Ya at least for now compactness is the big one. Basically forcing cleaner maps would ensure that commissions have fewer tools to gerrymander in favor of Dems while claiming they are following some neutral principle.
Which btw is basically 100% of the reason Rs are opposed to a national redistricting amendment - Dems have proven significantly more adept at gaming the system on ‘neutral’ commissions and using that as a back door to pass soft gerrymanders that bypass the state legislative system. If you truly don’t like gerrymandering (and no one should), then it is disingenuous to say that Ds ‘want to fix it’ when their proposed fix really just means giving them an advantage everywhere.
Basically, it comes down to people who think we should have a fair way of drawing the lines, and people who think there shouldn’t be any lines at all and therefore any method to draw unfair lines that arrives at a similar result as to no lines is therefore good. I’m personally in the former camp, though I understand the reasoning of the latter camp.
The maps produced by commissions almost all have a small R bias. The only exception I can think of is California.
California is the only map that was produced by a commission that favored Democrats more than their proportion of the statewide vote, and that's really more due to California's geography being terrible for Republicans and California having such a large Democratic lean.
True Compactness wouldn't really favor Republicans all that much anymore, especially in southern states like Georgia or Texas. Compactness doesn't just mean making small inner city districts and then drawing the suburbs out to the rurals, they'd need to make the suburbs have their own districts which would favor Democrats quite a bit, especially in the long term.
Lol what are you talking about.
Michigan produced a soft D gerrymander. AZ produced a soft D gerrymander last cycle and a middling map this time around. Montana produced a middling map only because the Ds went too hard trying to soft gerrymander it. CO produced a middling map for the same reason.
I can’t think of any state with a commission that hasn’t at least flirted with a soft D gerrymander. This is because in many states trying to achieve proportionality is akin to trying to draw a gerrymander for one side or the other. It just so happens that the states with commissions tend to have geography that benefits Rs (CA being the lone exception).
I absolutely agree that drawing compact districts can help Ds in many states, and may help Ds more and more as time goes on. That’s why compactness is a true neutral redistricting standard. Proportionality is not - proportionality is the act of trying to fit one system to a different system.
Also I just named four or five commissions that drew gerrymanders for Ds overruling a duly elected R legislature. Can you name a single time that has happened in reverse? I sure can’t. It is unarguable that Ds have learned how to game the system with these committees and commissions and that they circumvent the democratic process. That’s why they’re a non-starter as a ‘neutral’ national redistricting bill centerpiece.
