How to End Gerrymandering -- A Simple Plan
An article from hyper-conservative Human Events Online is favor of establishing an independent commission in California to draw election districts. Let's see what they say when a similar measure goes up for vote in Florida this next election.
How to End Gerrymandering -- A Simple Plan
by Mac Johnson
Posted Feb 28, 2005
In 1812, Elbridge Gerry, the Governor of Massachusetts, redrew the legislative districts in his state to favor his party in the upcoming election. Looking at the sinuous and contorted shape of one district, which projected protuberances into dispersed pockets of voters across half the state, one observer noted that it looked rather like a salamander. "No," another commentator replied, "it looks more like a Gerry-mander."
Thus, one of America's oldest and most-questionable political practices was born and named, surprisingly in Massachusetts. Gerrymandering is a political trick that parties in power use to stay in power, or to increase the size of their legislative majority without having to increase the number of their voters.
The secret to Gerrymandering is creatively drawing districts in such a way that your opposition's supporters are concentrated into a small number of districts in which they constitute an overwhelming majority of the voters. Giving your opponent a certain win in these districts may seem a counterintuitive means of defeating them overall, but the result of doing so is that your voters now constitute a slimmer, but still quite safe, majority in all the remaining districts. And it is better to win a lot of districts by a moderate margin than to win one district by a huge margin. When the ruling party is the one drawing the districts, it can see to it that that is exactly what happens.
Viewed simply as strategy in the abstract mental contest of politics, the practice is quite clever, really -- in the same way that chemical weapons are clever. It is effective, but it is hard to argue that it is good for democracy. Gerrymandering has the practical effect of making government less responsive to the will of the people by making election outcomes in most districts foregone conclusions. When every district has been specifically drawn to give one party or the other a safe margin of victory, what real power do the voters have in most districts? They can vote for the winner, or they can vote for the loser, but they can't really hope to change things with their votes. Upsets and voter rebellions are quite unlikely, too, because the minority party doesn't exactly run its first-stringers in the districts where it has little chance of victory.
The result is overwhelming odds of incumbent re-election. The re-election rate in the US House of Representatives averages 95%; in 2002 it reached 99%. In the Senate, where gerrymandering is not possible since the boundaries of the states are fixed, the re-election rate averages 90% -- still high, since incumbency has numerous other advantages, but noticeably below the rate of the House. As a consequence, all but the most corrupt, senile, stupid, and ineffective Representatives are returned to office each year based on party loyalty alone.
Gerrymandering is obviously a problem, but who wants to fix it? Not incumbents, that's for sure. They've even taken to using computers to find the optimum shapes for redistricting, political mischievousness apparently being no longer limited by the intellect of politicians. Even if one were to pass a law banning the practice by name, how would you define "gerrymandering" in a way that a clever judge or politician couldn't wiggle out of, if he or she desired?
The situation would seem hopeless, but it's not. Because what we are really talking about here is a very simple geometry problem. What makes a gerrymandered district so obvious to even the most naïve eye is its shape: contorted and protruding, with legs and tail curling into scattered enclaves of like-minded voters. It looks like a salamander, after all. More historical and un-engineered jurisdictions, such as states, counties and municipalities have a much more compact shape, usually looking more like poorly drawn circles or squares than elongated amphibious tetrapods. The difference between the two forms is simply the ratio of their areas to their perimeters. Jurisdictions that have been honestly grown by time and community have a small perimeter relative to their area. Gerrymanders, by comparison, have very large perimeters defining their modest areas. Banning gerrymandering could be as simple as passing a law defining a maximum allowable perimeter to area ratio, corrected for scale.
Such a rule would be subject to little possible interpretation and would thus be enforceable. The formula to arrive at this value would be so simple that even the National Education Association could understand it, and perhaps even teach it. I'm not the first to recognize the mathematical nature of the problem, of course. I simply point it out again here. The solution has been around for some time, but it is not a limit any legislature is eager to pass on itself.
That is why the law will likely have to be passed by popular ballot initiative. Ballot initiatives are a proven way to force the will of the voters unto an unwilling legislature. All that is required is for a core of supporters in a ballot initiative state to take up the issue with proper leadership and the gerrymander that ate Democracy can be finally slain.
The ideal first state in which to try this plan is California, which has a rich history of successful ballot initiatives and -- for better or worse -- has an enormous influence on the rest of the nation. More importantly, the popular Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, (who came to power in a recall election having much in common with a ballot initiative drive) has made ending gerrymandering one of his declared legislative priorities.
Unfortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger's plan is to ask the California legislature to voluntarily pass a law ending the practice by having "an independent panel of retired judges -- not politicians -- determine California's legislative and congressional districts." So California judges are not politicians? Right. And the Democrat legislature is going to hand districting over to a Republican Governor voluntarily. You know -- just because it's the right thing to do.
The Governator's heart is in the right place, but his plan is unlikely to succeed, even if miraculously passed. Mr. Schwarzenegger has a much better option open to him: define the problem mathematically and bypass the legislature altogether to enact a solution.
In addition, Activist Judges already have an unseemly amount of power over our legislatures. Giving them the power to directly affect elections is a terrible idea. Instead, we should simply impose an enforceable limit on the legislature and allow its members to continue to draw its districts within those limits. There is no need to shift the balance of power further to the judiciary.
Politically, there is another great advantage to this plan. The initiative would be on the ballot in the same year that Governor Schwarzenegger will be campaigning for re-election. Schwarzenegger could thus pull off an impressive, yet honest, political trick of his own: campaigning for re-election as a populist outsider.
