Gerrymandering ballot drive under attack

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

For those who think that an "independent commission" reduces gerrymandering, please look at this picture, and realize these are the districts drawn by said commission.

Also, keep in mind that districts, especially urban ones, are tightly packed with voters [[generally) for only one party. To "smooth out" the results, you'd have to divide those up. And to do that, it will take odd looking districts. The efficiency ratio mentioned in the Wisconsin case is a completely made up statistical concept, and presumes an even distribution of voters across the populace. That is sadly becoming more and more untrue.

Independent commissions can totally reduce gerrymandering because they expressly have the goal of not intentionally favoring one party or the other. Districts might still have odd shapes for any number of reasons that are not partisan. To a large extent these California congressional districts follow existing boundaries. I live in the increasingly Democratic [[thankfully!) district 36. Its a quite simple district comprised of most of Riverside county.

Map-drawing process[edit]

The Voters First Act and Voters First Act for Congress amended Article XXI section 2[[d) of the California Constitution to establish a set of rank-ordered criteria that the Commission followed to create new districts:

1. Population Equality: Districts must comply with the U.S. Constitution’s requirement of “one person, one vote”
2. Federal Voting Rights Act: Districts must ensure an equal opportunity for minorities to elect a candidate of their choice
3. Geographic Contiguity: All areas within a district must be connected to each other, except for the special case of islands
4. Geographic Integrity: Districts shall minimize the division of cities, counties, local neighborhoods and communities of interests to the extent possible, without violating previous criteria. A community of interest is a contiguous population which shares common social and economic interests that should be included within a single district for purposes of its effective and fair representation.
5. Geographic Compactness: To the extent practicable, and where this does not conflict with previous criteria, districts must not bypass nearby communities for more distant communities
6. Nesting: To the extent practicable, and where this does not conflict with previous criteria, each Senate district will be composed of two whole Assemblydistricts, Board of Equalization districts will be composed of 10 Senate districts.

In addition, incumbents, political candidates or political parties cannot be considered when drawing districts. Article XXI section 2[[b) of the California Constitutionalso requires that the Commission “conduct an open and transparent process enabling full public consideration of and comment on the drawing of district lines.” As documented in its final report, the Commission engaged in an extensive public input process that included 34 hearings across the state where 2700 citizens and a diverse range of organized groups gave public testimony, including organizations such as the League of Women Voters, California Forward, Common Cause, the California Chamber of Commerce [[CalChamber), Equality California, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund [[MALDEF), the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [[NAACP), the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, and the Sierra Club. Over 20,000 written public comments were submitted through the wedrawthelines.ca.gov website, via email or fax.^[27]
Since the process was open, partisans were among those who attempted to influence the Commission during the public hearing process to ensure the resulting districts were drawn in their favor. In a much-cited article, the investigative journalism publisher ProPublica found evidence that the California Democratic Partyleaders coordinated with community groups to testify in front of the Commission, and concluded that these efforts had manipulated the process.^{[28][29][30][31][32][33][34]} While the California Republican Party was quick to call for an investigation, other political observers were less surprised and noted that similar Republican efforts during the hearing process were simply less effective.^{[35][36][37][38]} In a response to the story, the Commission stated that it “had its eyes wide open” and “were not unduly influenced by that.”^[39][40]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Califo...ing_Commission