Hope you enjoyed a fresh look at gerrymandering from the perspective of "The Establishment". Let me know what ideas you have for future articles in this series!
Thank you! I definitely still oppose gerrymandering. The new battlegrounds argument was surprisingly convincing... for the other side after all, there are other democracies where districts remain static for longer, yet the political parties there still manage to evolve, change and appeal to a larger audience.
Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, gerrymandering was always going to be a tough sell, which did make it a particularly fun one to write. You make a good point about the new battlegrounds argument too.
Some perceived gerrymandering may be impossible to stop, but independent commissions in which civil servants or professional demographers rather than hyperpartisan politicians design districts has got to be better and fairer. NC, a purple state with normally 7 Democratic and 7 Republican members of Congress, after the 2024 election, is now represented in Congress by 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats, though Democrat Josh Stein won the governorship in a landslide. The four gerrymandered D seats that flipped to R are just enough to maintain Republican control of Congress. How is that fair? Gerrymandering's intent is to deprive voters of adequate representation. Two years ago, I got a "new" GOP Congressman who did not bother to campaign nor even live in the district. He won automatically due to party label alone. I daresay not even 10% of the voters know anything about him.
Completely agree, Jim. My personal position is strongly against gerrymandering and all forms of voter disenfranchisement. This article was just an exercise in seeing an issue from a new angle (I had a disclaimer at the top about the purpose).
Sorry if it was misleading at all! Hopefully, by highlighting the 'best' arguments for gerrymandering, this helps people realise just how destructive it is and how weak even the best defense of it is.
Really interesting point, I did not know that about independent commissions. I can absolutely understand the issues that would arise from that and the control experts would have. Definitely something to note if I revisit this subject…
The problem is in most states where independent commissions have been tried, the independent commissions aren't composed of professional demographers or civil servants -- they are composed of randomly selected voters who have the time to take a year off to engage in redistricting. That means you mostly end up with a pool of the unemployed or the retired. The result is a group of people who have no skills or education that would enable them to actually perform their jobs adequately. This renders them extraordinarily subject to relying on their "experts," who have their own agendas. They also become politicians by virtue of their roles. Look at Michigan's results for an example, where you have a Northern state that created one of the worst racial gerrymanders to ever occur in the Northern states.
Clearly, you didn't witness what happened in Michigan...where one of the supposedly "independent" commissioners was allegedly custom-drawing districts for Democratic candidates for office. That commission totally took politicians out of the process, right?
Firstly, it seems to me that the process has been flawed from the beginning in aiming to have some sort of an even split of Dem/Repub/independent commissioners (in line with the US desire to politicise everything). We are talking about having a completely independent commission, composed of some combination of respected citizens and public servants a la the Australian Electoral Commission:
Do you know when there was a controversy about seats or gerrymandering in Australia last? Certainly not in my memory :)
Secondly, I would appreciate a link because from what I'm reading, the issue was that the new maps resulted in lack of POC candidates getting elected (so, if anything, it sounds like it was Republicans doing something dodgy, lol?):)
It actually was Democrats trying to secure Democratic majorities by spreading out urban voters into the suburbs plus an Democratic expert taking an extreme position on voting populations. So, no -- Republicans don't shoulder the blame here. The best source is really the court opinion, but it's 100+ pages long, so I don't expect you to devote the time to read. I've included here below, but the first and second links are a good summary of some of the issues and the next two links are to the notice to remove and dissenting report. The case is at the bottom.
I'm not surprised you know so much about American politics - not only are you far more intelligent than me, but brave enough to engage with the American news cycle :|
On the idea of 'breathing new life' into flyover states, I'm probably misunderstanding, but I don't know if competition in and of itself is a desirable thing. My assumption is artificially rejigging districts just because they reduce the 'flyover' effect of political impotence, causes (currently) overwhelmingly red or blue districts to fail in a different or arguably worse way compared to traditionally gerrymandered electorates.
In the United States, my understanding is that these hard-right or hard-'left' (if you can call the Democrats that) districts are results of 1. demographics - something that neither an electoral commission nor a government should realistically aim to change, but also 2. long-held political biases, which I think shutters most competition - it turns them into districts decided by knife-thin margins - I'm assuming that's the premise you were going for, but the concentration of power into a few swing voters means that candidates are able to ignore the demographics/areas that safely vote for them, and pork-barrel their way into representing fewer voters. So, a geographic region that used to be solid red/blue might get more things, but only for communities that are willing to swing, which kind of defeats the purpose of battlegrounds - people are still being ignored, it's just that their region isn't. This is unlike a world with a solid red state, a solid blue state, and a perfectly swing state (hypothetical perfect world!!), where the people of the swing state get state-wide promises, instead of creating demographic discrimination by politicians (if that makes any sense?).
Of course, that's the status quo in Pennsylvania and other key states, but... in a perfect world, where voters are actually informed by what politicians have done for them (to have 100% swing voters), instead of how they believe a person of their demographic or culture should vote, maybe this discussion would be moot from the outset :)
Hope you enjoyed a fresh look at gerrymandering from the perspective of "The Establishment". Let me know what ideas you have for future articles in this series!
Thank you! I definitely still oppose gerrymandering. The new battlegrounds argument was surprisingly convincing... for the other side after all, there are other democracies where districts remain static for longer, yet the political parties there still manage to evolve, change and appeal to a larger audience.
Also I think Cracking has a typo.
Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, gerrymandering was always going to be a tough sell, which did make it a particularly fun one to write. You make a good point about the new battlegrounds argument too.
And thanks for the typo pickup!
