worst gerrymandered state

I think I have to go with Florida after seeing a map and looking at the ratio of Republican congressman vs. Democratic. Apparentely Maryland is also pretty bad, especially on the state office level, although this of course is to benefit the Democrats.

but I've read some pretty negative stuff about what Finneran does, even eliminating Marty Meehans district altogether because he disagreed w/ him on campaign finance.

The MA dem party does not set a good example for democrats I hate to say alot of the time

I've checked the district map for MA, and it is not that bad when compared to a state like Florida or Georgia, where gerrymanding is REAL bad, where individual towns are split.

Say what you want about the MA democrats, they have always been a solid foundation for the Democratic party in Congress.

there is more to the story than just a disagreement about campaign finance. With an all Democratic delegation and all incumbents running for re-election and no change in the number of seats, redistricting would normally just involve some tinkering to allow for population shifts. For years, the cities here in the southeastern part of the state were always the tail end of Greater Boston based districts precluding anyone from this part of the state ever being elected to Congress. When it was expected by most people that Meehan was going to run for Governor, Finneran took the opportunity to eliminate Meehan's fifth district and create a new fifth in the southeastern part of the state consisting of the parts of the third, fourth and ninth districts that were in Bristol County and a few neighboring towns.

The person who would have been most effected by that scenerio was Barney Frank who would have lost a good chunk of his district but he didn't oppose it knowing the desires of the people in this part of the state. When Meehan decided to run for re-election instead of Governor that killed Finneran's plan.

And the Republicans there are pretty weak except in the governor's mansion, so the Democrats fight each other. I talked to a Maryland state rep. recently who represents Prince George's County, which has like an 8-1 ratio of Democrats. He said that primaries for that seat are bloody and brutal but once you win the primary you are in for life. I think that is the case in much of Massachusetts, so that is why they fight each other.

too many is never enough! :)

he is more comservative than our past Republican governors, and acts like a Repuke most of the time.

i don't know how old it is, but it simply speaks for itself. District 21:

Is that Corrine Brown's seat?

but if so it would obviously be to make the surrounding districts safely Republican.

That's why I am against seats like this. While the idea behind them--electing more minorities to Congress--is noble, these seats basically turn the rest of the district, which would normally be more competetive, into lilly white Republican bastions.

My understanding is that this district was created as the result of some Federal or Judicial mandate to create minority districts. Does anyone else know anything about this?

My guess is that since the Republicans who control the Florida legislature had to create a minority district in the area, they figured the would make it as Democratic as possible so they could make more of the other districts slightly Republican.

someone spilled some blue stuff on the map.

They are really confusing, but I'm pretty sure that is my district....right now it belongs to Cliff Stearns (R)...and the Democratic opponent is Dave Bruderly...he goes to the Dean meetups, but from what I understand he supports the draft, which is absolutely IDIOTIC in a college town like Gainesville!! Also, Gainesville is a VERY LIBERAL town, which is why they decided to include "The Villages" an old folks (rich) development in Ocala...and the other parts are hick-town in order to make up for the influence of us in Gainesville.....BLAH!!!

I'd thought I'd seen some bad ones in AP Gov when we went over gerrymandering, but this one takes the cake.

District 18:

District 22:

District 3 has some interesting tentacles and appendages:

Here's an updated map of FL:

well MD had 4 Republicans and 4 Democrats in its delegation before the 2002 elections. Basically the Democrats squeezed the two Republicans--Ehrlich and Morella--into the seats of Roscoe Bartlett and Wayne Gilchrest.

The first map is the one from the 1990s. The second one is the post 2002 map.





Notice the differences. Basically the seat that really changed was Ehrlich's (R), who left to become Governor. The old 2nd was basically Baltimore and Harford Counties. Although Democrats had more registered voters they were conservative. Harford County votes Republican in most races even though there are more Democrats. The old 2nd didn't even vote for Clinton or Gore at all, although they both won Baltimore County.

