[EL] More on How Gerrymandering Did Not Cause the Shutdown

Fri Oct 11 08:56:40 PDT 2013

Gerrymandering was much reduced in the period before 1964, because for both US House and state legislature, district lines mostly followed county boundaries.  For instance, in the districts in use in 1960, there were no split counties (for U.S. House districts) in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia.  And, of course, that list doesn't include the states with only one district.

Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147

________________________________
 From: Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net>
To: 'Justin Levitt' <levittj at lls.edu>; law-election at department-lists.uci.edu 
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2013 8:12 AM
Subject: Re: [EL] More on How Gerrymandering Did Not Cause the Shutdown

Gerrymandering has been going on for as long as I can remember, and that has become a very long time. It was going on even before I remember. I remember learning about that in school. And that was a very long time ago. And until the last several years it never caused a shutdown. It cause lots of other things. But the shutdown(s) I believe are a fairly recent device for imposing one’s will on the process. What did cause this shutdown? My answer would turn into a political rant. So, I’ll not go there.
Larry

From:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Justin Levitt
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2013 8:06 AM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] More on How Gerrymandering Did Not Cause the Shutdown

In addition to Rob's critique, it's also useful to remember that for complex systems like governance, phenomena rarely have a single cause.  And while there may certainly be value in aiming at the single largest causal factor, there may also be value in aiming at contributory causes that offer substantial leverage toward improving, even if not perfecting, outcomes.  (Whether any given policy improves outcomes, or is worth the cost to get there, is a separate question.)

For many Americans, it's probably safe to say that lack of exercise will not be the "real" cause of death.  That doesn't mean that those interested in health should ignore exercise entirely.

-- 
Justin Levitt
Associate Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA  90015
213-736-7417
justin.levitt at lls.edu
ssrn.com/author=698321
On 10/11/2013 7:48 AM, Rob Richie wrote:
I find it remarkable that the debate over this issue (such as the items linked by Rick below) narrow our choices seemingly to three:
> 
>* Many non-academic editorial writer sorts will suggest gerrymandering is the key reason for safe congressional seats and partisan bias.The 2011 redistricting was an appalling example. So let's push for commissions - -we'll worry about how those commissions can juggle competing criteria  later.
> 
>* A lot of academics (if not all) answer that gerrymandering isn't the real reason for safe seats nor partisan bias. Safe seats and partisan bias indeed are a core problem in our current politics, but they are more related to growing polarization and the "big sort." There's no real reform solution, so just wait it out over the next couple decades.
> 
>* Gerrymandering and open primaries aren't the problem, so blame goes to James Madison and the Constitution. It's time to leapfrog the structure of government we have in every state and a majority of our big cities, accept the reality of our parliamentary-type parties, and enact a parliamentary system (ideally with a list system of proportional representation).
> 
>But.... there's another possibility that FairVote believes will get more and more attention. Our argument basically is this.
> 
>* Electoral rules ARE the core reason for the shutdown politics and the clashing mandate of an electorate that in 2012 elected Barack Obama by nearly five million votes and also elected a House  majority from congressional districts that mostly went to anti-Obamacare Mitt Romney. See my prophetic "clashing mandate" analysis from Nov. 20, 2012:
>http://www.fairvote.org/clashing-mandates-and-the-role-of-voting-structures
> 
>* But the electoral rule to blame is the statute mandating use of single-member districts for the House. We had multi-seat House districts as recently as the 1960s, and in the early decades of the nation, more than a quarter of House  Members were elected in multi-member districts. Many states still use multi-member districts, and a few decades ago, more than half of state legislators represented multi-member districts. There's nothing magic about single-member districts. See a U-Richmond law review article my colleague and I wrote this year addressing this history:
>http://www.fairvote.org/fairvote-s-2014-congressional-analysis
> 
>* We have some 100 localities already using non-winner-take-all system systems based on voting for candidates (not parties) in multi-seat districts We have an important model of a non-winner-take-all system in state legislative elections in Illinois' experience with cumulative voting that most wise-heads in the state strongly wish was back in place for sensible reasons. See this summary of the case that was the product of a 2001 commission co-chaired by former Republican governor Jim Edgar and former Democratic House Member and federal judge Abner Mikva:
>http://www.fairvote.org/assets/2012-Redistricting/IllinoisCumulativeVoting.pdf
> 
>* With such a system done nationally in larger districts of no more than five seats (with our choice being ranked choice voting, or the "single transferable vote"), we would have shared representation by both major parties in every single district in every state with at least three seats. With the system used in the primary as well, nominees would be more broadly represented, helping to ensure regularly representation of the left, center and right of the spectrum. See hard numbers and maps here (http://www.fairvote.org/fair-voting-solution),
> 
>* We have a confluence of interests who would directly  benefit from such a change in congressional elections, which could be done by law. That list includes those who want more racial minorities to have a secure way to elect preferred candidates, want more women to run and win, and want all voters to have more choice and better representation. Democrats have an obvious self-interest, but so do Republicans who think their party would be stronger in statewide races if able to compete in all districts. 
> 
>This last will be the test of whether are nation can debate meaningful change and actually act on it We expect to see a bill in Congress soon, and stay tuned for our update of the fair representation flashmap and associated analyses this month and check out our new video at http://www.Reform2020.com. 
> 
>But whenever someone says redistricting isn't the reason for  problem, keep in mind that we can make a rather airtight case that the problem is districting - -and that tested reforms of such districts are a heckuva lot easier and more consistent with our nation's history than a parliamentary system and a whole lot more satisfying than doing nothing.
> 
>Rob.
> 
> 
>############
>
>More on How Gerrymandering Did Not Cause the Shutdown
>Posted on October 10, 2013 9:05 pm by Rick Hasen
>Seth Masket
>McCarthy, Poole, and Rosenthal
> 
>-- 
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>"Respect for Every Vote and Every Voice" 
>
>Rob Richie
>Executive Director, FairVote   
>6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
>Takoma Park, MD 20912
>rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616 
> 
>Website: http://www.fairvote.org
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