What I think Republicans in the GA need to come to understand is that their majority is not going to last much longer.  Maybe one year, maybe three years, maybe even five.  But under the recent SCOTUS ruling holding that states can redistrict at any time, Democrats could ram through a highly-partisan redistricting that would give us a majority in the state's congressional delegation and allow us to hold onto our newfound GA majority for many years to come.

The smart thing would be for Republicans to popularize and push through non-partisan redistricting legislation while they're still in the majority.  They're going to lose the majority, so why not do so while claiming that they meant to in the name of fairness?  We Democrats wouldn't dare eliminate such a popular change when we come to power.  It's a win/win for Republicans.

Do you have a feel for what kind of support this bill might get?

None.  At least, other than among Democrats.

If this had been introduced in the senate it's possible it would pass, but it'd be shot down in P&E after crossover.  In the house I'll bet it won't even get a vote.  P&E will farm it out to a subcommittee, who will kill it on an unrecorded vote.  And that'll be the end of it.

a good idea, imo.  Hope this has legs.

We need to figure out a way to make this a national issue. I certainly don't want to see nonpartisan redistricting in states controlled by Democrats while the Republicans are free to gerrymander the hell out of states they control. I'm in favor of fixing redistricting, but not unilateral disarmament.

The problem I have with these bills is that they create a non-partisan panel to put districts together.  I just don't see how the people put aside their partisan influences when the stakes are so high for the parties.  How about instead we create a simple computer program that starts in the upper left hand notch of the state and starts filling up districts with voters until we have geographically contiguous compact districts with close to a similiar number of households represented.  If we wanted to get fancy we could add information about watersheds, and roadways into the calculation so that people would be organized by their transportation and envinromental support cooridors.  Although I think a simple algorythm is probably best; because it would hardest to manipulate; and easier to sell to the voters as fair.

I don't think the program can be simple. The problem is that Democrats and Republicans are not uniformly distributed geographically. Democrats are concentrated in urban areas, so if you draw districts too mindlessly, you'll get a few urban ones that are maybe 75% Democrats and a bunch of others that are maybe 55% Republican, so Republicans will end up being overrepresented.

Actually even if Democrats and Republicans were uniformly distributed, redistricting isn't so simple. Let's say a state is 60% Democrats. You don't want to divide it into districts that are all 60% Democrats, because then the House delegation is likely to be 100% Democrats.

The ideal system would produce a House delegation whose makeup roughly corresponded to the party makeup of the state as a whole. But that's not trivially easy to achieve.

There are a lot of devils lurking in the details.

If district (straight and contiguous) lines were drawn through cities in a pie-shape (wedges), all the way through suburbs and into rural areas, in such a way that each wedge contains the same proportion (about a third) of people in the dense, semi-dense and scattered areas (the wedges don't have to be "fat", and they'd widen as the population thins out), wouldn't it cover a multitude of preferences/incomes?

And I don't understand why:
The ideal system would produce a House delegation whose makeup roughly corresponded to the party makeup of the state as a whole.

a) Aren't the *independents* supposed to be the "majority party" and the swing votes anyway?
b) One of the reasons "the cake was dough again" for Repubs (nationally) this year was that not even all registered Reps voted their way (as not all Dems voted Dem - vide Lamont's loss in Conn).

I still think that pie-cut cities and squares or hexagons outside the cities, based on the number of voting-age adults, should serve as a basis for redistricting. And changes should be made not when the political tenor of an area changes, but when the numbers change.

If a politician has to address concerns of the inner city, the suburb-dwellers and the rural folk, he (or she) is more likely to  end up being a more informed and more balanced representative, no?

 

I suppose I should have said "party preference" or something rather than "party makeup". What I meant was that 60% of the people in a state voted for Democrats it would be good if somewhere near 60% of the representatives resulting from the election were Democrats, rather than 25% or 100%.

I didn't say that it wasn't possible to come up with a good algorithm -- only that it wasn't as simple as some people think. Your idea is interesting, though it would definitely be strange at the city centers and would really fragment communities there.

I'm not sure that I want all members of Congress to represent such a wide swath of constituents, since representing everyone is only one step up from representing no one. I think there are advantages to having a rep you can think of as coming from your community -- though with the increasing population of districts brought on by freezing the size of the House, representatives have become more and more remote.

"[...] it would definitely be strange at the city centers and would really fragment communities there."

The lines have to be drawn *somewhere*. Lexington is tiny and the county (Rockbridge) isn't huge either, but.. When my son was in school, we carpooled with some neighborhood families. And found out that one side of the street was "city" and the other was "county". The kids played together and we had neighborhood parties together, but the kids went to different schools. Didn't make any diff in voting for a district representative, but made a diff in voting for school council, city council, sheriff, etc.

It's like time-changing zones or latitude and... the other one (can't remember off hand) -- those lines are pretty much arbitrary if not downright imaginary. To an extent, your interests will be different than those of someone on the other side of the street; to an extent... They won't be.

I know people who live close to WVA. They go to the State Fair in WVA, because it's closer than Richmond. They form interest groups with people in WVA, because it's closer than going to Alexandria or even Charlottesville. Same goes for people who live near NC. But they all still vote in VA.

There are all kinds of "communities"... As we used to sing, when I was a pre-teen, back in Poland: "A song does not know borders and blockades". Neither do ideas.

Is a question that I would pose to conservatives.

If the answer is yes, then it's hard not to support a proposal along these lines. 

A non-partisan method similar to Iowas plan will create an environment where incumbents are held to a higher standard. 

Another major issue of fairness and democracy comes from having a fair and accurate counting of votes cast. Now is the time to act on this too.  A good article on the the classic problems of recounts.

http://www.wired.com...

To see how to help see vavv.org in Virginia or www.verifiedvoting.org/ for the national organization.

the only way that you could ever get this done in any state, is to change federal law to require it. but this (for obvious reasons) would never make it through the house.

Well, it's been done in Iowa, and some other states have made progress, so obviously federal action isn't required. It is an uphill battle, though.