What nationwide redistricting rules would benefit Republicans the most?

[Libertas Vel Mors]

It's well-known that proposals such as the efficiency gap would favor Democrats, but there's been comparatively little research into what similarly "neutral" proposals would benefit Republicans. If Congress were to pass anti-gerrymandering legislation, what rules would be the best to pass for an R Congress?

[Pollster]

Most likely some type of "community of interest" language that ensures that rural white voters are guaranteed influence districts.

[Gass3268]

Compactness is prioritized over proportionality with rules requiring adherence to county/municipal/town lines.

[Sol]

Compactness is prioritized over proportionality with rules requiring adherence to county/municipal/town lines.

The thing is is that in practice that still ends up benefiting Democrats relative to the status quo--Texas alone would probably net a few seats.

Proportionality would help Democrats initially but would probably create instability in the long term which could cut harshly against either party as coalitions shift.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Compactness is prioritized over proportionality with rules requiring adherence to county/municipal/town lines.

The thing is is that in practice that still ends up benefiting Democrats relative to the status quo--Texas alone would probably net a few seats.

Proportionality would help Democrats initially but would probably create instability in the long term which could cut harshly against either party as coalitions shift.

Compactness probably no longer harms Democrats as much as it would have done during the Obama years, given how the GOP does better in rurals than it used to be. The Trump coalition's votes are more concentrated than the Romney coalition's were.

[kwabbit]

A system of special masters drawing districts without adherence to efficiency gap. Drawing districts without regard to partisanship results in better maps and is pretty close to neutral nationwide. Lest we forget that the entire point of the House having single member districts is so the districts reflect the will of specific geographic areas. Gerrymandering is a problem not because it distorts the partisan makeup of state; it is a problem because it destroys communities of interest and defeats the purpose of the House having single member districts.

The decline of 'pork' in bills has severely weakened the geographic connection between a representative and his constituents and allowed for the popularization of gerrymandering. It wasn't too long ago that members of the House were essentially able to succeed in any district regardless of their party, as long as they prioritized the wellbeing of their constituents through pork. Taking that out turns the House into a partisan game. Suddenly you're not John Doe, the representative and voice of Western Lincolnland, you're one of the 200+ Democrats or Republicans and are essentially just a warm body with a party affiliation. 

[David Hume]

Compactness is prioritized over proportionality with rules requiring adherence to county/municipal/town lines.

The thing is is that in practice that still ends up benefiting Democrats relative to the status quo--Texas alone would probably net a few seats.

Proportionality would help Democrats initially but would probably create instability in the long term which could cut harshly against either party as coalitions shift.

TXGOP are just terrible at drawing maps. I can draw a much more compact at the same time more efficient gerrymander.

[UncleSam]

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.

[lfromnj]

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.

Yup this is basically what would happen with HR1 IMO

In states like MA they would say its impossible for proportionality so they don't try at all. Meanwhile Oklahoma will probably have to have a Norman OKC district or Arkansas with a Little Rock Delta district.

In midwestern states like WI it is possible to draw 4-4 so they would be forced to draw it. Meanwhile in TX/CA they would focus on minority districts before any sense of partisan fairness. Yes I understand proportionality is impossible in CA but one can draw a fairly reasonable map with 14 winnable R seats. All 11 current seats(Garcia should expand into SE Kern County instead of LA Proper) and then Josh Harders seat of course, Ami Bera's can be cherry picked a bit, and finally Mike Levin's. Also Valadao shouldn't have a ridicoulous seat to be as D as possible. It should really only be like Biden +0 to 5ish.


Before someone mentions Colorado having a GOP leaning map. That isn't really true. A true fair map would give the GOP a near certain 4-4 map for 2022 although it is more likely to trend into 5-3 by the end. The actual map gives the Democrats a better chance at 5-3 for 2022 but the 5th seat will probably stay swingy. The CO GOP was also very lucky and had enough design such that there were a few actual GOP partisans along with 1 true independent voter.

[Former President tack50]

Given the heavy R lean of the Senate and SC, the real answe is either "SC draws all 435 districts" or "Senate draws all 435 districts". I'll go with the former as the Senate is more volatile and susceptible to a D takeover (after all it is under Dem control right now)

[lfromnj]

Given the heavy R lean of the Senate and SC, the real answe is either "SC draws all 435 districts" or "Senate draws all 435 districts"

Scotus is pretty non partisan with redistricting.  See conservstives on scotus striking down the 1990 GOP gerrymander in GA for example on racial grounds while liberals wanted to keep it.

[Del Tachi]

Surprised no one's mentioned the shortest splitline aglorithm or maximizing minority influence.  The first naturally cracks populated, D-leaning areas while the second would serve to maximally pack D-leaning non-White voters. 

[Sol]

Surprised no one's mentioned the shortest splitline aglorithm or maximizing minority influence.  The first naturally cracks populated, D-leaning areas while the second would serve to maximally pack D-leaning non-White voters. 

