gerrymandering. One of my greatest complaints is gerrymandering, and I have had some experience with it. My problem is that the action is always taken by the party in power, and is done in the way that best protects the inteerests of that party, then ten years later, it gets changed IF a new party is in power, but it is harder for that power to be changed for the simple reason that the districts have been rigged to make it harder for the other party to get in power. so*) In the late 60s, while Jon Walker was running for governor of Illinois, I was living in Palatine Illinois and somewhat politically involved when I learned that Chicago had one district that was hour-glass shaped with too large ends and a narrow pasage between and also one that was actually split into two parts wih another district in between, I also knew that California had one distreict (alone the beach which was(*) sometimes a hundred yards wide, and several miles long.) For reasons which I won't erxplain here, I took it upon myself to singlehandly gerrymander the whole state of Illinois, because I knew I would do it in a non partisan manner, I started at both ends of the state, as tho I were two different groups, and armed with Topographical and standard maps, and the then current census figures, and using those figures, and the maps, and a catographical knowlege, rebuilt the districts . using only pure numbers without financial or comercial, or racial or ethnical considerations , and ended up completing the job with each district census being within two percent of each other. It took me better than two weeks of steady work, and end with a detailed map of the whole state, ( I believe I still have a copy somewhere).(*) I can and will detail exactly how I did it, if requested, and what procedures and guidelines I used to accomplish the deed. To do this in any state and be certain that it was not partisan each team must consist of one democrat, one Republican, and one independent. and using as many teams as deemed necessary(*) Included in each team must be someone with reasonable math skills, map reading skills an some cartographic ability. The total proceedure would be to divide the toral census of the state by the number of districts, and add plus or minus 2 %, (or even less if desired) then following reasonable lines like city or county boundries, roads or natural barriers, build the district to the requied size using census figures then use the same proceedure for the next district except that if the first district were over size, the next should be undrsized, and a running total be maintained to acertain that you always stayed within the desired plus or minus, andn you would always maintain the relative size of each district. It is not hard to do, IF you stick strictly with numbers and boundries without race or economical side issues, and the result is absolutely constitutional and equal.(*) INTERESTING???? Tell your congress person
I live in that district in California, it is Lois Capp's old district that got changed when the state passed an initiative giving districting power to a panel of non-partisans. It worked well. My solution is mathematical, there are several algorithms out there that objectively draw lines by head count and location, no other metric is applied. That is the fairest method that produces a district where people that are different actually have to work together. Forget artificial factions or blocks, this is about people not politics. I would argue that the federal government should determine who is eligible for voting in federal elections and mandate Congressional districting, mandate uniform registration policies, mandate universal ballots for all federal elections. Take the power to vote out of the hands of states at least for federal elections. If a state wants to set the rules for their own elections, be my guest. We are Americans first, members of a state is way down the list.
this is why we need to end the republican party cheating in elections. this jerrymandering is a big part of the Rove perminate majority plan
In nine states, district boundaries are drawn by nonpartisan panels. http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/State-by-state_redistricting_procedures I think that's a great idea -- way better than having legislators do it. There are also proposals to draw districts by algorithm, and take it out of human hands entirely. I wrote about it back when I was blogging: http://midtopia.blogspot.com/2006/02/redistricting-revisited.html http://midtopia.blogspot.com/2006/07/redistricting-reform.html http://midtopia.blogspot.com/2007/07/nonpartisan-redistricting.html http://midtopia.blogspot.com/2007/07/redistricting-update.html
Your comment makes me very glad I am an inderpendant and I dfon't have to play these partisan games, it doen't matterwho is in power, the present system lets that party do ther job. Ss whichever (not just the republicans) is in power are doing the partiality thing. Blame your party too.
Thank you for that, I didn't know, and havent been following it. Sounds like very good news. TO ALL READERS:Here's what I think is strange. I have posted it three times in various places on this forum, and tho there were lots of readers, this is the only one which has had responses. I was about to give up. Thanks to all who did respond
