Americans for Redistricting Reform has just come into existence, to push for non-partisan redistricting, especially of U.S. House districts. See its webpage here. It has endorsements from most of the leading organizations that advocate for particular election law reforms. Thanks to VoteLawBlog for the link.
There really needs to be some type of mathematical,computer generated system for this, with a minimum of “curved gerrymandered lines”.
Perhaps starting at the Northwest corner of a state, and extending out a square until it covers the 600,000 for a congressional district. The next district starts at the Northeast corner of the previous one etc. Nice straight lines and boxes! A mixed constituency that will allow for lots of debate, and open political process within the districts.
It will surely allow for more turnover in Congress. A 97% reelection rate for incumbents is almost as bad a turnover rate as was in the old Soviet Russia!
Personally, I’m for eliminating Congressional districts and electing all members at-large by state via STV. That seems like the best way to go.
List. I am writing a proposed U.S. Constitutional Amendment called the ‘Voter Rights Amendment’.
I know that this would be an uphill battle, but I am thinking of drafting it, circulating it around people interested in election law issues, and then seeing if I can get anyone in Wash D.C. to introduce it.
It would basically deal with (1) the right to vote, (2) be a candidate and, if elected hold office and firm establish the right to create political organizations.
Is anyone interested in looking at some of my drafts? Making comments? Helping to promote to to lawmakers?
Post #3 is from Edward T. J. Brown, not Richard Winger, just in case anyone is wondering. There is already a constitutional amendment pending in Congress to establish the right to vote in the U.S. Constitution.
Independent redistricting is good. We have a bi-partisan / independent commission here in Washington State. However, independent redistricting can only do so much with making elections competitive. The criteria of compactness and grouping communities of interest weighs on drawing the boundaries. In Washington, we wind up with a handful of competitive districts. It creates a “Swing” dynamic, where the two dominant party organizations, and the special interests that support them, pump tons of resources in these battlegrounds – while the uncompetitive or uncontested districts are ignored. I agree with Stine, we need STV to move away from the single member district.
Although Stine’s idea of “at large” is an interesting idea, it would tend to favor the urban areas of a state over the rural areas in terms of time, money, and resources put forth by office holders.
OK, well we could have multi-member districts. STV seems to be a good system. But I favor a mixed system. 2 rounds, candidates are elected at the Congressional District level first and then at the Constituency level. But if we want Proportional Representation to kick in, we need to guarantee that each state gets at least 2 Reps in order for this to happen.
Actually, Congressional districts are unconstitutional and have been for a while, since the Supreme Court ruling in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton (93-1456), 514 U.S. 779 (1995). The push should be to have non-partisan state legislature districting and statewide at-large congressional elections.
To be clear, from Thornton’s holdings:
“(b) So too, the Constitution prohibits States from imposing congressional qualifications additional to those specifically enumerated in its text.”
Districts are qualifications imposed by states that are not enumerated in the Constitution.
Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-1456.ZS.html
When I gripe about the treatment of veterans [bout 25 hours a day] I am often told to ‘write my congress man’. The person in the street is so clue less to Governor Gerry and his on going gift to the nation!
The problem is that the group’s very first principle is compliance with the VRA, which leads to districts that disregard all the other principles such as compactness, following political subdivision boundaries, political neutrality, ignoring incumbents, etc.
Re #8. A majority of representative to the 1st Congress in 1789 were elected from districts. Among those elected by district was James Madison, one of the major participants in the Constitutional Convention, and the primary author of the the Bill of Rights, who defeated James Monroe (53% to 47%).
#9 The district that was lampooned in the gerrymander cartoon was actually quite reasonable, L-shape. Part of the district boundary followed the NH-MA state line which was parallel to the crooked path of the Merrimack River. The mouth of the river formed the mouth of the beast. Wings were added where the district followed a relatively straight western boundary of Essex County, and some of the claws were natural coastal features such as those in Nahant and Marblehead.
#8 The Elections Clause allows states to adopt procedures for fair and orderly elections. While procedures necessarily have at least some substantive content it would be absurd to abandon them. I think you are going to have a very hard time convincing any court that an election district is an unconstitutional qualification.
The Voting Rights Amendment does not address candidate or political organizational rights.