DiscoGary wrote:
Fat hurts wrote:Thanks. That was interesting. The more interesting question would be, if the court rules against partisan gerrymandering, what would be the new standards?
Just as it is possible to use statistical modeling to create partisan district maps, it is also possible to use the same techniques to create fair district maps. You just need to decide what constitutes "fair".
There is a Federal law which makes it almost impossible to do away with gerrymandering. We looked into it in Illinois, but Federal law states that you can't make any changes to districts which might negatively impact minority representation. The consequence is that any attempt to create voting boundaries in a neutral color-blind way will land you in Federal court, and get shot down. We gave up.
That's a weird spin on gerrymandering.
So you are saying that you are required to gerrymander because gerrymandering is illegal? Are you also required to steal because theft is illegal?
The federal law you are referring to is the Civil Rights Act of 1965. Based on this and the 14th amendment, the supreme court decided in Shaw v. Reno that redistricting is unconstitutional if it is "intended to segregate voters by race".
There is no law or court decision that states, as you say, that you "can't make any changes to districts which might negatively impact minority representation." There is no race-quota system in federal law concerning redistricting.
Again, with modern technology, it is a relatively straightforward process to draw district lines that are fair. You just have to decide what "fair" means and write the code to tell the computer how to draw the lines.
That's what state legislators are doing today when they figure out how to draw district lines that favor their own party. They tell the computer, "draw lines that will send the most Republicans (or Democrats) to congress."
So we could use the same process to favor fairness instead of party.