The new 2nd stretches like a claw into Balitmore. It picks up precincts in Baltimore City and cuts off the Republican parts of Baltimore County. It gives Northern Baltimore and Harford Counties to Bartlett and Gilchrist.

Here's the 2nd ...


Here's the 3rd ...



They look like mating gerrymanders.

And basically the new 2nd picks of up key Democratic precincts in Balitimore city and western Baltimore County. It cuts off the Republican precincts in the northern part of the county and gives them to Barlett and Gilchrist.

District 2 looks a little interesting eh?

I think the appendage of the 2nd is an Indiana Reversation of one tribe. And ther other reservation is in the first. I think they separated the Hopia and the Apachies because they don't get along together.

The Hopi Nation lies on three mesas that are surrounded by Navajo Nation. And yes, there has been some "friction" between the two populations

AZ-2 includes the Hopi reservation, while AZ-1 includes the Navajo reservation. I see nothing wrong with this separation, as they both dislike each other. Communities of interest...

Districts would be required to be polygons with a limited number of sides, say 20.

No more gerrymandering.

No more gerrymandering of any degree and more representation of people instead of areas that just compete for pork barrel billions.

That District 21 map would make a great campaign logo. :puke:

now try and put that into law. How do we define:

"any degree"?
"pork barrel billions"?
"more representation"?

Naive.

Umm... I think you should find out about the very real electoral systems in most European countries. :eyes:

I guess if we're throwing away the US Constitution for a parliamentary system, we might as well be utopic about it. Get real! Besides, electoral systems like France, England, or Germany represent an area smaller than many US states! :eyes: yourself!

"Proportional representation voting (PR) is the main rival to plurality-majority voting. Among advanced western democracies it has become the predominant voting system. For instance, in Western Europe, 21 of 28 countries use proportional representation, including Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

The basic approach of proportional representation is simple: legislators are elected in multimember districts instead of single-member districts, and the number of seats that a party wins in an election is proportional to the amount of its support among voters. So if you have a 10-member district and the Republicans win 50% of the vote, they receive five of the ten seats. If the Democrats win 30% of the vote, they get three seats; and if a third party gets 20% of the vote, they win two seats. Electoral system designers have devised several ways to achieve these proportional results, and so there are three basic kinds of PR described below: party list, mixed-member, and single-transferable vote (also called choice voting)."
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/PRsystems.htm

Have you never even heard about the concept? What exactly might be your need to be snippy about it (e.g. "Naive")?. I don't understand.

how democratic. Just think, those European countries actually DO represent everyone. I believe a lot more Americans might vote if they actually believed they had some representation.

The way I see it, there are 3 possibilities in the U.S.
(see this site for info if you don't understand this post: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/prlib.htm)

1) Mixed Member -- make it like Germany's. Most likely, you'd have to cap the members of the House somewhere in the mid-600s, let's say 657, w/, say, 328 single-member districts and 329 party seats. The problem here is that the large states would become woefully under-represented, but the on the other hand, the case could be made that, politically, it doesn't matter, since a national party vote would readdress the political losses -- i.e. democrats would probably suffer in the district vote, since our support is in larger states, but it'd be evened out by the party vote. To alleviate the problem further, the party seats could be allocated by REGIONAL lists -- divide the country into regions and apportion the 329 party seats by population, then have the state parties in those regions work together to create a regional list. The big downside here is that it would probably take a constitutional amendment.

