Proposed Ballot Iniative re: Redistricting & Gerrymandering

There is a report in the Freep http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...ing/485228001/ about a ballot initiative to change the way that the state draws Congressional & legislative districts. While I think the intent sounds noble, in the end I think it is a terrible idea at worst, and at best not more honest or fair than the current politician-drawn lines.

There are a few reasons I am predisposed to disliking it. 1) Although the commission would be nominally independent, in reality every informed citizen has policies and parties and outcomes they favor. Just because someone is not a member of a party does not mean that they are impartial or have preconceived notions of what is fair or just. 2) The persons or groups appointing said commission members will choose people respecting their interests. 3) Smaller parties and politically unaffiliated voters have the same representation that they currently do: none. 4) Under current practice, politicians choose the districts, and they are one step removed from voters. Appointees to this commission are at least 2, and maybe more, steps removed from the people.

Don't get me wrong. Politician-driven reapportionment is problematic and often driven by self or party interest. But this proposal doesn't fix that in any way. And further, there can arguably be legitimate reasons to attempt to affect outcomes by designing district borders. Among them: 1) to represent existing political boundaries [[i.e. if there are 225,000 people in each Senate district, it makes sense for Detroit to have 3 state Senators represent the city directly, as opposed to small parts of 13 districts, electing mostly Republicans). 2) Seats can be created to make it more likely that a minority is represented whereas they may not otherwise be.

In a perfect world, the only information that would be used to create a legislative seat would be total population numbers. Race, sex, age, income, voting tendencies and political affiliation would play no role. But all that information is public and known, so it is naive to the point of being false to think that such factors wouldn't be considered by the "independent" commission.

The current system offers at least some measure of self-correction: by creating "safe" seats for a race, party, or particular incumbent, they are rendering other seats more vulnerable to opposition takeover. Pack a district with Democrats to help Sander Levin or Gary Peters or Republicans to help Dave Trott or Justin Amash and you jeopardize surrounding seats. I favor reestablishing the electoral college to have the EC votes apportioned by Congressional district. That way, packing a party's voters into "safe districts" makes that party less competitive for the up-for-grabs EC districts. Making all incumbents less safe is the best recipe for making elections more competitive, if you ask me. This proposal would shake up the status quo only to create a new one that is no more fair, and a step further removed from voter nullification.

^^ Way too many words.

Base it on geography. In less populated outstate areas, one or more whole counties would be a district. In more populous areas, divide a county by municipal boundaries and/or geographical features like rivers. In urban areas and larger cities, use major roads or railroads.

Each district would be a certain number of residents. No other factors would be involved.

There wouldn't be much need for a commission to do that either. No reason to spend the money on that.

Meddle, unfortunately, while geography-based districting can be the goal [[and it would be one I shared), actual humans have to create the boundaries. And humans have different opinions and agendas. That is as true of "independent commission" members as it is of legislators. And if a commission failed to create a district by a necessary deadline, it would fall to a judge or judges, who are known to be as partisan as anyone else.

Boundaries are already created. All that' needed is the number of the population divided by the number of districts, then fill in the blanks.

If each district is 100,000 people, take the populations of one, two or more adjoining counties to come up with as close to 100,000 as possible. Allow a bit of tolerance above or below.

Where you have more than 100,000 in a county, use a similar plan. If a county has 150,000 residents, you look to add some from an adjoining county if possible.

Yes, there would need to be some people involved in that process, but decisions would be based on numbers only, nothing else.

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Originally Posted by Meddle

Yes, there would need to be some people involved in that process, but decisions would be based on numbers only, nothing else.

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Which humans would use only numbers in their decision making, and how would you be sure?

Also, federal law and courts would have a very large problems with districts that were not almost exactly equal in population. For state legislative seats [[would not be constitutional for congressional seats) you could have a system where 1 legislator represents a county, and has the number of votes in the legislature as the population of the county they represent. Where my mom lived in NY State her local county was run by a board made up of the town supervisors, each wielding the population of their town as their "vote" on the board.