In both cases though those redistricting procedures can benefit Democrats depending on the situation--they are very high-variance.

[lfromnj]

Surprised no one's mentioned the shortest splitline aglorithm or maximizing minority influence.  The first naturally cracks populated, D-leaning areas while the second would serve to maximally pack D-leaning non-White voters.  

In both cases though those redistricting procedures can benefit Democrats depending on the situation--they are very high-variance.

Technically shortest split line is no variance

[Skill and Chance]

Compactness and prohibition of county splits would help R's more in the North than it would help D's in the South, particularly with the existing VRA rules.

R's drew very favorable maps of Michigan for decades with rules like these in place.

[Del Tachi]

Surprised no one's mentioned the shortest splitline aglorithm or maximizing minority influence.  The first naturally cracks populated, D-leaning areas while the second would serve to maximally pack D-leaning non-White voters. 

In both cases though those redistricting procedures can benefit Democrats depending on the situation--they are very high-variance.

Well, I mean sure.  But it's not like a strict efficiency gap/proportionality criterion benefits Democrats everywhere either (i.e., California.)

The name of the game is trading egregious pro-Republican gerrymanders in some states for some nationwide criteria that make the median map better for the GOP than it is now.

The 538 Atlas of Redistricting has Republicans at 180 safe seats under a national shortest splitline algorithm standard, 184 under a standard that maximizes the number of minority seats.     

[Sol]

Compactness and prohibition of county splits would help R's more in the North than it would help D's in the South, particularly with the existing VRA rules.

R's drew very favorable maps of Michigan for decades with rules like these in place.

Yeah I think you need additional checks on redistricting commissions in addition to just compactness and prohibitions on county splits, but by the same token I think those rules are needed, and should probably be weighted pretty highly. Otherwise you get higgledy-piggledy messes like Colorado where this stuff was deprioritized over very nebulous definitions of CoI.

Putting cards on the table myself, I think redistricting commissions should weigh these factors, in roughly this order:

1. Compliance with the VRA
2. Keeping metro areas whole
3. Compactness
4. Whole Counties, cities, etc.
5. Robustly defined communities of Interest--i.e. no spurious "South Colorado," type stuff. Ideally the CoIs would notable enough to have a Wikipedia page or be recognized in councils of government.
6. Minority Influence districts above and beyond the VRA.
7. Public Input--ideally this would be higher, but the incentives are too high for partisans on either side to try and game the process.

Ideally these would be sort of nested. For example, a commission which worked like this in Colorado would likely put Pueblo in the 4th district, regardless of public input, due to its obvious regional location in the High Plains, but then at the margins where things are less obvious, like where in the Front Range to get excess population from, public input could play a role.

Of course a lot of these should be tinkered with to some extent depending on the states--counties shouldn't matter in New England and only a little in Arizona, but a map which splits counties in Arkansas should probably be disfavored.

[Nyvin]

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.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

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.

What I will say is that the Central Valley seemed to be awfully drawn for the 2012-2020 races. The hooks around Fresno and Bakersfield are terrible. CA-16, CA-22, and CA-23 are awful.

Not going to touch the LA area since I’m not an expert in city boundaries there.

Down in San Diego, CA-51 is pretty bad.

[Tekken_Guy]

A Supreme Court that selectively overturns Democratic gerrymanders while keeping Republican ones intact.

[UncleSam]

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.

[lfromnj]

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.

Id say AZ went from a moderate Dem gerrymander to a mild R one this time. Namely Rs probably got a few extra points into the East Tucson district. Last time around Dems got a few extra points into the Tucson seat. They also got a lot into the northern seat and they got what they wanted for the White dem Phoenix seat .

Also I think AZ had the same issues that the previous 2 happened. Its easier to push the East Tucson seat. the Final arguments were about a mile or 2 line within the city of Tucson. Democrats mostly focused on rescuing Tom O Hallerhan.  The chairwoman was not interested in that.



Democrats should have just sacrificed him and proposed this. Sacrifices the seat but could give a better Tucson seat.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

This thread has had some good discussion. It seems there's something of a consensus that commissions often favor Democrats. For posters who believe the above, what alternative redistricting method would you prefer? (Ie, if you had to design a model like Sol did, what would you go for?)

[Skill and Chance]

This thread has had some good discussion. It seems there's something of a consensus that commissions often favor Democrats. For posters who believe the above, what alternative redistricting method would you prefer? (Ie, if you had to design a model like Sol did, what would you go for?)

This is only consistently true in CA, because the commission selection process has explicitly "woke" criteria built into it so you end up with very unrepresentative R and I commissioners (often including left-of-the-Dems I's).

Elsewhere, the best thing to do would be to get rid of the single tiebreaker systems, which often turn into coin flip gerrymanders at their worst (AZ 2011, NJ every time, etc.).  Outside of CA, the larger commissions that require supermajority approval of a map have worked out fine and do not consistently favor either party.

The VA fallback plan with both parties choosing special masters to work together under court supervision worked out really well in the end.  More states should consider this system as a Plan A.