2) Alternate Vote Plus -- this is a system that has never been put into use, but has been proposed in the UK for Westminster (the national parliament). In the UK, the idea is for there to be special "top-up" at-large seats that represent around 8 districts. Each district elects one representative by instant-runoff vote. Each district is part of a larger super-district w/ 2 or 3 "top-up" seats. These top-up seats are then distributed to readdress imbalances. This is sort of a variation on mixed-member, but instead of 1/2 or 2/5 elected by party vote, only abt 20% of the national parliament is. This would probably be the least radical solution for the U.S. and the results wouldn't be totally proportional -- but they'd be largely so. Not as much as the other two systems, but still far better than right now. In the U.S., the top-up seats could be distributed by state. The House could be increased to 657 w/ 435 or 483 districts (there's a proposal in congress to increase the number of seats to that number) and the extra 222 or 174 seats would be distributed proportionately to each state, so that each state had some top-up seats equalling either 1/3 or 1/4 of their delegations. The downside is that there may be constitutional issues involved, since not every state would be able to do this -- small states would be left out of the process, and it would likely be taken to the SCOTUS.

3) Voter's Choice Act -- this bill has been proposed in Congress, previously sponsered by Cynthia McKinney. The idea is actually the most simple and most easily passed idea for p.r. It's very simple. The 1960s era law or clause (it may be part of the voting rights act, i'm not sure) that mandates single-member districts is repealed and states are free to do as they wish. The idea then is that individual states can take the initiative, and, on their own draw either single-member districts, or multi-member districts by list voting, single-transferrable vote, or, in the cases of large states, mixed-member. A variation on this could MANDATE multimember districts, at least for states w/ 3 or more representatives. IMO, in such a solution, states w/ at least 5 seats would be required to draw districts w/ at least 5 seats. Still, this is probably the most likely of getting passed since it turns it into a states' rights issue -- one that a lot of congress is receptive to.

I don't see a way that the Senate could be use pr -- one solution floated has been mixed-member, w/ 1 senator from each state and another half of the senate elected by party vote. The problem is there may be constitutional issues (the constitution forbids an amendment that alters the 2-seat per state rule, though it's more to prevent the states from getting different numbers, so it may not be an issue) - the other problem may be that people feel that it strips the senate of it's individuality -- if both the House and the Senate are pr, then both chambers are likely to be controlled by the same party, and it may make some in govt. uneasy. Plus, Americans don't like radical change, so I think pushing for pr in the House is a good, acceptable compromise that in itself would signficantly increase Americans' representation.

Yes, I've heard of the concept (and just because I'm criticizing your idea, doesn't mean I'm being snippy) and I'll say it again--it's naive for the US.

In Europe districts boundaries are mostly derived from centuries-old city states and the populations and interests of the districts are much more homogeneous than districts in the US.

Not to mention numbers. For example, Florida has 25 HR districts. If we assume 10 members to each, that gives 250 representatives from the state of Florida, x 50 = 12500 representatives. OK, 10 members is too much--let's say 5, and cut it down to 12 districts for a typical state. That's still 3000 representatives. Now Repubs get 2, Dems get 2, Libertarian gets 1--Hey where's my GREEN vote? We carry 10% of the population in my district....

Your idea unrealistically assumes that the relatively small scales of European democracy can be effectively transferred to a country where the number of districts in each state is often greater than the number of districts in their entire country.

PR is about how votes are counted. Parliamentary system is about the relation between the executive and the legislature.

The Constitution (you remember it, right? The document printed on Asscroft Brand Pre-Oiled Toilet Paper?) provides for a decennial census to determine how many representatives shall be elected from each State. It does NOT specify how they shall do so (districts, at large, proportional representation, darts thrown at the phone book, whatever).

For that matter, it doesn't even specify the total number of Reps overall. Through the 19th century and into the early 20th, the number of Reps increased as new States entered the Union. It wasn't until around WWI that the number became fixed -- by custom, not law -- at the present 435, leading to the present situation in which states "compete" against one another for reps based on polpulation shifts, immigration, etc.

