Comments on: Gerrymandering at Work

By: MM

MM — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:08:49 +0000

You're exactly right James. The big parcel to the northeast was annexed for Denver International Airport and the road to it.

As anyone who has ever flown into or out of Denver knows, the airport is not located remotely close to any business districts (when it was built, it wasn't close to anything. Now there are some housing developments sprouting up). The little area to the southwest was done, IIRC, in order to annex some mostly commercial developments.

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:53:05 +0000

MM: Interesting on Denver's odd shape. It must have annexed territory over time unless there's some obvious topographical feature I'm missing.

By: just me

just me — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 20:49:41 +0000

I would prefer to see districts controlled more by geography of the state than anything else. I look at some districts in some states and I wonder how in the world they make sense.

By: MM

MM — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:58:56 +0000

A minor quibble on your listing of CO-01 as one of the most gerrymandered districts. It matches up almost perfectly with the City and County of Denver as seen here. I wouldn't consider that to be a problem at all.

By: Dave Schuler

Dave Schuler — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:12:19 +0000

I'm only familiar with the history and politics behind one of the districts in your map, James: the Illinois 4th. That's Luis Guitierrez's district and without its gerrymandering the city of Chicago, despite its large Hispanic population, would have no Hispanic congressmen. That's a gross oversimplification of a dozen years' worth of lawsuits and wrangling but there it is. Our current system is one that has been designed to maximize incumbent security. Surprise! It's also a tremendous example of how political cartels work: the two major parties have, essentially, agreed to divide the market between them. As far as I'm concerned the only real solutions are just as impossible as your proposal of “leaving it to the professionals” (do professionals have no interests?). Quis custodiet ipsos etc. The solutions are to reduce the payoff for gerrymandering by substantially increasing the number of congressional districts and reducing the influence of the federal government. T'ain't gonna happen but it's fun to dream.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:05:12 +0000

Drawing legislative districts is a poltical act. We vote for politicians who make those decisions. I am not interested in a system where neutral third parties exercise political power.

This is another issue where some people are dissatisfied with the results of a democratic process. Thus they turn to non-democratic alternatives; courts, panels of "neutral experts".

Voters can hold politicians accountable. It may be tedious, it may be lengthy but eventually the voters get their licks in.

By: yetanotherjohn

yetanotherjohn — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:04:55 +0000

I used to live in a district, drawn by the Texas legislature when the democrats controlled it, where the republican won with 90+ percent of the race. So using you example, I can point to a case where it was closer to 50K D and 550K R in a couple of districts and 350K D, 250K R in 10 other districts.

One good test to see if the state is gerrymandered is to compare the house party make up to the state wide vote on governor, senator and president. If there is even close to balance, then it probably isn't gerrymandered. If you see one party winning all the state wide races, but a majority of the house seats going to the other party, then expect to see gerrymandering. That was the situation we had in Texas before the mid decade redrawing.

Part of the problem is that if humans are involved, its hard to not make this partisan some how. And if you take humans out, you introduced other problems. An example is the mechanical approach to re-districting. You first divide the state into equal sized precincts of no more than X number of voters (500, 1000, whatever is going to make sense for the state). Then starting at the precinct at the farthest north-east point of the state, you start to build congressional districts by aggregating the precincts to the south and west. You first add the adjoining precinct that is to the south and furthest east, then the next mutually adjoining precinct to the south and west, and so on until the first precinct is completely surrounded is completely surrounded. Then add the next precinct to this group of precincts that is adjoining, to the south and furthest east. Keep adding until the district is done. Then start with the next precinct that would have been added and continue. A computer could do this in minutes once the precincts are drawn. If you further make it that no more than two precincts can cross a city boundary per city or county boundary, you minimize the ability to gerrymander the precincts. The problem is that you would then have "media markets" get chopped up, making it harder to campaign.

By: Spam filtering help

Spam filtering help — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

s R3000 appliance, a 1U stand-alone server appliance that connects to the network to monitor and filter Whether it’s malware or spam, internal users can invite some bad stuff into the network,” says Paul Myer, president and COO Gerrymandering at Work Outside Beltway - NOTE: My spam filter automatically deletes any TrackBacks that do not actually link and refer to this post. Those doing it manually should ensure they have linked the post before sending the TrackBack ping.

By: My Dogs are Smarter

My Dogs are Smarter — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

James Joyner goes out on a ledge with a discussion about Gerrymandering of congressional districts: It would make a lot more sense to have these lines drawn by objective professionals with no stake in the outcome, taking into account longstanding geographical, county, municipal,

By: » Gone Hollywood

» Gone Hollywood — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

s an interesting idea and one that offers promise for the future of citizen journalism. I’m less optimistic about it becoming an exemplar for other races, though, given that so few seats are actually competitive because of extreme Gerrymandering and the ability of incumbents to buy their re-election through constituent service and pork barrel projects on our dame. [IMG] [IMG]