On June 24, Congressmember John Tanner (D-Tennessee) introduced HR 3025, which sets up federal standards for states when they draw U.S. House districts. Here is the 21-page bill. It says that each state must have an Independent State Commission to draw these districts.
The Commissioners would be chosen by the leaders of the two political parties that have the most seats in each state’s legislative bodies (i.e., Democratic and Republican legislative leaders, except in states with non-partisan legislatures, although Nebraska is the only such state). The Commission’s plans must not take into consideration the voting history of a district (unless a separate state law requires it). The plans must not taken into account the partisan registration of any areas, nor the location of residence of incumbent members of the U.S. House.
No representation except D’s and R’s when independents are the most common in voter registration. Maybe the law should include voter registration on a statewide basis and the be proportional. At least Independents would have the most positions on most of these commissions and they will be less likely to cut partisan deals.
unless a separate state law requires it – most will probably require it if this becomes law.
Well, independents are not the most common in voter registration yet. They are still trailing Democrats and Republicans. Sometimes in poll data they are, but not in voter registration (speaking of the USA as a whole). Voter registration data is very slow to show partisan changes. That’s because so many registered voters never change residences, so they never re-register. Even when their thoughts about their own party affiliation changes, the old registration stays and stays.
To be fair (which is always an open question on this issue) wouldn’t it be appropiate to require an equal number of members from each ballot qualified party after the first Congressional election held after each census? These members could be voted on by each Party State Central Committee at their first meeting held after the census. Independent voters could then also be represented by some other mechanism to choose from volunteers.
Deemer, that would make too much sense!
Attention Tanner and all other math MORONS.
Half the votes in half the gerrymander districts = about 25 percent ANTI-Democracy indirect minority rule — regardless of who or what is making the gerrymander district lines.
REAL Democracy via P.R. —
Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes needed for each seat winner via surplus and loser vote transfers using pre-election candidate rank order lists.
The U.S.A. is in the political STONE AGE with its primitive gerrymanders — with the resulting gerrymander district de facto powermad monarchs — i.e. all the party hacks from one party safe seat districts in the Congress and all 50 State legislatures.
Result — ALL of the EVIL special interest gang laws — annual spending laws and *permanent* laws.
If you wanted to ensure that the following were not criteria in a redistricting plan:
(a) voting history of the population of the district;
(b) political party affiliation of population of the district; and
(c) residence of the incumbents.
Who would you least want on a commission? Or alternatively, if you did not want the above criteria to be substantively followed, who would you most want on a commission?
Would you choose someone who is not only likely to know exactly where a incumbent lives, but has actually been to the house for a political meeting, fundraiser, etc.? And of course (c) is a smokescreen. It is more to prevent a representative being carved out of his district so that an opponent can run commercials that say that “Joe Bloggs” doesn’t even live in our district.” than to draw a candidate into a district.
An interesting provision of the bill is a requirement that each commission provide interactive software on their website such that interested persons can submit plans to the commission. But a commission is both required to develop a plan, and “consider” submissions. Are they really likely to actually consider input after they had gone through the trouble of developing a plan that would satisfy the critical criteria – that it receive a majority vote from the commission members and can be approved by the legislature? Not really.
It would be better to have a very large panel chosen randomly from the entire electorate of a State, and simply have each commission oversee the collection and submission of plans to this panel, which would then pick a plan, perhaps through some iterative process.
Other provisions that Congress should incorporate are objective standards for population equality – instead of the current “as near as practicable in the absence of any guidance by the Congress”. They should also define what is required to comply with the 14th Amendment in objective terms, rather than in terms of the Voting Rights Act, and they should eliminate the possibility of States adopting a “political competitiveness” standard. It is absolutely absurd to have congressional districts in different States drawn to different standards.
In addition, the procedures by which redistricting can be dumped into the courts, whether a State supreme court or a federal district court should be eliminated. Currently it is deliberate political strategy to block action so that a different body will draw the lines. Better to simply forbid a State from electing representatives until they approve a new redistricting plan.