[EL] Studies On Partisan Bias In Redistricting Commission Maps

[Justin Levitt]

I’ll look forward to refreshing my memory with respect to Nick’s paper, but
as I suspect he mentioned, there is no existing statewide redistricting
body affirmatively charged with drawing lines to foster partisan fairness.
There _are_ bodies affirmatively charged with avoiding undue _un_fairness,
and bodies structurally designed to prevent undue unfairness.  Those are
different aims. (FWIW, given all the other things we want districts to
achieve, I think the preclusion of undue unfairness is a sensible approach
to priorities.)

To Steve’s question, then, I expect what you’d see is the degree to which
various structures avoid the extremes of partisan bias, rather than the
degree to which various structures affirmatively create partisan symmetry
(since there’s no body with the latter as its mandate).  And, of course,
when partisan symmetry or bias is concerned, the most meaningful comparison
isn’t with states that have a legislative structure in the abstract (and
divided partisan control or where courts drew the lines), but with states
where the redistricting body was under unified partisan control.

Justin

--
Justin Levitt
justin.levitt at lls.edu

On Mar 18, 2018, at 6:43 AM, Nicholas Stephanopoulos <
nicholas.stephanopoulos at gmail.com> wrote:

I wrote this paper
<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2551556> a couple
years ago, when the Supreme Court was considering striking down the Arizona
redistricting commission. It summarizes the existing literature on
commissions' effects and carries out a new, more comprehensive analysis of
commissions' implications for partisan fairness.

Nick

On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 1:33 AM, Steven John Mulroy (smulroy) <
smulroy at memphis.edu> wrote:

>
> Does anyone know of any good, relatively recent studies evaluating
> redistricting maps drawn by US state redistricting commissions, analysing
> the extent to which they are perfect matchups of votes to seats, or whether
> they have any partisan bias? I'm interested in not only how redistricting
> commissions generally compare to regular redistricting plans on this score,
> but also, how truly independent redistricting commissions compare with less
> independent commissions.  (I realize this distinction might be subjective,
> but I'm assuming the studies could evaluate redistricting commissions on
> the extent to which legislators are allowed to be a member, the extent to
> which they take an "equal number of Democrats and Republicans" approach
> versus using avowedly nonpartisan members, retired judges, etc., as
> members, that sort of thing.)
>
> Thanks in advance.
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-- 
Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos
Professor of Law
University of Chicago Law School
nsteph at uchicago.edu
(773) 702-4226
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/stephanopoulos

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