On June 24, five U.S. House members introduced a bill to require states to use “bipartisan commissions” to draw U.S. House boundaries after each census. The bill won’t have a bill number until June 25, and the text isn’t available yet. See this press release. The five house members include four Democrats and one Republican. The four Democrats are John Tanner of Tennessee, Allen Boyd of Florida, Jim Cooper of Tennessee, and Baron Hill of Indiana. The Republican is Mike Castle of Delaware. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this news.
Always “bipartisan,” never nonpartisan or multi-partisan. And we accuse China of being a “party state.” It is, but so are we: a duopoly, a self-enforced two-party state. Still, this would be a step forward if it eliminated partisan gerrymandering for the U.S. House.
I suspect elelctions in China are more fair than in America.
Since I found out I have one, the word “bipartisan” now always reminds me of bipartite medial sesamoids: http://www.apfmj-archive.com/afm5_3/Images/afm_50_F1.jpg
Yep, that’s congress… a useless pain!
try Loeber v Spargo USCA2nd 08-4323
Of course, the obvious (and therefore it’ll never happen!) solution is to make all House members at-large, thereby eliminating all gerrymandering whatsoever. Every two years voters would simply vote for up to X representatives off a list.
(Actually, I’m surprised that this hasn’t happened yet in some ways, because in larger states (either population or geography) it would make minor parties’ jobs that much harder because then they’d have to campaign statewide instead of just in a district, which is considerably easier for the major parties.)
There have been years in which some or all members of the US House were elected statewide in many states. For example, in 1932 some or all were elected statewide in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, plus of course all the states that just had one US House member. In 1967 Congress passed a law requiring all states with more than a single member to use districts. During the 1990’s, FairVote tried very hard to get that law repealed, but none of the many bills made any headway.
The best way to make districts is to use non-partisan commissions to draw the districts using only population statistics – districts should not split cities in unless absolutely necessary and non-partisan IRV to elect Representatives.
Attention all math MORONS —
Total Votes / Total Seats = EQUAL votes needed for each seat winner = REAL Democracy.
NO need for any party hack / *nonpartisan* / *bipartisan* gerrymander commissions.
Too much for the EVIL party hack de facto monarchs in one party safe seat rigged districts (aka political concentration camps) to understand — along with the armies of know- it- all brain dead ignorant media — especially in Dumb City ???
That’s not anti-gerrymandering. If it’s “bipartisan” that just means the two major parties will gerrymander so that it benefits both of them, arrive at some compromise depending on which party dominates the legislature, and then vote on it. That’s how it works in a lot of states anyway.
Michael – if that happened there wouldn’t necessarily be statewide campaigns. A minor candidate could just campaign in one area if they think they can get enough votes to get a seat(since there would probably just be some threshold).
Gerrymanders = indirect minority rule.
Half the votes (i.e. plurality) in a bare majority of the gerrymander districts (political concentration camps) = about 25 percent indirect minority rule.
Much worse due to party hack primary math in the gerrymander districts.
Result – the safe seat gerrymander MONSTERS in the gerrymander Congress, every house of every State legislature and in many local govt regimes — de facto controlled by the standard leftwing / rightwing special interest gangs.
I.E. — NO Democracy in the U.S.A. — just gerrymander monarchs / oligarchs in control since 4 July 1776.
Yes, Ross, that’s entirely true, and it would favor urban areas over rural ones, too.
Demo Rep, when will you learn the USA is a republic, not a democracy?
For fair House District boundaries it should be mandatory to use the boundaries of current groupings of COUNTIES. A few additional horizontal and/or vertical lines could be used under the wise leadership of impartial commissions. CANADA solved their Gerrymandering problem by passing such a Bill in Parliment in 1954. GOOGLE it.