ARJ I get that, but what you have in Virginia is a large number of Republican seats that have less than a 60% vote, and a small number of ultra safe Democrat seats. There is a significant Democrat vote in the Republican areas.

The federal system probably doesn't help when it comes to setting up a fair and impartial set of boundaries. Since each state has its own set of electoral rules, trying to bring in a proper set of reforms is something that will need to be replicated 50 times, which seems very unlikely. The temptation will be too great for one party or the other to try and cheat. If, say, California, New York and Massachusetts all moved to non-gerrymandered boundaries but Texas, Virginia and South Carolina didn't that would be a major benefit to the Republicans, and likewise if the situation were reversed. Who is going to want to make the first move ? Parties can only do it in states which they control after all, which in most cases are going to be states where they have nothing to gain and a lot to lose by making the changes. It would need to be a genuinely bi-partisan effort.

danivon wrote:ARJ I get that, but what you have in Virginia is a large number of Republican seats that have less than a 60% vote, and a small number of ultra safe Democrat seats. There is a significant Democrat vote in the Republican areas.

Danivon,

But what is the total registration numbers for those districts? That is the point of the entire article that no matter how you draw the districts in Virginia, you are going to end up with more safe districts than what is termed competitive districts because more rural Virginians are Republicans and the Democrats are clustered around D.C. and Richmond.

I think the point is that there are a small number of super-safe Democratic districts and a lot more mostly safe Republican districts. Surely there must be a way to redraw the boundaries that would at least bring a few more districts into play.

ARJ - if I were going to gerrymander, I'd ensure the opposition had a few very safe seats, and my party had a majority in the rest, not by much, but enough that in most years we would win.

Registration is itself part of the problem, but look at the relative levels across VA if it makes you feel better.

Sassenach wrote:I think the point is that there are a small number of super-safe Democratic districts and a lot more mostly safe Republican districts. Surely there must be a way to redraw the boundaries that would at least bring a few more districts into play.

Sass, I understood what he was saying but that is exactly the point of the article. Even if you stuck to the basic redistricting requirements of equal population, geographic contiguity, keeping local polities as intact as possible and completely ignored the voting patterns/party registration numbers, Virginia would still end up with few Democratic safe seats and more Republican safe seats and almost no "competitive" seats.

The reason is more Virginians are Republicans then Democrats. Further, those Democrats tend to live in geographically compact high density locales. I can use Pennsylvania as the example because I am more familiar with the populations numbers. Each Congerssperson in PA represents about 700,000 individuals. If we look at Philadelphia to create a congressional district, and keep it as geographically compact so that neighborhoods are kept together, we will end up with 2-3 safe Democratic seats because the city's population is something like 75% Democratic. (727,870 registered Dem to 169,277 registered Rep -2004 number which are the last I have at home)

However, if you build a district out of Lancaster and York counties (geographic neighbors & culturally similar), you are going to end up with a safe Republican district (298,000 registered Republicans to 156,236 Democrats).

More generally, this carries over to the larger Commonwealth. We have 3 regions that generally vote Democratic with enough population to out number Republicans (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the ABE -Allentown, Bethleham, Easton area). These area's could support 5-8 congressional districts depending on how they are drawn(currently 6 districts - Phila has 3, Pitt has 2 and ABE has 1). So while we are particularly gerrymandered, even if we weren't there would probably still be a majority of safe Republican seats compared to safe Democratic or "competitive" seats.

Maybe you're right, but if that's how it turned out then so be it. It would still be an improvement, and in any case the goal is not to get more Democratic seats so much as to have a coherent set of boundaries that make sense. But I doubt things would always remain the same in any case. In some areas perhaps, but you have to look at it logically and conclude that if gerrymandering didn't make a difference then nobody would bother to do it.

I think the point is that there are a small number of super-safe Democratic districts and a lot more mostly safe Republican districts. Surely there must be a way to redraw the boundaries that would at least bring a few more districts into play.

...and now you are actually supporting the practice! Do away with it, don't do away with it, but trying to force equality in these hamfisted ways never really brings about the desired goal now does it? We have federally enforced minority zones, we have "equal opportunity" quotas, all these things meant to help assure equality simply backfire in the end.

The author's (the one linked to by Archduke) theory that since areas tend to be polarized (he cites the fact that urban areas are democratic and suburbs tend to be Republican), then even without gerrymandering Republicans would have safe seats does not really address the gerrymandering problem. If congressional distrcts were drawn just to include urban districts and just to include rural districts, then you would have very safe democratic seats, but also very safe Republican seats (which would be an incumbency issue and not a partisan issue) That is not the issue here, however,--we're not concerned about very safe Republican or Democratic seats which you would have naturally, what we're concerned about is the creation of safe (50-60 percent) Republican seats by mixing Democratic areas and Republican areas.
Polarization could create a huge incumbency problem; polarization does not create a partisan advantage for Republicans in House elections--that is done by line drawing.

I'm reading Fareed Zakkaria's "The Future of Freedom" and he offers some intriguing analysis of whats good and bad about democracies..
In an ideal democracy one would expect that if 40% of the overall populace voted a specific way, that they would be represented by 40% of the representatives in the Congress or House. That seems both logical and fair..
However voting by district in a first past the post, winner take all scenario often means that large minorities have no representation in the House or Congress...
To the extent that there are situations where gerrymandering can ensure that, within a state, large minorities don't go unrepresented, perhaps its a good thing? When, however, gerrymandering has the effect of shutting out major minority groups, perhaps it doesn't work too well?
It really depends on what the intent, and out come is ....
No matter what, taking the electoral process out of the hands of sitting state legislatures and putting it into wholly independent electoral commissions, would probably end up with the populace trusting the electoral process more...