Busting the "both sides do it" myth

[krazen1211]

The Massachusetts map is problematic for many reasons, but the idea that the Republicans would ever at any time stand more than a roughly even chance of winning a House seat in Massachusetts under a fair map is ludicrous as long as the United States continues to use single-member constituencies. The nature of the partisan distribution here is such that the only type of map that could possibly mirror the statewide vote would have to be among the most egregious Republican gerrymanders in the country.

His claim is that such a map wouldn't be an "egregious" partisan gerrymander, but, rather, a "just" gerrymander. His claim is that Maryland ought to be 7-1, and, if it takes spaghetti lines to achieve 7-1, then justice demands that it be done. Presumably, if he believes 8-1 is the just outcome in Massachusetts, then that would justify spaghetti lines to achieve.

That isn't my position. That is merely taking what he claimed seriously.

I just tried to make a McCain district on a map of Massachusetts. Any McCain district. I couldn't even get to six hundred thousand people.

I imagine a Romney district would be slightly easier. Slightly. A district that's winnable for the right kind of Republican could probably be done in one or two different areas, but there are districts in Massachusetts that are under far-flung but conceivable circumstances winnable for the right kind of Republican as it is.

The 'just' outcome in Massachusetts would probably be something like 7-2 or even 6-3, which isn't going to happen by any means. Even if we were to accept Wang's logic about Maryland and apply it to Massachusetts, this state's geography self-gerrymanders much more successfully than Maryland's does.

Certainly BSB is quite aware of that.

One can either make a claim based on simple mathematical ratios, or based on geography. One should not bounce between such claims in an arbitrary and haphazard manner. In what is a curiosity, the Republican Party's 10% of the house vote in Massachusetts and 25% of the vote in Maryland, sums up to 3 seats, and the geography of such points to all 3 seats coming from Maryland for a combined seating of 14-3. If such is your thing anyway.

The mathematics does not change regardless of whether such results are the product of natural order or the product of a vicious gerrymander. If such is your thing anyway.

Alternatively, one could simply acknowledge that Gerrymandering dates back to Patrick Henry and James Madison, and let the states draw maps as they see fit, and acknowledge the vicious gerrymanders as they come.

[krazen1211]

In regards to Texas and especially Arizona, the main factor there is "rotten boroughs", the turnout in Democratic Hispanic areas is FAR below in Republican areas. Especially in Arizona, where Ed Pastor's district has some of the worst turnout in the country, and is both the most Democratic district in Arizona (in percentage) and least Democratic (in raw votes). But it elects just as many representatives as a high turnout Republican district does. I haven't looked at the numbers for the Hispanic districts in Texas, but similar ones wouldn't surprise me.

4 Texas Democrats (TX-15, TX-29, TX-33, TX-34) received less than 90000 votes. Texas Republicans won most of their seats with 150000 to 200000 votes and many of the people they defeated by 20+ points got more than 90000 votes.

[minionofmidas]

In regards to Texas and especially Arizona, the main factor there is "rotten boroughs", the turnout in Democratic Hispanic areas is FAR below in Republican areas. Especially in Arizona, where Ed Pastor's district has some of the worst turnout in the country, and is both the most Democratic district in Arizona (in percentage) and least Democratic (in raw votes). But it elects just as many representatives as a high turnout Republican district does. I haven't looked at the numbers for the Hispanic districts in Texas, but similar ones wouldn't surprise me.

4 Texas Democrats (TX-15, TX-29, TX-33, TX-34) received less than 90000 votes. Texas Republicans won most of their seats with 150000 to 200000 votes and many of the people they defeated by 20+ points got more than 90000 votes.

This has consequences - without VRA style protections such areas can be distributed among their neighbors comparatively easily as they're easier to outvote.

And Republican redistricters have an interest in throwing any and all nearby White Librul areas in with these districts if they are to exist at all. Because they usually don't suffer from that problem, at least not anywhere near as much. That (in Phoenix even more than in Tucson) was the core of Torie's 7 R for AZ plan.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

In regards to if a McCain seat in Massachusetts is possible, the answer is "well sort of". This district voted for McCain by about 600 votes, but obviously wouldn't be legal because of how it divides the rest of the state into uneven pieces, making even population districts impossible.

[Beezer]

Regardless of who gerrymandered to what extent, it seems clear that the GOP did a better job:

http://brennan.3cdn.net/5890614be697b3738b_ezm6b5l3r.pdf

Redistricting may have changed which party won the election in at least 25 House districts. Because of redistricting, it is likely that the GOP won about six more seats overall in 2012 than they would have under the old district lines.

