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Supreme Court to possibly address gerrymandering case

ataraxia said:
In the last few decades, the GOP has been gerrymandering congressional districts every which way but loose to gain advantage. The court in the past has ruled in the past that such partisan redistricting has not been acceptable, but it has left it vague as to how much is "too much". There is now a case going to the SCOTUS which is probably one of the most important in a decade on this issue. It will be interesting to see how it comes out. If the GOP loses its gerrymandered districts, it will be a significant blow to its hold on congress.

Supreme Court to hear partisan gerrymandering case - CNNPolitics.com
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Democrats gerrymandered districts for nearly a century, and it took until republicans beat gerrymandering to gerrymander themselves. basically you are mad that a mechanism used by both parties is no longer used by your side, since the democratic monopoly on the house ended in the 90's.

It like like watching a athlete on steroids call out another athlete using steroids, seriously ban all gerrymandering or accept it. And fyi nearly every democrat district in blue states is gerry mandered as well, so are you willing to give up gerrymandered control in blue states or do you only enforce that standard in red and moderate states?
 
chuckiechan said:
In California gerrymandering has been used to eliminate the GOP. I'm sure you guys want to continue to do that.
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California is one of the few if not the only to ban gerrymandering, their districs are drawn by a non partisan independant group. Nearly every other state is gerry mandered based off of which party runs the show, which I find stupid because democrats scream about republicans gerrymandering while they are gerrymandering, while cali is among the few who does not allow it at all.
 
longview said:
In general I think it makes for bad government, but with that said it would depend on what replaced it.
I could see a system that just drew a north/south line across a state, and moved the line from east to west,
until the population for a congressional district was reached.
This would mean representatives would have both rural and urban constituents.
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In my view any attempt to configure districts to favor one group over another should be banned, and all gerrymandering is intentionally drafted to do just that. Let the computer draw random lines based on population only without regard to political or ethnic makeup. You win some, you lose some.
 
Supreme Court to possibly address gerrymandering case
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let's hope so. neither side should be allowed to gerrymander "safe" districts. we only get two lousy choices in any particular race. they should at least have to compete.
 
There is a simple way to fix this, have a computer do the redistricting. I was involved in redistricting a county for its supervisors. It was 1990 and the county planner bought a program to do the redistricting so there was no political involvement. The program did include insuring that communities of interest like cities were kept as one if possible. In the end no one could complain about the outcome as there was no gerrymandering involved. Why not make it mandatory that states use such a program.
 
Helix said:
let's hope so. neither side should be allowed to gerrymander "safe" districts. we only get two lousy choices in any particular race. they should at least have to compete.
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A very good way to spot gerrymandering without even looking at the strange shapes of CDs and examine voting % is to look at Cook's PVI ratings for CDs.

While 5 of ten CDs in MN are rated swing and 3 of 4 in IA are swing; 0 of 13 in NC are swing along with 0 of 9 in IN. Swing is between D+5 and R+5.

NC goes D+17, R+7, R+12, D+17, R+10, R+9, R+9, R+8, R+8, R+12, R+14, D+18, and R+6. None of these are expected to change next year .
 
<alt>doxygen said:
That's always true. It should be weighed against the status quo and any ruling should attempt to limit scope in order to minimize unintended consequences. If that is not possible, the court should rule that is doesn't have jurisdiction. That is an option.

There's are reasons congress has a 10+ % approval rating but a 90+ % incumbent success rate. This is dealing with a big one.

All this said, the SCOTUS has proved they usually vote on politically charged issues along partisan lines. Odds are if they rule, it they will take Wisconsin's side. Right-center Kennedy screwed up big time with Citizens United, I'd expect the same here.
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Why isnt it a problem for the court to vote on a partisan level, but wrong fir the legislature to do so?
 
independentusa said:
There is a simple way to fix this, have a computer do the redistricting. I was involved in redistricting a county for its supervisors. It was 1990 and the county planner bought a program to do the redistricting so there was no political involvement. The program did include insuring that communities of interest like cities were kept as one if possible. In the end no one could complain about the outcome as there was no gerrymandering involved. Why not make it mandatory that states use such a program?
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Can we not be certain there would be no partisanship in the algorithm? Is it simply too dangerous to allow a machine to define the district boundaries?
I'd really like to hear the opinions of why we shouldn't be considering using computers to determine the best district boundaries. It is a data problem, which computers are best at IMO.
 
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