Gerrymandering

If you're looking for evidence that Democrats should get more serious about gerrymandering, you need look no further than Illinois. Check out these results. One Democrat ran unopposed. Four Democrats won with over 80 percent of the vote. Three more had over 70 percent of the vote. Phil Hare won with 57 percent. Melissa Bean won with just 51 percent. That's ten Democrats. Of the nine Republicans, all drew opponents, one secured just 51 percent of the vote and and five more won sixty percent of the vote or fewer.

You could transfer voters out of the Democrats 6-7 safest seats in a way that kept those seats safe but turned all six of the least-safe GOP districts into ones that were very friendly to Democratic challengers. It would require you to create some "funny looking" districts that start out in Chicago with super-Democratic precincts and then reach out into the suburbs rather than having very compact all-urban districts where Democrats get 70-90 percent of the vote, but lots of states work like that.

Comments

presumably the necessity of majority black
disticts would constrain you somewhat...

Posted by tm | November 12, 2006 5:11 PM

Erm... isn't the point that, as advocates of good government, we should be fighting for far less gerrymandering and the creation of truly competitive districts? I think it's really dangerous if, having just ridden in to power, the Dems show everyone that what they really wanted was the system to be rigged towards them instead of, you know... less rigged in general.

Permanent incumbency is a real problem (I live in a permanent-incumbent district, the NY 11th) and elected officials who feel entitled to their seats 'cause they never have to fight for them is also a problem-- just ask Ned Lamont. Both of these are problems that things like more competitive districts (and, hate to say it, term limits) would help.

Posted by parabasis | November 12, 2006 5:12 PM

I have to wonder how on earth something like gerrymandering ever gained legitimacy to start with. The real, idealistic answer is something to the effect of taking the issue out of the power of elected partisan officials, and turn it over to some non-partisan board (or algorithm) to set up districts by population and update as necessary with each census.

Gerrymandering in Illinois, even in the name of some "restoring" effect is really the infliction of further complication.

And I'll stand by idealism on this. The less complicated, distorted, and abstracted from the honest original intentions, the better.

Posted by glenstein | November 12, 2006 5:27 PM

yeah ... gerrymandering brilliant idea. i have some more hard-core election winning ideas too. you could use computers to make phone calls ... or hire homeless people to distribute false information ... or ... or ...

NO! don't become them. restore some respect to public service, restore people's trust in congress.

spend your energy winning the war of ideas, not the little battles of electoral office.

fight the good fight. take the high road. call it whatever the fuck you want, just don't become *them*.

Posted by boss tweed | November 12, 2006 5:44 PM

Good suggestion, Tom -- er, Matt.

Posted by Reader | November 12, 2006 5:47 PM

IIRC, a mere 70,000 votes separate us from a GOP minority "majority" in the House. There are constitututional constraints in the Senate -- all those GOP Senators who represent dirt rather than the Democratic senators representing their teeming millions -- that produces horrifying disparities.

Democracy in this country needs CPR. If it's called "gerrymandering", then we should celebrate gerrymandering.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 12, 2006 5:48 PM

Actually, this brings up a good question, which is what a non-gerrymandered district should look like. Should it be compact and reflect local political boundaries, or should it maximize competition? I tend to favor the latter, but it might require strange-looking districts that do what Matt suggests for Chicago: split up cities into lots of little pieces that then stretch out to incorporate the surrounding suburbs and rural areas. It might require ignoring seemingly relevant geographical and political boundaries.

Also, what does it mean to maximize competition? Does it just mean maximizing the number of 50-50 districts? Imagine a state that is 60-40 Republican with 10 districts. Would you try to create 10 60-40 districts? 8 50-50 districts and 2 100% GOP districts?

Of course, this is all a simplification, but it strikes me that the "right" way to set up districts is far from obvious. Given that there's not a demonstrably "fair" outcome, whoever does the districting can plausibly claim to do a good job while in fact subtly favoring one party over the other.

Posted by minderbender | November 12, 2006 5:50 PM

This post would make sense in the context of agreement over the legitimacy of gerrymandering and disagreement about its efficacy. While there is, as you know, some disagreement over the magnitude of its effect, there certainly isn't any over whether it's effective at all.

The argument we should be having, and on which you're in the wrong, is on the desirability of transferring this country towards non-partisan redistricting, and the possibility of doing so in a way that isn't just unilateral disarmament by the Democrats.

Posted by washerdreyer | November 12, 2006 5:56 PM

I'd agree with some of the commenters here that non-gerrymandered districts are a good thing. But given the choice between these four things

A. Preventing war with Iran
B. Stopping another round of huge tax cuts for the top 1%
C. Non-gerrymandered districts
D. Universal Health Care

I know that C isn't the best one to pick.

Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | November 12, 2006 6:25 PM

See, this is why practical political types hate goo-goos. Gosh, it would be nice to raise wages, rebuild unions, get uninsured people health care, eend the war, but not at the cost of our SOULS -- er, at the cost of funny-looking Congressional districts. Heaven forfend.

Besides, the "good-government" view on this is hopelessly conflicted. Should districts be compact ... or follow familiar geographic boundaries ... or remain stable over time ... or result in a delegation that mirrors the popular vote ... or represent histrocially excluded groups ... or maximize competitive races?

They all have proponents and they point in totally different directions. And until you've decided what your goals are, there's no point is worrying about process.

Personally, I've never understood the fetish of competitive races. The most important thing in principle, IMHO, is for people to know what district they're in and who represents them, which is generally not the case now, and is kind of a sine qua non for active particiaption in politics. Which means districts should (a) be stable over time and (b) follow existing political boundaries. I'm willing to give that up for Dem victories, but not for an abstraction that appeals to someone's aesthetic sense.

The other stupid idea is the nonpartisan commission. Everyone always wants to take politic out of politics. Any hard question -- let's appoint experts to decide! Only, who gets to appoint the experts? If there were a clear conssensus about what districts should be like, a legislature, checked by the courts, could follow it as well as a commission.

(Of course an easy solution is one actaully in use in local legislatures in a few parts of the country -- fixed districts corresponding to existing political divisions, and legislators' votes weighted by popualtion. Presto, no more redistricting ever.)

Posted by lemuel pitkin | November 12, 2006 6:31 PM

Shorter me: what Nell said.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | November 12, 2006 6:32 PM

I think you guys are missing Matt's point. This is Illinois. The districts are already geryymandered. Thats why the districts need to be altered to move populations around because the political machine in the state, particularly in Chicago and the suburbs have made it so the current party in power can't lose.

Posted by IUMedSciGuy | November 12, 2006 6:43 PM

Neil, false, or at least unargued, choice. So, A) is terrible, largely irreversible, and I'd support using means which I'd otherwise oppose to prevent it. But it's not clear why gerrymandering more districts would prevent the President from starting such a war, nor how it could possibly help a Democrat win in 2009.

B) and D) are both made easier by having more Democrats (who favor those policies) in the House, but of course need to pass the Senate. Also, I'm not sure what timetable you're thinking about for UHC, the obvious time constraint on non-partisan redistricting (even with LULAC v. Perry finding in favor of the constitutionality of mid-decade redistricting, I don't see this becoming common) is to have a somewhat stable system in place before state legislatures start assembling their post 2010-enumeration districts.

I also like that the effectiveness of UHC in other countries is frequently cited as evidence for it, but that despite their prevalence and effectiveness outside of the U.S., it's crazy-talk to have non-partisan districting commissions here.

Posted by washerdreyer | November 12, 2006 6:51 PM

Eric Altman was discussing this. He said there is an agreement between the blacks and the Republicans to keep the black districts together so that the representatives win by 90%. Democrats have tried to talk to them so that they win by 60%, but so far to no avail.

Posted by Judy | November 12, 2006 7:08 PM

He said there is an agreement between the blacks and the Republicans to keep the black districts together so that the representatives win by 90%.

I'm not sure I buy that. I might believe that African-Americans want 50%+1 black voters in their district, but that makes sense.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 12, 2006 7:35 PM

Judy especially, SCMT insofar as you're tempted to agree, the following evidence doesn't cover all districts (what evidence could?) but the facts leading up to the case of Georgia v. Ashcroft were the following: the Democratically controlled Georgia state legislature (incl. civil rights hero John Lewis) tried to reduce the number of majority African-American districts while increasing the number of districts within which African-Americans could form a coalition with others to elect their favored candidate (ie., Democratic districts). The Republican-controlled department of justice sued to prevent this on the non-retrogression grounds. You could, as they say, look it up.

Posted by washerdreyer | November 12, 2006 7:54 PM

NO DISTRICTS at all. all votes from at large.

Posted by yoyo | November 12, 2006 8:20 PM

The whole geographic-apportionment system is a barrier to the achievement of social justice. Because rich folks live with rich folks. The real way to fix gerrymandering would be with "virtual districts": once a state had its numbers of representatives set, a voter would get a "district" assigned to him/her. It might very well be a different "district" from a given neighbor.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 12, 2006 9:13 PM

To me the idea of a congressional district is that people with common interests receive representation of their concerns. Therefore, a district should be composed of people with some common interest. Of course there are many types of commonality: urbanity, class, race, etc. So maybe the concept of majority-minority districts should be expanded to include these other factors, thereby giving proportional representation to different types of interests. Or maybe the way to go is to create virtual districts where constituents are measured by some criteria and then assigned to districts based on common interests.

The idea of at large voting seems dangerous because only the concerns of the majority would receive representation.