[politicallefty]

If Republicans are going to complain about redistricting, Massachusetts is the wrong place to make that complaint. I've drawn my own map that attempts to be reasonable and fair. At best, Republicans can compete in two districts - one of which being a 55-43 Obama district. Short of a a landslide, Republicans will be swept out of any seat in the state.

I don't think Republicans can complain about Maryland either. A 7-1 balance may be lopsided, but a lopsided result is to be expected in a lopsided state. In the end, that result isn't too far off from a more realsitic 6-2 result. When a certain area becomes lopsided enough, you really have to expect lopsided results. Realistically, if a party won 60-65% of the national vote, they would also command massive supermajorities in Congress. Ultimately, a party will win a huge majority of seats prior to winning a supermajority vote.

[Beezer]

I still don't quite get one of Wang's conclusions (or rather it appears that he focuses on the wrong numbers imo). He writes In the states listed above, the net effect of both parties’ redistricting combined was R+11.5 seats. Putting all of this redistricting into nonpartisan commissions would lead to a swing of at least 23 seats. However in the same chart the net gain in House seats by the GOP in the 9 worst gerrymandered states compared to his simulation which just looks at "structural advantages" is "just" 7.1. This is much closer to the aforementioned assessment of the Brennan Center which comes up with a net gain of 6 seats by the GOP thanks to redistricting across the country. Seems to me then that gerrymandering helps the GOP but it wasn't the deciding factor.

[minionofmidas]

I just tried to make a McCain district on a map of Massachusetts. Any McCain district. I couldn't even get to six hundred thousand people.

In regards to if a McCain seat in Massachusetts is possible, the answer is "well sort of". This district voted for McCain by about 600 votes, but obviously wouldn't be legal because of how it divides the rest of the state into uneven pieces, making even population districts impossible.

You guys lack talent and imagination.

[Brittain33]

How shameful of the Dems not to draw that district.

[minionofmidas]

How shameful of the Dems not to draw that district.

It's not really any worse than Central Maryland (although that is due to keeping incumbents apart, not the overall partisan lean) or Southeast Pennsylvania. Or the 2001 Dem Georgia map.
Of course, that's only because it's not technically possible to get worse than that.


As to the silly debate over what number of seats a party "deserves" under fptp... if fptp is to have any legitimacy at all it derives from its ability to elect Representatives for specific communities. It follows there is no single "fair" outcome (and the article's premise is hogwash), and Massachusetts and Maryland are excellent examples to show that. Maryland voted slightly more Democratic than Massachusetts, yet a community-oriented Massachusetts map comes out 8-0-1 or 7-0-2 - and they tilt Democratic, really - while in Maryland you get something like 4-2-2 or even 4-3-1 (D-R-swingy) because the votes are distributed much more unevenly.

[Skill and Chance]

Maryland, in particular, was within one seat of a fair outcome: the state is so solidly Democratic, but is arranged in such a way as to favor the Republicans, that a Democratic gerrymander is required for the state to fairly represent its partisan lean.  

As for Massachusetts, Obama won every county both times.  You could probably gerrymander one single Republican seat snaking across Plymouth and the Worcester suburbs if you really wanted to, but an all-Democratic delegation is entirely fair.

Lol. This type of mathematics is, well, interesting. I wonder if the same mathematics dictates that Republicans get 0 seats in Connecticut.

He is claiming that the partisan majority is morally entitled to a supermajority of the seats. Most people think that is one of the inherent flaws of district systems. To each his own, I suppose.

Where he is being hypocritical is in claiming Maryland districting ought to reflect that partisan nature of the state as a whole, whereas in Massachusetts he is claiming that the outcome is consistent with the partisan nature of each county. It so happens that the distribution of Republicans in Maryland is highly efficient for Republicans [concentrated] and the distribution of Democrats in Massachusetts is reasonable efficient for Democrats [sufficiently defused.] His basic claim is that justice demands such happenstance must be undone. He has to justify why 9-0 accurately reflects the partisan balance in Massachusetts.

