Redistricting - this is total bull!

I had found this map of Joe Hoeffel PA-13 on his website. This is like total crap with how these republicans have redistricted throughout the country. What's with that little alcove in there by Willow Grove? Why is this district spreadout to take a piece out of Philly county (dem) and add in rural Montco county to boot.

We need to find solutions to the redistricting problem and pronto because it will only get worse, especially with the way that the Republicans have destroyed many states this past redistricting.

Maybe it's me, but excluding borders along states & counties, a redistricting map should have STRAIGHT LINES, with no indents or alcoves like this one with PA-13. I know that area where where the alcove is which is part of my old district PA-8 (Jim Greenwood R). That area is has a high Jewish Population that tend to vote democrat. They threw that into Jim Greenwood's district since he has a large chunk of rural Bucks County which is pure republican. Figured he can offset that influx of democrats (and Jim is extremely moderate so many dems will vote for him).

I think there should be a Redistricting Board on the national level that has equal number of dems and republicans on it. That way with an equal split vote they'll have to work it out to get a majority to approve of it.

The part of NE Philadelphia in the seat is the least Democratic part of the city, although that is not saying much for the GOP. The few GOP City Council members and state legislators from Philadelphia come from that part, although that part of the city votes Dem in statewide and in presidential races.

Who is going ot run for this seat.

Redistricting is done on a state level. What was the makeup of the Pennsylvania legislature in 2000 (or whenever this district was drawn)?

Let's not pretend re-districting is a one-sided game. It's a game of incumbency and power. Democratic incumbants and Republican incumbants make deals to protect their own seats. It really became an artform in the 90s. This is why so few Congressional seats are ever competitive.

We're just as bad as the Repubs when it comes to manipulating districts. As an example:

This is Gary Condits old district in California with its population of "conservative Democrats". Conveniently, the state was shuffling the borders of its congressional districts when the Condit/Levy brouhaha broke out, so we redrew the district to keep it from falling into Republican hands. The two "corridors" snaking off to the north and south of the district contain either Hipanic majorities or urban areas which are Dem strongholds, and those populations offset the rather conservative voting nature of the rest of the district. Without this manipulation, there would be a Republican in this seat.

Or how about this one? The beautifully gerrymandered California 15th District, which actually splits communities and encompasses areas completely unrelated to each other in order to maintain a Dem majority:

Even though both parties benefit, we really do need to put an end to this manipulation. District borders should be based on commonality and population...nothing else. Congressional district borders should be picked by committees who ARE NOT permitted to view the demographics of the areas they are carving up...with only population density and economic base to determine the dividing lines.

The entire process of redistricting-by-legislature stinks royally. The legislators choose their voters and not the other way around, as it should be. It is a complete corruption of the democratic process.

Non-partisan boards (these could be done on a state level, they don't need to be national) are perhaps the best, quickest solution.

A couple of states (Iowa is one, I think) already use such a process. Not coincidentally, Iowa actually has competitive congressional elections, unlike virtually everywhere else, where seats are gerrymandered to be completely "safe" for one party or the other.

All states should adopt Iowa's model.

--Peter

just thrown into a computer and the computer told to divide the state into x number of equal districts as compactly as possible.

Unfortunately that can't be done because courts have ruled that the redistricting process has to take into account minority voting strengths and other communities of interest. It would be ironic if a state decided to just throw the numbers into a computer, and then the computer got sued for racism because the districts that came out unconstitutionally dilluted minority voting strength.

It looks like gerrymandering will continue and both sides are guilty as can be.

Every state has a right to redistrict in the "1" year, after the census. The Repubs want to make sure they can lock in a Repub win in 2004. So the Dems who flee the state during this BS are true American patriots for refusing to lay down for the redistricting punks.

You know a badly drawn district when you see it.

Thing is, both parties use redistricting to protect their incumbents. Redistricting is something everyone is addicted to. I think one of the midwestern states (Iowa?) has a constitutional provision that sets up an independent board charged with dividing up the state by county into congressional district. In most other states, it's basically back-room deals and you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours among the old-boys from both parties.

The 12th district in NC is a good example of egregious district gerrymandering.

