Questioning the "Gerrymandering Myth"

Last week I linked to this New Republic Online article and this longer working paper by Friedman and Holden. From my brief look at the academic paper, I questioned whether the authors were confusing the effects of two different provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

I haven't had a chance to read the paper more closely since then, but others whose opinions I greatly respect have done so, and they find the paper comes up short in a number of ways. See critiques by Michael McDonald (and here) and from Rick Pildes.

In addition, reader A.J. Pate writes:

I had not checked your blog for several days, but in looking at it today, noted "The Gerrymandering Myth: Open House". Since I am adamantly opposed to gerrymandering by either party, I was curious to see what the article had to say. In glancing over the 42 pages of the working paper, I saw several references to Texas which caught my eye since I was deeply involved in the redistricting process in Texas for the last two census cycles. Unfortunately, the references I saw evidenced sloppy and poor scholarship.

On p. 23 of 42, it refers to "Delay's[sic] illegal use of the FBI to bring them back". I don't believe DeLay has been charged with any violations of the law in connection with the runaway Democrats. A more accurate, or at least less biased, account would have added the word "alleged". And the governmental agency involved was the FAA, not the FBI. In no case did anyone "bring them back". One of the Democrat senators, John Whitmire of Houston, decided to rejoin the Texas Senate, thus providing the quorum needed to do business. So, in this ten-word phrase, these "scholars" managed to make four mistakes!!!

Then, in the Appendix, on p. 41 of 42, the alleged scholars (is there enough evidence to convict them?) classified the 2002 Texas redistricting as "BP" (bi-partisan). As everyone knows (or almost everyone), the plan was court-ordered, merely perpetuating the grossly-gerrymandered redistricting by the Democrats in 1992. Had the Republicans not redrawn the court's plan, the Democrats would have successfully gerrymandered Texas for 20 years! To prove this was not merely a clerical or typographical error, they repeat the error in the text on p. 21 of 42.

If you are really interested in the facts, you could read the writings of Beldar on the recent Texas redistricting at http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/texas_redistricting/index.html . And my own modest attempt at light and reason in the Comments at http://mediamatters.org/items/200411040005 for which I was attacked by someone apparently of the same ideological persuasion as the "scholars".

"Spate of lawsuits target e-voting"

-- 
Rick Hasen 
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School 
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