October 19, 2004
Now this is exciting!
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is going to do battle with Gerrymandering! Or so says Daniel Weintraub of the SacBee:
...But he also took a much more important step for the long run. He offered a full-throated endorsement for reforming the way legislators draw district lines, and taking that power out of the hands of elected officials. He says he will be challenging the Legislature to put a reform initiative on the ballot. He doesn't say when, but I hope he means next year, in a special election. It's silly to let legislators pick their voters, when it should be the other way around. If Schwarzenegger can change that, he will truly deserve the reformist governor credentials he seeks.Republicans have been pushing reform and transformation in a great many areas, but I've long been wishing I could tap some shoulders and say, "Uh, guys, since you're taking the engine out of the car anyway, wouldn't this also be a good time to fix the Shibawichee?"
Well, I won't hold my breath, but an end to the gerrymander is high on my list of desirables...Of course it's hard to blame Republican assemblymen for not being eager to end this particular problem. In many states they've been crushed under the weight of Democrat redistrictings for a long long time. In the South, in places like Texas, we're talking a hundred years or so. Now that they are becoming the majority in more and more statehouses, it's time for some payback...
(Thanks to Armed Liberal)
One of the questions I’ve long had about these commissions (and they sound like a good idea) is: how do we prevent them from being filled with partisan hacks? Who watches the watchmen and all that... Still, the system we have now is broken badly, so perhaps _any_ change would be for the good...
Posted by: Andrew Cory at October 20, 2004 10:11 AMThat's a REALLY good question. I've thought about it a lot, and I can't think of any group or type of person who could be sure to be impartial. I remember there was once a ballot iniative that would have a commission of retired judges. But judges are often partisan hacks themselves, or are appointed by politicians.
It might be good to limit the circumference of districts, relative to their area. That would make some of the gerrymandering tricks much harder to pull off...
Posted by: John Weidner at October 20, 2004 07:29 PMMaybe citizens should be chosen for the job, sort of like jurors. My experience is that people on juries take the responsibility very seriously, and try hard to be fair.
It could be a one-time thing, with the "jurors" sequestered, without access to any info on where the parties are strong. Just geographical and population info....
Posted by: John Weidner at October 20, 2004 07:34 PMOr, as I have thought, you could write a relatively simple districting program with a few pieces of information, such as a population density map and a zoning map (with designations outside of city lines such as "rural." Then you write the program to take this information and draw the lines where
1. the population of each district is roughly equal;
2. using some form of scale, widely disparate groups are not put together (such as "downtown apartments" and "rural farms"), but slightly different groups are allowed ("downtown apartments" and "suburban apartments"); and
3. the borders are as short as possible, given the rules above.
The idea for this is to group together people with obviously similar concerns (like farmers and ranchers) while completely automating the process... so everyone will think it's equally unfair. I'm not a programmer... anyone want to give it a shot?
(Oh, and there should be a code in the program that anyone attempting to put race data into it will get a "brain error" message.)
Posted by: B. Durbin at October 20, 2004 08:01 PMI like that a lot.
Though one can imagine savage court battles over the definition of "rancher" or "apartment dweller."
Posted by: John Weidner at October 21, 2004 11:08 AM