Well if you look internationally to nations that do have proportional representation, in just about every case there is a minimum threshold for a party to cross in order to get seated in the first place.  So you would have a system where it does asymptote (i.e. if Democratic /GOP congressional candidates receive less that X% of the vote in a certain state, they are entitled to no seats, but if they cross X%, they are entitled to P/n seats, where P is the percentage of the vote they receive and n is the total number of seats in the state.  So there is a reasonable proportional system in which D's would get no seats in Utah and Oklahoma and R's would get no seats in most of New England, and the reasonableness is demonstrated by the fact that such a system presently exists in other nations with stable representative republics/democracies.

That having been said, the fairest and most unambiguous way to use this would be to allocate seats to parties proportional to a national generic ballot for partisan control of the House, so that 1 vote always = 1 vote regardless of where in the country those votes are coming from (which should have no bearing on one's voting rights).

[Skill and Chance]

The approach used was interesting and seems plausible for some states. For example, WI is probably accurate. I think his analysis misses the impact of VRA districts. Unless the VRA district is made by joining the minority voters to an overwhelming population of R white voters, the state is left with a net deficit of D voters compared to the state that does not create a VRA district.

For example, I know from the OH competition that one needed to push a mild Dem gerrymander to get the desired partisan outcome for the state. One of the measures was how closely the delegation matched the overall state percentage which was quite close to 50%. The black-majority district took up 4 times as many Dems as Pubs and with only 16 CDs that left way too many Pubs to naturally spread into 8 of the remaining CDs. So one had to make 2 or 3 strong R districts that were 2 to 1 to compensate. That meant the rest of the state had to divide 7 to 6 D to get it back to an even delegation. The best competition strategy made 4 strong R districts and just 1 strong D district, then built 7 lean D districts from the rest.

IL is one state where Wang finds a clear D tilt of 1.7 seats. But that assumes no VRA districts in the analysis. Based on the OH experience, and the fact that IL has 4 VRA districts out of 18, the map is more gerrymandered D than Wang's analysis would suggest.

What we really need is a just way to ensure VRA representation without any net impact on non-VRA seats.  This could be accomplished by having each state go at large, but allow individual voters to request a second primary ballot if they voluntarily identify with the VRA-protected group that qualifies for a seat in that state.

Let's say that state X has 10 seats and 1 legally required VRA seat.  So you have a Dem and GOP primary ballot for the other 9 seats in which the entire voting public can participate.  Then you have a second ballot for the final seat, which can be requested only by those who voluntarily identified with the VRA-protected group on the most recent census.  The top 9 R and D candidates in the at large primary advance to the general election, along with the R and D nominees chosen for the VRA seat.  Then you put everyone on the same ballot for the general election, so everyone votes for all 10 seats, but with a provision which ensures that the highest finishing VRA-nominated candidate will be seated regardless of what happens in the other 9 seats.  Of course, this would require a multitude of legal changes and possibly a constitutional amendment.

[Smid]

The approach used was interesting and seems plausible for some states. For example, WI is probably accurate. I think his analysis misses the impact of VRA districts. Unless the VRA district is made by joining the minority voters to an overwhelming population of R white voters, the state is left with a net deficit of D voters compared to the state that does not create a VRA district.

For example, I know from the OH competition that one needed to push a mild Dem gerrymander to get the desired partisan outcome for the state. One of the measures was how closely the delegation matched the overall state percentage which was quite close to 50%. The black-majority district took up 4 times as many Dems as Pubs and with only 16 CDs that left way too many Pubs to naturally spread into 8 of the remaining CDs. So one had to make 2 or 3 strong R districts that were 2 to 1 to compensate. That meant the rest of the state had to divide 7 to 6 D to get it back to an even delegation. The best competition strategy made 4 strong R districts and just 1 strong D district, then built 7 lean D districts from the rest.

IL is one state where Wang finds a clear D tilt of 1.7 seats. But that assumes no VRA districts in the analysis. Based on the OH experience, and the fact that IL has 4 VRA districts out of 18, the map is more gerrymandered D than Wang's analysis would suggest.

What we really need is a just way to ensure VRA representation without any net impact on non-VRA seats.  This could be accomplished by having each state go at large, but allow individual voters to request a second primary ballot if they voluntarily identify with the VRA-protected group that qualifies for a seat in that state.

Let's say that state X has 10 seats and 1 legally required VRA seat.  So you have a Dem and GOP primary ballot for the other 9 seats in which the entire voting public can participate.  Then you have a second ballot for the final seat, which can be requested only by those who voluntarily identified with the VRA-protected group on the most recent census.  The top 9 R and D candidates in the at large primary advance to the general election, along with the R and D nominees chosen for the VRA seat.  Then you put everyone on the same ballot for the general election, so everyone votes for all 10 seats, but with a provision which ensures that the highest finishing VRA-nominated candidate will be seated regardless of what happens in the other 9 seats.  Of course, this would require a multitude of legal changes and possibly a constitutional amendment.

