Maybe Iâm misremembering things here, but wasnât the last big gerrymandering challenge squashed because it was based on partisan gerrymandering rather than racial discrimination? AndâŚand if so, how the is this one different, other than being ânaughty Bluesâ rather than ânaughty Redsâ?
Call me naive, but as long as this criteria is applied consistently I have zero problem with this ruling. I donât believe the path to undo partisan gerrymandering is through partisan gerrymandering in the other direction â better that the districts be drawn sensibly according to geography.
Along those lines, Michiganâs proposal 2 (to apply clear, consistent and non-partisan rules for drawing districts) was approved by voters last night. Thatâs outstanding. Getting something similar in every state would be a tremendous boost to democracy
Actually it was dispensed under a technicality as to reserve the right to strike down partisan redistricting as they believe dems might be at the wheel in 2020.
I think all redistricting should be done by non partisan entities.
I also think that districts should have a minimum number for representation. If Wyoming is short folks then their congressional district should include a part of a neighboring low population state.
If we are limited to 435 members, every time California and NY grow and Wyoming (Alaska, ND, SD etc) donât, the voters in those states are more and more overrepresented.
The Senate already advantages Small population states in the Senate by design, under the idea that the house is the opposite, and represent by population. Capping the house at 435 breaks the original framers concept of balance.
I know this goes nowhere, I could instead live with political contributions must come from the district or state of the office in question. This would kneecap rich Republican donors from purchasing cheap media market Senate seats
As a Marylander, I am OK with this. Would prefer to have a nonpartisan group draw the map and will be calling my reps about it.
âSeveral Republican voters sued over the boundaries of one of Marylandâs eight congressional districts, claiming state officials unfairly redrew it in 2011 to favor Democrats.â
"If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.
Johnny Carson (1925 - 2005)"Good. NOBODY should get to gerrymander.
Iâm in total agreement. Drawing the districts should be done in a non-partisan manner in every state.
I havenât complained about Marylandâs clear gerrymandering (we Maryland Democrats know damn well it was gerrymandered) because so many states are gerrymandered in the other direction.
However, itâs not right no matter which party is doing it.
What I would like to see is a non-partisan commission staffed by experts: policy, voting patterns, demographers, geographers and statisticians, who would decide what the priorities should be (including public comment) and then have those priorities incorporated in software in order to provide several districting options.
Iâve heard some suggestions for increasing the number of House members. No need for it to be 435. And then Puerto Rico, Guam, D.C. etc. might be able to also have representation.
But interesting idea re: low population states. No state would agree to that, but itâs creative.
Wyoming gets more representation not only because of being given its own Representative (representing 579,000 people when the average is 710,000) but also because of having 2 senators.
We could, at the very least, make the House fairer in terms of numerical representation.
That would definitely work, 100%, though I fear any attempt to bring in neutral experts would be decried by some Republicans as a liberal conspiracy in the current environment. The political ads running against Michiganâs anti-gerrymander proposal 2 were piled high with bullshit â âvote no to proposal 2, or the jokeâs on youâ and similar fear-mongering nonsense.
It could also be as simple as âdistricts shall be drawn so the boundary lines extend for the minimum possible total length, provided those boundary lines follow major roads, town/city boundaries, county lines, or major water features such as rivers or lakesâ. Thatâs easy to write in software, and is (broadly speaking) how districts are created in other countries, in most of whom gerrymandering is completely illegal⌠The minimum possible length following these rules will always be the one that most closely approximates a circle, square or other simple shape â a rule like that would effectively outlaw ridiculously complex districts that look like a rorschach test, and force districts to represent blocks of population (large or small depending on density). There would be some wiggle room to carve out partisan advantage, but only a little tiny bit.
Democrats should make it part of the platform to adopt a constitutional amendment that would require non-partisan commissions to draw district lines at all levels of state and federal government.
Pretty sure itâs also unconstitutional:
In part, because when the document was written, each State was its own sovereign entity, with all of the rights and abilities reserved to independent nation-states.
But yes, there needs to be a new Enumeration following the 2020 census, and hopefully then we can get rid of the assinine limit of 435 Representatives, establish the size of 1 district as the population of the smallest State, and go from there. Yes, it means most of the small States like the Dakotas wind up with 2 districts. But thatâs fine, it also means California comes in at 69 of the 571 Representatives, or just under 1/8 of the House (as compared to the current 53 of 435 which is also just-under-1/8th of the House).
And for the love of god, process Puerto Ricoâs last half-dozen votes for Statehood already so all of the âbut weâre exempting PR from these protectionsâ laws stop holding the islandâs head underwater. Then fill out the 571 by giving D.C. a voting Representative, and combining the other Territories into another voting district.
The problem is it should be done nationwide this way. And its not. So Dems must do this and fight for it till it becomes a law nationwide. This cant be done in blue states which get punished indirectly.
I live in the 6th District. It is a competitive District right now: perhaps the only one in Maryland. Iâm not in favor of gerrymandering, but I oppose even more unilateral disarmament. We have had Republican and Democratic Representatives over the years, and some very close races, as recently as 2014. The District comprises the very heavily Republican areas of the northwestern part of the state and the least Democratic parts of Montgomery and Frederick Counties. But the fact is that Maryland, as a whole, is cobalt blue, with Republican concentrations on the Eastern Shore represented by Republicans.
Unfortunately for me, I live in the one district in Maryland that favors the GOP.
However, in itâs current incarnation, MD-1 consists of Marylandâs Eastern Shore as well as parts of the adjacent Hartford and Cecil counties at the top of the bay. So, it already follows local geography for the most part. I could see impartial districting making only minor tweaks.
California got rid of gerrymandering and the Democrats increased their representation. By now some Republicans would be probably be happy to see it back.
Totally agree the problem is the growing (with the population) imbalance in Congressional apportionment. The random 435 cap was set in 1929, so, like @tamar and @arrendis mentioned, thereâs no reason why we canât just lift the cap. I like the suggestion of setting the default district size as the population of the least populous state. That makes sense.
Personally, Iâm down for a 1,000-member House of Representatives. It should be easier for a congressperson to represent and be more closely connected to 325,000 constituents than 750,000. Not to mention a fantastically swole Congress would have the much-needed heft to reclaim that whole co-equal branch thing. Most shit happens in committees, anyway.
Three senators per state would be a thing Iâd fuck with, too, since nearly 70% of the population will have only 30 senators by 2040. Electing one senator every cycle would feel way more intuitive.
At what point does the number of representatives become so large that it impedes the functioning of the body? My own sense, based on no particular expertise, is that weâre pretty close.
Itâs definitely a concern (and has been since the body was designed, in fact), but I think the committee structure helps alleviate some of that (as it, too, was designed to do).
The other reasonable alternative I see at this point is to acknowledge that the States arenât as independent as they were 235 years ago, and in this more interdependent nation, thereâs no reason for the districts of the House to be based on State lines, and Amend the Constitution. But thatâs a lot harder to pull off, since the smaller States will flat out refuse to lose their electoral privilege.