The sad truth is truth is that D's and R's are equally guilty of this disreputable practice and the result has, over time, led to a coarsening of the political debate. As districts get progressively more and more "safe" for one party or the other the general election becomes less and less meaningful. Eventually party nomination becomes tantamount to election. The result is that candidates tend to cater to the most activist members of their own party (usually the most extremist members) and the need to find common ground or concensus within a district evaporates. This leads to a lack of compromise or civility once the members get to DC.

The only solution is to draw districts in a way that ignores any factors other than natural political boundaries such as county lines, city limits, etc. and natural ones (everyone east of the river in district A, everyone west in district B).

Iowa provides a good example the rest of the nation should follow.

My district was going to change to one that runs from Austin to the coast. That's only a thin strip about 150 miles long. :eyes: Also keep in mind that Austin, particularly the portion where I live has NOTHING to do with the coast, in terms of a lot of important issues.

I say, keep the political process out of redistricting as much as possible. Nominate a non-partisan committee to draw the lines and have their decision be binding somehow...

were you saying that when the Democrats were the ones doing the gerrymandering?

The Democrats never tried this in an off year either. Oh, by the way, the Republicans left the Senate to do a little quorum-busting of their own in 1993 - they don't like to mention that.

And, in 1991, I was far less intelligent about such things. In 1981, I was 13, and didn't care.

Let's say my position has evolved as my education on the issue has increased.

Districts have to be 'concise and compact' or somesuch. when this was pointed out to Delay regarding his Texas redistricting map, the one with the long winding stretch, he replied that it is "artistically concise".

to draw a safe Repug district shaped like Mickey in Central Florida and the software can do it!

Technology will maintain Repug dominance for at least the next 10 years unless there is a historic shift (realignment) of the parties.

We have already lost this battle...

:(

1. My fetish: proportional representation. When there's no districts (or, rather, when they're large enough), there's no gerrymandering.

2. Have the Senate determine the boundaries of the districts - by the 2/3s majority. It will take a second Great Depression for one party to get that majority, so the two parties will have to compromise.

3. Letting the people decide what districts they want to be in, more or less, by referenda - down to the precinct level. Districts will be hopelessly gerrymandered, but at least they'll be gerrymandered by the people and not by politicians.

4. Amend the constitution to include a set of guidelines for redistricting - e.g. if two Senators in a state are of the same party, then that party should have a majority of the House seats, the total length of district boundaries inside each state should be minimized, counties may only be split to preserve common people-per-representative ratio, etc.

redraw every congressional district in every Democratic controlled state to give the Democrats control of Congress.

It has become a problem that the Democrats want to play by the rules when the GOP plays by no rules.

That's what they do in Iowa -- having bipartisan commissions usually means they gang up to protect each other's incumbents -- the process has to be taken out of the hands of politicians, or else there will never be a complete end to gerrymandering.

Of course, the only way to make everyone represented and to allow EVERY district and region to be competitive is to institute proportional representation, either in multimember districts or mixed-member -- single-member non-gerrymandered districts plus some at-large seats per state that help correct the imbalances that result, correcting the ratio of democrats to republicans to make it closer to the actual voting percentages -- germany does mixed-member, w/ half the bundestag elected in single-member districts and the other half elected at-large thru the whole country -- the at-large half is used to even out whatever imbalances may occur in the district results. However, mixed-member can even work very well w/ as little as 25% or 20% (even 15% in a largely 2-party system) at-large. Something like that was proposed in GB for the Westminster Parliament, though it hasn't been enacted -- superdistricts of 8 or so single-member districts would have two or 3 or more at-large seats that would be used to readdress imbalances.

I really hope that sometime over the next few years proportional representation emerges in the national debate. I keep hoping (though I doubt it will happen) that a Democratic presidential candidate will make it part of a comprehensive reform program that includes abolishing the electoral college, even deeper campaign-finance reform, and other reforms, like easier ballot-access, greater democratization in the house, and judicial reform.

But I digress.

Mike Castle's District



We only have 750,000 people, it may be a bit til they give us a second representative.

It's amazing to me that this things are still done in backroom deals. Feed the numbers to a coumputer, create x number of equal-sized districts and let that be the end of it. Then maybe we could have actual elections again. I've lived in Virginia for four years and my vote only "matters" on the local level. I don't think I've voted in a state or national election that really felt "contested" here.

would violate the Voting Rights Act.