Or you could go the New Zealand route with specific Maori seats, and the white population would vote in one set of seats, with the whole state divided by the number of non-VRA seats, and the state would also be divided into a number of VRA seats, and the black community would vote in them. I think that's how it works, anyway.

[Indy Texas]

I hate to say it, but BSB has a point. You can't say that Maryland "deserves" a 7-1 map that it would be denied under a fairly drawn map because of how it's laid out, but Massachusetts is OK with a 9-0 map because how it's laid out. The article's points are pretty good otherwise though.

In regards to Texas and especially Arizona, the main factor there is "rotten boroughs", the turnout in Democratic Hispanic areas is FAR below in Republican areas. Especially in Arizona, where Ed Pastor's district has some of the worst turnout in the country, and is both the most Democratic district in Arizona (in percentage) and least Democratic (in raw votes). But it elects just as many representatives as a high turnout Republican district does. I haven't looked at the numbers for the Hispanic districts in Texas, but similar ones wouldn't surprise me.

Makes sense to me. One of the poorest arguments Dems made during TX redistricting was that it was unfair to swap out high-turnout Hispanic precincts for low-turnout ones to make a district more GOP in practice while keeping it more Dem on paper (they had tried to do this in what was Quico Canseco's district in one iteration). It's not legislators' fault if some people don't bother to vote.

[muon2]

I hate to say it, but BSB has a point. You can't say that Maryland "deserves" a 7-1 map that it would be denied under a fairly drawn map because of how it's laid out, but Massachusetts is OK with a 9-0 map because how it's laid out. The article's points are pretty good otherwise though.

In regards to Texas and especially Arizona, the main factor there is "rotten boroughs", the turnout in Democratic Hispanic areas is FAR below in Republican areas. Especially in Arizona, where Ed Pastor's district has some of the worst turnout in the country, and is both the most Democratic district in Arizona (in percentage) and least Democratic (in raw votes). But it elects just as many representatives as a high turnout Republican district does. I haven't looked at the numbers for the Hispanic districts in Texas, but similar ones wouldn't surprise me.

Makes sense to me. One of the poorest arguments Dems made during TX redistricting was that it was unfair to swap out high-turnout Hispanic precincts for low-turnout ones to make a district more GOP in practice while keeping it more Dem on paper (they had tried to do this in what was Quico Canseco's district in one iteration). It's not legislators' fault if some people don't bother to vote.

And the courts have generally agreed. That's why they turn to CVAP to remove factors due to voting eligibility.

[traininthedistance]

Well, really, if you want fully fair representation you have to go over to some sort of PR and drop geographical constituencies entirely.  Until then, though, it's still worth trying to redress imbalances in the name of achieving a more perfect union- I'm not one to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[MasterJedi]

At least at the state level in Wisconsin Democrats got more votes then Republicans, but in the 74 contested races Republicans had a 155,000 vote majority. The other 21 races where Democrats got their "majority" was by running uncontested races mostly in Dane and Milwaukee counties. So yes, the Dems got more votes but in actual contested races Republicans held the edge.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/dec/05/sandy-pasch/pasch-says-democrats-outpolled-republicans-statewi/

[traininthedistance]

At least at the state level in Wisconsin Democrats got more votes then Republicans, but in the 74 contested races Republicans had a 155,000 vote majority. The other 21 races where Democrats got their "majority" was by running uncontested races mostly in Dane and Milwaukee counties. So yes, the Dems got more votes but in actual contested races Republicans held the edge.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2012/dec/05/sandy-pasch/pasch-says-democrats-outpolled-republicans-statewi/

How many votes would the Republicans have received in those 21 uncontested races, had they bothered to run even a generic placeholder?  (I presume there were also safe R districts where the Dems put up a sacrificial lamb, so doing such a thing should not be so difficult, no?)  Would it have been enough to receive more votes than the Dems overall?  I assume if they didn't bother to run someone in a D+20 district, that's a source of potential votes... but if these are all D+45 vote sinks, there are so few potential Republicans that there really wouldn't be any difference in the vote total.

And, had the Republicans ran candidates in all these districts, would the Dem turnout in those districts have been increased?

