Redistricting Reform:

[hopper]

People complain about gerrymandered districts so what is the best way to do redistricting reform? What rules should be put in place for a result of a non-gerrymandered fair redistricting map?

[hopper]

The courts have produced some rather good maps when the legislatures have failed to act. Colorado isn't too bad, New York came out much better than expected and upstate was nearly perfect.

Not all legislatures are horrific though. In some states, particularly the small ones with whole counties requirements the results, like IA and WV, were fine. Whereas at the same time the independent commission flubbed Arizona. I suppose the strength of the criteria is more important than who is doing it, but in most states a commission is better than the legislature.

These two points are the core of the issue. A balanced set of objective criteria can heavily constrain political gerrymandering. Some legislatures have strong traditions of fair application of criteria like IA, but others have failed. MI is an instructive example of that failure.

From 1970-90 divided government in MI led to a special master, Bernie Apol, overseeing redistricting. In the late 90's he codified his rules and the legislature adopted them as statute. Though his maps were regarded as fair, the legislature failed to realize the loopholes when they passed them into law. The result is that those same neutral criteria in the hands of a partisan legislature in 2001 and 2011 created plans skewed towards one party. The good rules were not robust against those who had clear political goals. That's where an independent commission can do better.

However, I believe that sufficiently robust rules can produce fair maps, and yet allow some participation by the legislature which represents the whole of the state. IA is probably the best model of fair interaction between a legislature and neutral criteria for a map. IA uses a hybrid of a neutral body to draw the map subject to constraints in statute with the ability for the legislature to veto the map based on specific criteria that the legislature finds lacking, again governed by statute.

Yeah I looked at the Michigan US Congressional Map from the decade of the 90's and the district lines were drawn pretty good.

[hopper]

I think the California Commission-style works fine, or court drawn maps in some cases (The Nevada and New York maps are pretty close to perfect)


I'm not a fan of the Arizona-style, which focuses too much on the voting patterns of areas rather than whether communities should be in a district together. I also don't like the Washington/New Jersey system that only serves to shore up incumbents.

Well the New Jersey one I will go through:

Pallone's district shouldn't even be in Monmouth County. It probably should be up in The Northern Half of Middlesex County(Woodbridge, Iselin, Colonia, Perth Amboy, and maybe even Sayerville) and take in the Union County Suburbs like Roselle, Roselle Park, Winfield, and Clark. Maybe even take in the town of Kenilworth.

Chris Smith's district should take up the Northern Half of the Jersey Shore, make up most of Ocean and Monmouth Counties instead of some of Monmouth County and some of the Mercer County Suburbs like he has now.