Posted by miguel | November 12, 2006 9:20 PM

wow dj moonbat, you beat me to the 'virtual districts' concept. I guess pie-in-the-sky minds think a like.

Posted by miguel | November 12, 2006 9:22 PM

Re: all those GOP Senators who represent dirt rather than the Democratic senators representing their teeming millions

You know the Democrats do have some senators representing dirt too: Nelson in NE, Baucus and now Tester in MT, Conrad and Dorgan in ND, Bingamen in NM, Johnson in SD, Salazar in CO, Reid in NV.

Posted by JonF | November 12, 2006 9:22 PM

Colorado has the 24th largest population, which means Salazar represents less dirt than the median Senator. HI, DE, VT, and now RI are the states to mention about if you want to argue that the Democrats have some Senators who don't represent many people, but the malapportionment of the Senate certainly benefits Republicans much more.

Posted by Matt Weiner | November 12, 2006 11:24 PM

the malapportionment of the Senate certainly benefits Republicans much more.

More important, I think, the malapportionment of the Senate benefits conservatism. There are actually a healthy number of Democratic Senators from what I call the "big empty square states" but these Senators tend to be well to the right of your typical Democrat. There's nothing wrong with that, as such, Nebraska and Montana and South Dakota and so forth are all conservative states so only conservative nominees can put those seats in Democratic hands. That electoral reality, however, makes it essentially impossible to secure a liberal majority in the Senate.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | November 12, 2006 11:39 PM

That electoral reality, however, makes it essentially impossible to secure a liberal majority in the Senate.

Until the next Depression.

Posted by dj moonbat | November 13, 2006 12:50 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Transferable_Vote

IMO electoral reform is completely necessary if we ever expect to live in a truly progressive society. The present system is not spectacularly nor even particularly efficient and easily corruptable by monied interests. If the monied interest in question is the tooth fairy, well and good I suppose, but if the monied interest is oh, say any of a big percentage of the present-day wealthy lineup, um, sorry, but I really want their influence neutralized if not indeed neutered. By neutralized, I mean 100% guaranteed foolproof self-correcting redundant-designed system for electing our officials.

n.b.: By neutered, I mean neutered ;)

Posted by ®-doer | November 13, 2006 4:28 AM

Probably not a bad idea to have districts that start in the city and branch out into the burbs in any event. Chicago's neighborhoods are so distinct that many of them really do have more in common with adjacent suburbs (where a lot of former residents moved to) than other neighborhoods. For example, I'd say that Lakeview/Andersonville/Rogers Park (north side neighorhoods) is probably much more akin to Evanston or Wilmette (north shore burbs) than Pilsen or Bridgeport (S/SW side neighborhoods). And Pilsen is much closer to Cicero (western burb) than it is to either of the other two; ditto with Bridgeport and Lagrange (SW burb).

Posted by Joe | November 13, 2006 8:33 AM

I like the trope that senators from spacious western states represent "dirt," but what then would have the senators from Rhode Island represent? Clams?

Posted by t e whalen | November 13, 2006 9:55 AM

I live in Illinois - 2, Jesse Jr's district...which starts out in Chicago and threads out into the suburbs (although all in Cook County.) And yes! We ought have more democratic districts.

Posted by Barry | November 13, 2006 12:53 PM

It would not have been possible for the Democrats to gerrymander Illinois after the 2000 census, since when the new lines were drawn, there was a Republican governor (George Ryan) and a split legislature. However, Democratic negotiators signed on to a truly terrible deal.

Illinois lost a seat and the new map guaranteed that the loser would be a Democrat. Democrat David Phelps and Republican John Shimkus (of Page Board fame) were placed in the same district, with approximately two-thirds of the territory having been represented before by Shimkus. In addition, every other incumbent was protected regardless of party.

The problem is that all Democrats in 2000 had received at least 75% of the vote, with the exception of Lane Evans (the seat which Phil Hare won this year). By constrast, there were a number of potentially vulnerable Republicans: in 2000, Mark Kirk received 51% of the vote; Tim Johnson received 53%; Jerry Weller received 56% and Henry Hyde received 59%. With the new lines in effect in 2002, those percentages increased to 69%; 65%; 65% and 65%, respectively. Had the Democrats struck a better deal, Dan Seals and Tammy Dickworth would have won this year.

I can only suppose that the Democrats who agreed to this map believed that Illinois had a stake in keeping Hastert as Speaker for the amount of pork he could funnel to the state.

Posted by Vadranor | November 13, 2006 3:03 PM

The real, idealistic answer is something to the effect of taking the issue out of the power of elected partisan officials, and turn it over to some non-partisan board

Not only am I against this in principle -- it reflects an elitist goo-goo anti-small-d-democratic hostility to politics -- I think it is radically misguided in practice. There is no such thing as a non-partisan commission that will ultimately resist co-option by partisan Republicans. Such commissions are just a declaration of unilateral disarmament by our side.

