This article is written by Sean Trende, the chap who will co-scriven the lines in VA, for us to admire in a fortnight or so. Yes, I admit that I am a Sean Trende groupie, and proud of it. He is very smart, and thinks like a lawyer (or wait he is a lawyer), is an elegant and concise writer, who is blessed with the ever so rare skill of making the extremely complex comprehensible to the masses, and for that matter more recently, the courts. Most rare among the breed, he also really understands the use and abuse of statistics. All of his talents combined, is why he has become an ever more powerful man in the public square.
Mr. Trende's conclusion, as a spoiler, is that the courts absent applying an actual statute, should stay away, far away, from the gleaming new toy of efficiency gaps as a legal tool, and just settle for a rational basis test when it comes to gerrymandering:
"Counsel, other than just to screw the other side, just what is the justification for those lines? Give me something I can chew on, COI's, compactness, chop avoidance, something."
Under this standard, few districts would be struck, but on the other hand, absent a constraining state constitutional provision, it would preclude NYS after the demise of the VRA, from drawing a CD from Manhattan to Rochester as part of a 26D-0R CD map as well.
Oh yes, the link to access the article:
https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/whats-wrong-with-the-efficiency-gap/PS: one turd Mr. Trende exposes, is that whether or not a map becomes actionable under the EG talisman, can turn on which party wins the close races, because EF is only applied after a new map gets a test run in the ensuing election. The Georgia Dems saved themselves by managing to lose a couple of close races by nominating horrible candidates. Fun stuff that.
PPS: And yes, gerrymanders often have short half lives. That is why the Dems held on to WI-03 for a decade. If the Pubs had not drawn it as a Dem vote sink, to Pub snatch WI-07, Mr. Kind would have bit the dust some time ago, as Trump became the tribune for the uneducated white rurals (are Hispanics next?). Be careful what you wish for sometimes.