Some perceived gerrymandering may be impossible to stop, but independent commissions in which civil servants or professional demographers rather than hyperpartisan politicians design districts has got to be better and fairer. NC, a purple state with normally 7 Democratic and 7 Republican members of Congress, after the 2024 election, is now represented in Congress by 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats, though Democrat Josh Stein won the governorship in a landslide. The four gerrymandered D seats that flipped to R are just enough to maintain Republican control of Congress. How is that fair? Gerrymandering's intent is to deprive voters of adequate representation. Two years ago, I got a "new" GOP Congressman who did not bother to campaign nor even live in the district. He won automatically due to party label alone. I daresay not even 10% of the voters know anything about him.
Completely agree, Jim. My personal position is strongly against gerrymandering and all forms of voter disenfranchisement. This article was just an exercise in seeing an issue from a new angle (I had a disclaimer at the top about the purpose).
Sorry if it was misleading at all! Hopefully, by highlighting the 'best' arguments for gerrymandering, this helps people realise just how destructive it is and how weak even the best defense of it is.
Really interesting point, I did not know that about independent commissions. I can absolutely understand the issues that would arise from that and the control experts would have. Definitely something to note if I revisit this subject…
The problem is in most states where independent commissions have been tried, the independent commissions aren't composed of professional demographers or civil servants -- they are composed of randomly selected voters who have the time to take a year off to engage in redistricting. That means you mostly end up with a pool of the unemployed or the retired. The result is a group of people who have no skills or education that would enable them to actually perform their jobs adequately. This renders them extraordinarily subject to relying on their "experts," who have their own agendas. They also become politicians by virtue of their roles. Look at Michigan's results for an example, where you have a Northern state that created one of the worst racial gerrymanders to ever occur in the Northern states.
Ahaha, nice one:) I have to admit, a bit of a toughie trying to convince people that an independent body will be more corrupt than a politician :P
Haha yes a very tough sell! Glad you enjoyed it 😁
For sure 😁🙌
Clearly, you didn't witness what happened in Michigan...where one of the supposedly "independent" commissioners was allegedly custom-drawing districts for Democratic candidates for office. That commission totally took politicians out of the process, right?
Firstly, it seems to me that the process has been flawed from the beginning in aiming to have some sort of an even split of Dem/Repub/independent commissioners (in line with the US desire to politicise everything). We are talking about having a completely independent commission, composed of some combination of respected citizens and public servants a la the Australian Electoral Commission:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Electoral_Commission
Do you know when there was a controversy about seats or gerrymandering in Australia last? Certainly not in my memory :)
Secondly, I would appreciate a link because from what I'm reading, the issue was that the new maps resulted in lack of POC candidates getting elected (so, if anything, it sounds like it was Republicans doing something dodgy, lol?):)
It actually was Democrats trying to secure Democratic majorities by spreading out urban voters into the suburbs plus an Democratic expert taking an extreme position on voting populations. So, no -- Republicans don't shoulder the blame here. The best source is really the court opinion, but it's 100+ pages long, so I don't expect you to devote the time to read. I've included here below, but the first and second links are a good summary of some of the issues and the next two links are to the notice to remove and dissenting report. The case is at the bottom.
https://www.mifairelections.org/post/redistricting-commissioners-refuse-to-investigate-themselves-now-what
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/21/federal-judges-order-13-michigan-house-and-senate-districts-redrawn-redistricting/72004405007/
https://www.michigan.gov/micrc/-/media/Project/Websites/MiCRC/MISC-14/Szetela-Second-Dissenting-Report-Final-17Dec2024-Part-1.pdf?rev=357f3410d3cf4928aae913f3aac85da0&hash=F3ED04D4FE03D2A7B94C003909BFCE15
https://www.michigan.gov/micrc/-/media/Project/Websites/MiCRC/MISC-10/Notice-under-subsection-3e--Eid.pdf?rev=af867603a39b467987f43be9b3adc001&hash=313E6306B6D4354AF4855E33F612B08F
https://casetext.com/case/agee-v-benson
I understand:) thank you very much..will take a look at these:)
I'm not surprised you know so much about American politics - not only are you far more intelligent than me, but brave enough to engage with the American news cycle :|
On the idea of 'breathing new life' into flyover states, I'm probably misunderstanding, but I don't know if competition in and of itself is a desirable thing. My assumption is artificially rejigging districts just because they reduce the 'flyover' effect of political impotence, causes (currently) overwhelmingly red or blue districts to fail in a different or arguably worse way compared to traditionally gerrymandered electorates.
In the United States, my understanding is that these hard-right or hard-'left' (if you can call the Democrats that) districts are results of 1. demographics - something that neither an electoral commission nor a government should realistically aim to change, but also 2. long-held political biases, which I think shutters most competition - it turns them into districts decided by knife-thin margins - I'm assuming that's the premise you were going for, but the concentration of power into a few swing voters means that candidates are able to ignore the demographics/areas that safely vote for them, and pork-barrel their way into representing fewer voters. So, a geographic region that used to be solid red/blue might get more things, but only for communities that are willing to swing, which kind of defeats the purpose of battlegrounds - people are still being ignored, it's just that their region isn't. This is unlike a world with a solid red state, a solid blue state, and a perfectly swing state (hypothetical perfect world!!), where the people of the swing state get state-wide promises, instead of creating demographic discrimination by politicians (if that makes any sense?).
Of course, that's the status quo in Pennsylvania and other key states, but... in a perfect world, where voters are actually informed by what politicians have done for them (to have 100% swing voters), instead of how they believe a person of their demographic or culture should vote, maybe this discussion would be moot from the outset :)