I mean, sure, if you excise the quarter of the state which is most solidly Democratic, then you can obviously achieve a Republican majority.  But that doesn't mean a darn thing, because you can't just handwave away parts of the state you don't want to count.

[YL]

As to the silly debate over what number of seats a party "deserves" under fptp... if fptp is to have any legitimacy at all it derives from its ability to elect Representatives for specific communities. It follows there is no single "fair" outcome (and the article's premise is hogwash), and Massachusetts and Maryland are excellent examples to show that. Maryland voted slightly more Democratic than Massachusetts, yet a community-oriented Massachusetts map comes out 8-0-1 or 7-0-2 - and they tilt Democratic, really - while in Maryland you get something like 4-2-2 or even 4-3-1 (D-R-swingy) because the votes are distributed much more unevenly.

Absolutely.

IMO if you're going to have a system of single member districts, you should totally ignore the actual likely results when drawing the districts.  So while partisan gerrymandering may be the worst aspect of the US system, I don't really have a lot of time for deliberately drawing a "fair" map either, and nor do I have a lot of time for avoiding drawing an otherwise perfectly good map because it puts two incumbents into the same district.

If people think that Massachusetts being 9-0 is a problem, they should be looking at different electoral systems, not trying to draw an 8-1 map.  And Maryland's current map is horrible, regardless of whether 7-1 is reasonably reflective of how the state votes or not.

[BigSkyBob]

It is quite bizarre to claim that 7-1 "fairly represents [Maryland's] partisan lean." Certainly, Republican candidates receive more that 25% of the total vote, or they would if it meant anything to contest every seat.

It's not a linear scale.  Democrats receive 40 percent of the total vote in Texas, but it would be an egregious Democratic gerrymander if they were to receive 40 percent of the seats there.  A state that is 50/50 should have an evenly divided delegation;

This presupposes that the mean and the average must converge. There is no empirical reason to believe that is true. It was merely a waive of Wang's hand.

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Ditto. Again, the medium and mode could be above 52 or 53 percent.

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That assumes that the partisan composition of districts ought to follow a bell-shaped curve with a single mod [that just happens to be both the mod, the mean and the average.] That isn't reality. For instance, in NYC districting distribution ought to  the combination of several bell-curves.

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Give me a break. If we are spotting one seat, Wisconsin at 5-3 is merely one seat away from 4-4 which is perfectly within any expected outcome. Yet, Wang is denouncing Wisconsin.

[BigSkyBob]

I hate to say it, but BSB has a point. You can't say that Maryland "deserves" a 7-1 map that it would be denied under a fairly drawn map because of how it's laid out, but Massachusetts is OK with a 9-0 map because how it's laid out. The article's points are pretty good otherwise though.

In regards to Texas and especially Arizona, the main factor there is "rotten boroughs", the turnout in Democratic Hispanic areas is FAR below in Republican areas. Especially in Arizona, where Ed Pastor's district has some of the worst turnout in the country, and is both the most Democratic district in Arizona (in percentage) and least Democratic (in raw votes). But it elects just as many representatives as a high turnout Republican district does. I haven't looked at the numbers for the Hispanic districts in Texas, but similar ones wouldn't surprise me.

Makes sense to me. One of the poorest arguments Dems made during TX redistricting was that it was unfair to swap out high-turnout Hispanic precincts for low-turnout ones to make a district more GOP in practice while keeping it more Dem on paper (they had tried to do this in what was Quico Canseco's district in one iteration). It's not legislators' fault if some people don't bother to vote.

And the courts have generally agreed. That's why they turn to CVAP to remove factors due to voting eligibility.

And, the Courts were wrong not to consider non-citizens whom were non-citizens because they simply chose not to take citizenship. Not voting because you refuse to vote, or refuse to take citizenship are no different in effect. It should be citizenship-eligible voting age population.

[krazen1211]

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/A_Politics/_Today_Stories_Teases/NoCryinginRedistricting.pdf


The 1970s and 1980s congressional elections were held with maps drawn to provide
Democrats a significant partisan cushion.  The following table looks at notable years in
elections held under the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990 maps.

During the Reagan sweep in 1980, Republicans essentially broke even in terms of the
two-party vote cast (49%), yet were only able to win 44% of the seats…the same type
five point gap being bemoaned today.



Where were whining babies like Sam Wang for those 20 years and how were 10 congressional elections excluded from his document?