[EL] Master class in gerrymandering - comparing California and New York State / Jamie Raskin and interstate compacts

Fri Feb 4 06:32:10 PST 2022

As a tag to my post last night, I wanted to add a clarification based on a
couple notes making sure I am not suggesting New York state wasn't a
partisan gerrymandering.

To clarify, it absolutely is. I also am not suggesting the California
redistricting commission drew congressional iines with an intent to boost
Democrats and don't think that the sea of safe safe seats in California is
as egregious as the even more profoundly problematic share of  "landslide
seats" in Texas. The California process is better than what we see in Texas
and California, and would be an improvement if established across the
country for all congressional elections. Improvements are a good thing, and
I'm not for having the perfect be the enemy of the good.

At the same time, I do think we should aspire to something so much better
that it is easily available as a national remedy when a national remedy is
what is ultimately called for. The fact that the intended effect of the New
York partisan gerrymander is comparable to the unintended effect of the
California redistricting process and the fact that the intended cushioning
of Texas incumbents is comparable to the unintended effect of California
redistricting is instructive to me. I wanted to lift up that point as we
learn from the current cycle and not just "settle" the way the Washington
Post does in its new editorial on gerrymandering.
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2022/gerrymandering-examples-north-carolina-illinois-alabama-texas-how-to-fix/>

People sometimes think that the Fair Representation Act would create a
politics that is utterly different from today - talking about a multi-party
system that looks like many European democracies, for example I politely,
but firmly disagree. See this paper of mine
<https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/fairvote/pages/3063/attachments/original/1449959851/12_Rob_Richie_Illinois_Fair_Representation_Voting_Reform.pdf?1449959851>that
introduces observations about the politics enabled by cumulative voting in
state legislative elections in three-seat districts in illinois from 1870
to 1980 -- with cumulative voting not nearly as good a system as
proportional ranked choice voting ("single transferable vote") for enabling
voter choice and  the valuable dynamics  coming with incentives to earn 2nd
choice support from backers of others candidates, but instructive for its
representational impacts and opening up the entire state to shared
representation  within a system where the two major parties still win
almost all seats.

Thanks,
Rob

On Thu, Feb 3, 2022 at 7:42 PM Rob Richie <rr at fairvote.org> wrote:

> Hi, Folks,
> The thoughtful posts on the election law blog come quickly these days -
> thank you to the team of professors making that possible.
>
> I wanted to pick up on two recent posts on gerrymandering: Rick Pildes'
> post <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=127360> on the likely New York State
> redistricting map and Ned Foley's post
> <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=127338> calling out law professor
> Congressman Jamie Raskin for rationalizing such partisan gerrymanders.
>
> First, I'm regularly impressed by the Brennan Center's analytical and
> advocacy prowess in general and Michael Li's work on redistricting in
> particular. That said, I wanted to flag Michael's quote in the New York
> Times today cited by Rick Pildes today on New York's gerrymandering: "“It’s
> a master class in how to draw an effective gerrymander. Sometimes you do
> need fancy metrics to tell, but a map that gives Democrats 85 percent of
> the seats in a state that is not 85 percent Democratic — this is not a
> particularly hard case."
>
> It is indeed true that Democrats would be favored in 85% of New York
> congressional races in a state where Biden won 61% of the vote, a  partisan
> distortion toward Democrats of 24%. At the same time, we can also look over
> to California's now finished congressional map
> <https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-2022-maps/california/> drawn
> by its citizen commission. There, according to FiveThirtyEight.com,
> Democrats are favored in 43 of 52 seats in a state where Biden won 63% of
> the vote. That's 83% of seats. If Democrats picked up the 2 swing seats,
> that would mean they would carry 87% of seats - meaning a partisan
> distortion of between 20% and 24% for the Democrats.  And, relating to the
> understandable critique of Texas' congressional map that it creates so many
> safer seats, it's notable to me that not a single California seat is inside
> a partisanship range of 54% to 46%, with only 6 districts inside 58% to 42%
>
> This is not a critique of the California commission per se, as it was
> juggling a lot of factors, including being attentive to communities of
> interest and opportunities for racial minorities to win seats. But it is a
> critique of the underlying winner-take-all electoral rules that so often
> govern what's possible to achieve within a single member district regime.
> It makes me all the more committed to finding a way forward to winning the
> final version of Congressman Don Beyer's Fair Representation Act
> <http://www.fairrepresentation.com>where all voters in every election
> would have the power to define their own representation with a meaningful
> vote.
>
> Second, as to Ned's chiding of Jamie Raskin, I'll note that the
> Congressman has consistently urged solutions that are fair to everyone. He
> is an original and ongoing cosponsor of the Fair Representation Act, for
> example. When in the Maryland state senate, he proposed a creative bill
> to allow Maryland to enter into interstate compacts
> <https://www.fairvote.org/interstate_compacts_for_fair_representation>with
> other states to come up with a negotiated fair representation plan. Jamie
> for years has extended a hand for a deal to establish a system that is fair
> to everyone. Let's hope more show readiness to take him up on it!
>
> Rob
>
>
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Rob Richie
> President and CEO, FairVote
> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
> Takoma Park, MD 20912
> rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org
> *FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>*   *FairVote
> Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>*   My Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/rob_richie>
>
> Thank you for considering a *donation
> <http://www.fairvote.org/donate>. Enjoy our video on ranked choice voting
> <https://youtu.be/CIz_nzP-W_c>!*
>

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
President and CEO, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
Takoma Park, MD 20912
rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org
*FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>*   *FairVote
Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>*   My Twitter
<https://twitter.com/rob_richie>

Thank you for considering a *donation
<http://www.fairvote.org/donate>. Enjoy our video on ranked choice voting
<https://youtu.be/CIz_nzP-W_c>!*
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