Dear all --

I read Rick's thoughtful column ("Drawing the line").  I wanted to share a 
comment and then ask everyone a question.

It strikes me that one set of issues has to do with Vieth, something which has 
spawned a lot of debate on the list.  It is a curious claim that the PA 
Democrats are making, one that seems to put anti-partisan gerrymandering 
arguments on their heads . . . "you got to let us maintain current district 
boundaries because the minority could become a majority" they seem to asking a 
court.

Another set of issues has to with how best to avoid gerrymanders.  Yea, 
"redistricting is a heavily political process," as Rick says, but this fact is 
not reason enough for telling courts not to get involved (What's the theory 
justifying separating districting from the other issues mentioned at the end 
of the piece?).  Precisely because districting is so political, parties and 
voters want impartiality, even with an issue like this one where the dictates 
of fairness are far from obvious.  Unfortunately, voters have a hard time 
solving this problem because it is so hard for them to coordinate to ask their 
agents -- elected representatives -- to stop the messing around with 
boundaries.  So, the real question may not whether the courts or the voters 
should decide, as Rick suggests, but how to stop the politicization of 
districting.

My question:  Can people recommend any cross-national or even cross-state 
empirically based research that links different institutional solutions to 
this problem to less conflict?  How does Germany deal with this or any other 
country where district boundaries do not automatically overlap with 
administrative boundaries?

FL