Posted by aretino | November 13, 2006 5:42 PM

Probably not a bad idea to have districts that start in the city and branch out into the burbs in any event.

I'm 100% with Joe here. Most urban areas would be best served by roughly pie-slice shaped districts that start in the city center and carve out a wedge deep into the suburbs. Such districts would represent common commuting corridors. Citizens in these hypothetical districts share a common interest in the commuting and transportation issues which are currently neglected by any other means of representation. Pie districts would remedy this defect. That districting in this manner would increase the proportion of Democratic seats is just an unavoidable -- which is certainly not to say regrettable -- side-effect.

Posted by aretino | November 13, 2006 5:51 PM

"There is no such thing as a non-partisan commission that will ultimately resist co-option by partisan Republicans. Such commissions are just a declaration of unilateral disarmament by our."

Not true, Iowa's districts were drawn by a nonpartisan commission, and the result is geographically compact districts that were not drawn based on political factors. Worked well: Democrats just took hold of 3 of the 5 House seats as well as both houses of the Iowa legislature.

Posted by Paul | November 13, 2006 5:56 PM

Another alternative is to elect representatives to a body responsible exclusively for redistricting decisions.

Posted by henry evans | November 13, 2006 6:19 PM

it reflects an elitist goo-goo anti-small-d-democratic hostility to politics

You and I obviously mean different things by those words. I wouldn't use them to describe changes to the system primarily designed to make representatives more responsive to changes in voter preference, you would. Your choice, I guess.

There is no such thing as a non-partisan commission that will ultimately resist co-option by partisan Republicans.

This on the other hand, is just false. Some states (Arizona, Iowa, Maine, one other that I'm forgetting) have non-partisan redistricting commissions. The other nations of the so-called Anglosphere have them. These systems are imperfect, but they're largely resisted partisan control. It's also important to remember that there are two kinds of gerrymanders: partisan gerrymanders (designed to increase the current majority party's advantage) and sweetheart gerrymanders (designed to increase the likelihood of current incumbents retaining their seats. The two of these can, of course, be combined. Neither one is a good thing, and moving to get them off the table by the time of the post-2010 redistricting would be.

By the way, the reasonable partisan worry is that if Democratic statehouses go to independent commissions, and Republican ones don't, that will be a net win for the Republicans. The solution I see for this involves some combination of nationalizing the issue (Congress ties funding for a salient measure to state's willingness to move to independent commissions) and triggering mechanisms in state laws (this law, switching our state to an independent commission, goes into effect at the same time that similarly populated but controlled by opposing party state passes such a law).

Posted by washerdreyer | November 13, 2006 6:28 PM

"There is no such thing as a non-partisan commission that will ultimately resist co-option by partisan Republicans. Such commissions are just a declaration of unilateral disarmament by our."

Not true, Iowa's districts were drawn by a nonpartisan commission, and the result is geographically compact districts that were not drawn based on political factors. Worked well:

The key term here is 'ultimately.' The FCC, the EEOC, and the NLRB are offically non-partisan and once upon a time they really worked that way. But Republicans made a concerted effort to co-opt them, and succeeded. In the end, they will see a significant advantage to be had in co-opting non-partisan redestricting commissions, especially if they are introduced to large district-rich states like Florida and California. Based on history, I expect them to succeed.

Posted by aretino | November 13, 2006 11:18 PM

When I say that something is anti-democratic and elitist, I mean that it takes decisions out of the hands of representatives elected by voters and puts them under the control of unelected bodies. I suppose that may be an aberrent usage, but I think not. I'm inclined to think ordinary usage is on my side.

Posted by aretino | November 13, 2006 11:26 PM

Some states (Arizona, Iowa, Maine, one other that I'm forgetting) have non-partisan redistricting commissions. The other nations of the so-called Anglosphere have them.

1) Maine, Iowa, and even Arizona are not Florida, Texas, and California. There's little or nothing to gain in controlling redistricting in small, homogeneous states. Give the Republicans something worth seizing control of, and they'll do it.

2) The other countries of the Anglosphere don't have our Republican Party.

I'm not saying that non-partisan redistricting never works, whatever that would mean (see the disucssion above about the difficulties in even defining what a "good" district is). I'm saying it is not going to work when there is really anything at stake in the face of a what Paul Krugman has aptly termed a "revolutionary power" -- the contemporary Republican Party.

Posted by aretino | November 13, 2006 11:43 PM

Gerrymandering is a great idea. First of all, it helps us get more seats and second of all, if it gets challenged and goes to the Supremes, they may strike down gerrymandering entirely, which will give us the end result we want. It's perfect.

Posted by Bart | November 14, 2006 3:59 PM