Topography-based Congressional and Legislative districts are a common-sense approach. That's probably why some arm-twisting will have to take place to make it happen in government.

Here in Texas, this a sore spot. My own Congressional District, Texas 22nd looks like a dumbbell. The left side is concerned the right side is getting more/better representation than they are, and vice-versa. It's only goal was to try and make sure there were as even number of people of different colors, incomes and education levels as possible. Of course, that's impossible because people area going to move in and out, grow up, grow old, get born and die, so the dynamics are ever-changing.

If Texas would only say, "OK this district is between this highway, and that river and this Interstate and this state park" and let the demographic chips fall where they may, it would be less angst-ridden and more representational. I'd advise Michigan go for it and show the rest of the country it can be done.

Call me bias, but I rather like the Canadian process for 're-districting' [[or redistribution as we call it)

Roughly speaking, you have a set population number as the goal w/certain variance allowed, per riding.

There is a formulaic calculation as to how many seats/ridings each province gets.

Then each province gets a commission headed by a judge to assess how to amend the boundaries of individual ridings/districts.

Rather than go into great detail myself, I'll just link to the criteria/process.

But I will add, in Canada this process is overwhelming seen as non-partisan and a sincere effort to fairly represent people. All parties agree on that.

http://www.redecoupage-federal-redis...=glance&lang=e

For state house/senate districts, I would divide the state into 11 large districts [[Detroit, Thumb being examples) with ~818,000 people each and elect 10 representatives from each district using proportional representation. Therefore, smaller parties could make an impact in places they can win. The Greens would only need to win 10% of the vote in a Detroit superdistrict to elect one representative to the state house. The Libertarians could win in West MI. It would make sure all parties are represented according to how many votes they receive, while still keeping local representation.

Having thirteen districts dip into Detroit does not favor Republicans. It favors Democrats. If the suburbs are say 55-45 in favor of Republicans and Detroit is 95-5 in favor of Democrats, having each suburban district "scoop" up some Detroiters produces more Democrat seats. Dividing Detroit into three districts that are solid Detroit and solid Democrat "cages" the Democrat voters and makes other districts more Republican friendly. This is why the "designer districts" in many states to guarantee election of minorities produces more Republican seats in the rest of the state.

The problem the Democrats have is that they tend to concentrate in cities or minority-majority rural area and any non-partisan geographic solution will produce gerrymander-type results in favor of the Republicans. While the Democrats "win" the overall popular vote in congressional races, the House is Republican because too many of the Democrats ware winning districts 90-10 while the Republicans are winning districts 55-45.

^^ NONE of that SHOULD be involved in setting districts.

I'm not sure what the answer is to fairer and more collaborative representation, short of converting to a parliamentary system, but this petition does not seem to be the answer. Like others have mentioned, we need a system with as little subjective regulation as possible.

1953 you have summed up nicely the problem: subjective regulation occurs now, and would continue as much under the proposal. But those doing the regulating will not be elected, but instead appointed by people who are appointed by people who are elected.

Five states already do this. We know it improves things. A lot of words in the posts above to say "I feel like it's bad!" when we already know that it's good. Pass it.

Is it perfect? Obviously not. Is it immensely better than letting the parties take turns trying to screw each other as hard as possible, with no regard to democratic representation? Obviously yes.

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Originally Posted by Junjie

Five states already do this. We know it improves things. A lot of words in the posts above to say "I feel like it's bad!" when we already know that it's good. Pass it.

Is it perfect? Obviously not. Is it immensely better than letting the parties take turns trying to screw each other as hard as possible, with no regard to democratic representation? Obviously yes.

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Do you know which states have tried this?

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Originally Posted by MikeyinBrooklyn

Meddle, unfortunately, while geography-based districting can be the goal [[and it would be one I shared), actual humans have to create the boundaries.

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A computer algorithm could do it with ease and with zero bias. These programs already exist. Computers take things like race and voting patterns into account only if you tell them to. If you tell them to draw lines based on population only, that's exactly what they'll do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.055975caef7d