And so, back to gerrymandering. Two weapons against it would be:

Particularly in the large states (CA, FL, NY, and of course TX, etc.) one could conceive of several "super-districts" (CA: Northern, Bay Area, Central Valley, Central Coast, L.A. Basin, rest of SoCal; NY: Long Island, NYC, northern suburbs, Hudson Valley, Southern Tier, Capital Region, Western NY; and so on), with each electing, say, three to seven reps (more for NYC and perhaps the LA Basin) based on population. That way, the issue is deicded within a larger, more diverse region, by actual voters, and not in some back-room deal. And remember, the whole basis of "pork barrel" politics is how much $$$ a powerful incumbent brings back to one of today's smallish districts.

And finally, why not just double or triple the size of the House? (The Senate IS fixed at 100, at least until D.C. or Puerto Rico achieves statehood.) This way, we could keep the present districts, or a reasonable facsimile -- but it would no longer be winner-take-all. This one bears consideration: yes, you might get (and keep) more Cynthia McKinneys, and possibly some third-party reps such as Greens, but you'd run the risk of more Bob Barr/Helen Chenoweth freeper-types as well.

The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

RI and DE were the only state to have an at-large representative.

We could do it this way: Start with the smallest state. That state gets one seat. All other states' populations are divided by the number of people in the smallest state. Fractions are rounded according to the prevailing convention (5/10 or greater is rounded up, less than that is rounded down). Since the smallest state has a population of around 350,000 or so, that would double the size of the body to nearly 900 people, but it would put a lid, more or less, on the total number of districts, which was the intent behind the 435 ceiling. It would also reduce the number of at-large states to two, maybe three. The remaining districts would, of course, be smaller geographically than is currently the case. This, I think, was what the Founders were after when they came up with the original apportionment scheme.

Secondly, if I were a Member of Congress, I would propose an amendment to the Constitution formalizing the rules for apportionment, so that a Tom DeLay can't come around trying to rape the system after the fact.

I would also push an amendment abolishing the Electoral College, but if I were asked, I would support one doing away with the "winner take all" rule. Determining representation as I described above would at least make the EC system more representative of the peoples' intent.

Any one have a map?

Here's Iowa's Districts

http://www.ncec.org/redistricting/district.phtml?district=ia108

They definitely appear the most fair. They also have some really good pickup opportunities in IO-1 and IO-2.

Iowa's boundaries were drawn by an independent commission that didn't care about incumbent protection...so we get 4 marginal districts out of the 5.

And just look at that! What a marvel of simplicity! They didn't break up one single county!! I don't suppose there's any chance this eminently reasonable plan will spread nationwide? Naw, of course not. Where's the rancorous partisanship? </sarcasm>

I believe.

according to Prop 106 (Nov 2000).

Washington also has a bipartisan commission, as does New Jersey.

District 7 is violating District 6 in some way. It's also making inroads into District 2. One thing I'll give it is that District 2 really makes sense, both geographically and by population. That's my old district.

The appendage of the 7th takes away black precincts, leaving the 6th as a pure white Republican seat.

...a few months ago.

I'm absolutely opposed to Political Districting/Redistricting (And Re-Redistricting like in Texas), it is HIGHLY un-democratic.

Wouldn't that be novel? You'd get more Greens and Liberal Dems-- as well as some goofy wingnuts. I think this would work if we split CA into 2 states.

Browse http://nationalatlas.gov/congdistprint.html at your leisure.

Texas' 25th is an interesting one:

It's not marked on the map, but the district splits Reading (Berks County) in two and includes the Montgomery County portions to dilute Montco's power. This district is gerrymandered enough that my next-door neighbor is in PA-7.

Nice link! :thumbsup:

This seat just barely went to the Republicans in 2002. I hope that Dan Wofford tries again in 2002.

When I went to bed on Election Night (11:30 PM), I thought we were going to win that...naturally the Chesco chad machines reported last and we lost by five thousand votes. :puke:

Hopefully the Democratic presidential nominee will have some coattails...Gore won PA-6 by one thousand votes.

I do think we will get the seat in due time, though. It took the south decades to become fully Republican. The suburbs are trending toward the Democrats and it will probably take just as long for Democrats to complete the realingment that's going on.

