrain from name calling, and you very rarely provide any worthwhile data. As I mentioned previously it is computer technology that has taken gerrymandering to a whole new level. What is needed is a bipartisan or nonpartisan commission to draw districts.
The description of a program mentioned in one of your links that makes all districts compact doesn't even make sense. As one district becomes more compact a different must expand.
Here is a better link:
How Computers Turned Gerrymandering Into a Science
In Minnesota, because the parties haven't been able to agree, reapportionment has been done by the federal courts. It's mostly gone just fine. I don't hear very much griping about it. That's one way to do it.
I tried not to characterize this in partisan terms. I suppose both parties are willing to gerrymander. When Minnesota was last reapportioned, both parties submitted plans that I believe were more favorable to them than the one ultimately adopted by the court.
Gerrymandering doesn't solve everything and isn't the cause of everything. Concentration of voters also is an issue, and that's difficult to gerrymander around.
--Hiram
Laurie,
Here is data from your preferred source and yet still you ignore it.
WAPO Here is what districts could look like
Computers are like guns... They can used for good or evil...
Speaking of one of my stupid viewpoints that you gave up on when I presented data...
Here are some interesting comparisons
Washington Times
Washington Post
Both received a... Factual Reporting: HIGH
"Please remember that both parties do this stupid, wasteful and un-democratic thing."
Perhaps. But one party does it *a lot* more.
Princeton: Busting the both sides do it myth
No denial here. The GOP has used the legal tools available to it more effectively than the Dems.
The GOP has used the legal tools available to it more effectively than the Dems.
Is the way Democrats and Republicans want to do it the right choice for all of us?
--Hiram
People like me want to gerrymander the election districts for our own political advantage.
Should we get our way?
--Hiram
My opinion is no, an area optimizing program or set of judges should do it.
You can't optimize until you know what exactly it is you want to optimize.
What political activists like me want to do is structure the districts in ways that optimize the election of members of my party to the legislatures. Is that what what the rest of you want to do?
==Hiram
Not really. I guess with so many political activists supporting gerrymandering, it will likely be around for a long time. :-)
The problem with any proposed change in the electoral system is that the people considering such changes are, without exception, people who benefited from the old system.
That leaves the matter up to the courts. And that's the intellectual problem. I am a big supporter of judicial restraint. I believe that politics is for the political branches of the government. All very fine in theory, but what does it mean in practice? The political branches decided that segregated schools were just great. The democratic response to that is that you work to change your elected representatives who will do the right thing. But will that ever happen? And meanwhile, generations of children will be stuck in desegregated schools. So what is left except to compromise some very valid but highly theoretical principles? But then once you do that, doesn't it open the door to judicial intervention in the most practical political problems of the day such as health care policy?
--Hiram
Another Link on the Topic
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