Copyright © 2005 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=6696
How to End Gerrymandering -- A Simple Plan
by Mac Johnson
Posted Feb 28, 2005
In 1812, Elbridge Gerry, the Governor of Massachusetts, redrew the legislative districts in his state to favor his party in the upcoming election. Looking at the sinuous and contorted shape of one district, which projected protuberances into dispersed pockets of voters across half the state, one observer noted that it looked rather like a salamander. "No," another commentator replied, "it looks more like a Gerry-mander."
Thus, one of America's oldest and most-questionable political practices was born and named, surprisingly in Massachusetts. Gerrymandering is a political trick that parties in power use to stay in power, or to increase the size of their legislative majority without having to increase the number of their voters.
The secret to Gerrymandering is creatively drawing districts in such a way that your opposition's supporters are concentrated into a small number of districts in which they constitute an overwhelming majority of the voters. Giving your opponent a certain win in these districts may seem a counterintuitive means of defeating them overall, but the result of doing so is that your voters now constitute a slimmer, but still quite safe, majority in all the remaining districts. And it is better to win a lot of districts by a moderate margin than to win one district by a huge margin. When the ruling party is the one drawing the districts, it can see to it that that is exactly what happens.
Viewed simply as strategy in the abstract mental contest of politics, the practice is quite clever, really -- in the same way that chemical weapons are clever. It is effective, but it is hard to argue that it is good for democracy. Gerrymandering has the practical effect of making government less responsive to the will of the people by making election outcomes in most districts foregone conclusions. When every district has been specifically drawn to give one party or the other a safe margin of victory, what real power do the voters have in most districts? They can vote for the winner, or they can vote for the loser, but they can't really hope to change things with their votes. Upsets and voter rebellions are quite unlikely, too, because the minority party doesn't exactly run its first-stringers in the districts where it has little chance of victory.
The result is overwhelming odds of incumbent re-election. The re-election rate in the US House of Representatives averages 95%; in 2002 it reached 99%. In the Senate, where gerrymandering is not possible since the boundaries of the states are fixed, the re-election rate averages 90% -- still high, since incumbency has numerous other advantages, but noticeably below the rate of the House. As a consequence, all but the most corrupt, senile, stupid, and ineffective Representatives are returned to office each year based on party loyalty alone.
Gerrymandering is obviously a problem, but who wants to fix it? Not incumbents, that's for sure. They've even taken to using computers to find the optimum shapes for redistricting, political mischievousness apparently being no longer limited by the intellect of politicians. Even if one were to pass a law banning the practice by name, how would you define "gerrymandering" in a way that a clever judge or politician couldn't wiggle out of, if he or she desired?
The situation would seem hopeless, but it's not. Because what we are really talking about here is a very simple geometry problem. What makes a gerrymandered district so obvious to even the most naïve eye is its shape: contorted and protruding, with legs and tail curling into scattered enclaves of like-minded voters. It looks like a salamander, after all. More historical and un-engineered jurisdictions, such as states, counties and municipalities have a much more compact shape, usually looking more like poorly drawn circles or squares than elongated amphibious tetrapods. The difference between the two forms is simply the ratio of their areas to their perimeters. Jurisdictions that have been honestly grown by time and community have a small perimeter relative to their area. Gerrymanders, by comparison, have very large perimeters defining their modest areas. Banning gerrymandering could be as simple as passing a law defining a maximum allowable perimeter to area ratio, corrected for scale.
Such a rule would be subject to little possible interpretation and would thus be enforceable. The formula to arrive at this value would be so simple that even the National Education Association could understand it, and perhaps even teach it. I'm not the first to recognize the mathematical nature of the problem, of course. I simply point it out again here. The solution has been around for some time, but it is not a limit any legislature is eager to pass on itself.
That is why the law will likely have to be passed by popular ballot initiative. Ballot initiatives are a proven way to force the will of the voters unto an unwilling legislature. All that is required is for a core of supporters in a ballot initiative state to take up the issue with proper leadership and the gerrymander that ate Democracy can be finally slain.
The ideal first state in which to try this plan is California, which has a rich history of successful ballot initiatives and -- for better or worse -- has an enormous influence on the rest of the nation. More importantly, the popular Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, (who came to power in a recall election having much in common with a ballot initiative drive) has made ending gerrymandering one of his declared legislative priorities.
Unfortunately, Governor Schwarzenegger's plan is to ask the California legislature to voluntarily pass a law ending the practice by having "an independent panel of retired judges -- not politicians -- determine California's legislative and congressional districts." So California judges are not politicians? Right. And the Democrat legislature is going to hand districting over to a Republican Governor voluntarily. You know -- just because it's the right thing to do.
The Governator's heart is in the right place, but his plan is unlikely to succeed, even if miraculously passed. Mr. Schwarzenegger has a much better option open to him: define the problem mathematically and bypass the legislature altogether to enact a solution.
In addition, Activist Judges already have an unseemly amount of power over our legislatures. Giving them the power to directly affect elections is a terrible idea. Instead, we should simply impose an enforceable limit on the legislature and allow its members to continue to draw its districts within those limits. There is no need to shift the balance of power further to the judiciary.
Politically, there is another great advantage to this plan. The initiative would be on the ballot in the same year that Governor Schwarzenegger will be campaigning for re-election. Schwarzenegger could thus pull off an impressive, yet honest, political trick of his own: campaigning for re-election as a populist outsider.
Copyright © 2005 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=6696
posted by JimG at 1:46 PM
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