This is Sherwood Boehlert's (R-chameleon) district. It encompasses all of Herkimer County, which probably has the lowest population density of any county in the state, picks up the lower 2/3 of Oneida Co. (Utica/Rome area), and swings south nearly to Binghampton (being careful not to include any of the liberals who live there), around Syracuse (ditto), and picking up a sizeable chunk of the Finger Lakes wine country, including Auburn and Geneva, but neatly excluding the liberal oasis of Ithaca (the "finger" of Tompkins Co. not colored green). Can't have any Democrats campaigning against Sherry at Cornell, can we?

Edit: Here's a more dialup-friendly version of the map.

So what do people in Buffalo and Niagara Falls have to do with people in Rochester? Nothing at all, but they share a congresscritter.

Edit: Here's a more dialup-friendly picture of NY 28th.

that the surburbs around Rochester are in not one, not two, not three, but four, count 'em, four districts.

(eastern suburbs are NY-25 with Syracuse, southern suburbs are in NY-29 with half the Southern Tier, western suburbs are in NY-26 which is actually not that bad, and the city itself is in NY-28)

It's simply ridiculous.

Maurice Hinchey (D-peacenik) represents four liberal college towns (Ithaca, Binghamton, New Paltz, Newburgh) in a 200-mile wide swath.

I don't really think Ithaca and Newburgh should be in the same district, but hey, if the Democrat gets to keep his seat...

Rochester and Buffalo were separate districts. In an attempt to get rid of one of these 2 solid Democractic districts, the cities were combined into a single district. This new district includes the 2 cities, and a thin strip along Lake Ontario. The district looks like a set of headphones.

Luckily the Buffalo congressman decided to not seek re-election, and (my) Congressperson Louis Slaughter is now the rep for this district.

If the Repukes had their way, every state would have a single Democratic district, and the rest of the districts would be Republican.

Disgraceful.

Cheers
Drifter

Sorry I don't have any maps.

Arguably a Democratic state, MI's plan gives only 5 of 15 seats safely to the Democrats...we have 6 now (Stupak's district is marginal, but Stupak is personally safe).

They really fucked the Democrats over there.

Sometimes it looks even longer than Ohio is wide.

by making Strickland (D) stronger. I don't know much about Ohio, so don't quote me on that, though.

That's what I thought when I saw the 24th of New York (see post #22). That thing is bigger than several states. Imagine some Don Quixote (D-chasing windmills) trying to unseat the Repig incumbent in a dilapidated Dodge minivan.

OTOH, if Quixote's campaign were to catch on, Mr. Repig Incumbent is a lot busier than the windmill chaser, no?

That's nothing compared to those.

It's not really a jut. It's an island. And it's Ney's (R) hometown. 10,000 or so sure Ney voters, in case the rest of his district gets wise to him.

I live in 6, by the way. This was set up for Repub advantage (including Ney's 10,000 voter safety net in Belmont Co.) but I'm so happy to be rid of Ney.

I can't tell from the map, but where did they stick Athens? Is it in 6??

(Ohio U grad)

looks harmless until you realize they divided the largest city, Salt Lake, which is where most of the Dems live, into thirds. We only have three congressional districts so it was quite a trick.
http://www.voteutah.org/voter/map.html
(sorry, don't know how to post the image)

That was done to get rid of Scott Matheson.

they went from 2 rural districts and SLC + the suburbs which went to a Dem Matheson into Matheson's district contain his part of SLC + a large rural area full of wingnuts and fundamentalist Mormons. He had a tough time in 2002 and will have an even tougher one in 2004.

and Matheson only won 49.4%-48.7% in 2002. Good thing SL County cast 60% of the votes and Moab was in the district...

Matheson is going to need to get a good field plan.

District 6 has a claw, and it has a hole in it. I asked if that hole was a body of water, but was informed that it was in fact part of district 8. District 8 is really funny looking too.

PA did a number on us Democrats in this decade.