Says state senator Michelle Au, quoted in "As Georgia grows more Democratic, its members of Congress will not" (NPR).
ADDED: To extend the analogy, I'd like to ask Au if she'd agree to solve the "embarrassing combover" problem by adopting the equivalent of a buzzcut. And then Democrats and Republicans have to go on with the buzzcut. No going back to a combover.
But the question is: What would a gerrymander buzzcut look like? Can we leave it to a computer that is programmed with information that does not include anything about race, ethnicity, past voting patterns, or political affiliation?
Would Au agree to that?
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53 comments:
Do you know when a political maneuver becomes intolerable? When the originator of said maneuver has it used against them.
Democrats are the originators of the vast majority of political maneuvers (including gerrymandering).
Hence, a political maneuver becomes intolerable when used by Republicans. QED
Democrats held onto Texas this way for a long long time, and NPR ran admonitory stories regarding any Republican efforts to change that. Once the Democrats achieve a solid majority, for an extended period of time, they will get control, same as the Republicans did in Texas.
Did NPR look at what is going on in New York State? Or look at the districts in Illinois? Of course not! They good guys are doing it for a good cause!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. When Democrats have the power to control redistricting, it’s all “nothing to see here, just politics as usual.” When Republicans control redistricting, it’s a crime against the will of the people. Whether Georgia will still be growing “more Democratic” after the midterm election remains to be seen,
1990s Texas would like a word.
Now do Illinois.
BTW, you don’t have to like my combover. The only person who has to like it is me.
Everybody jerrymanders. Most people don't mind when their side does it, even if they pretend their opposition is principled when they complain about the other side doing it. Actually ending the practice would not be easy. Impossible, in fact, so long as we have rules about how we district minority populations, because they only way to stop it involves banning the use of demographic data when drawing lines.
This is like an investment manager trying to explain why his advice is losing his clients so much money. Let's see where they are after the next election.
Shocking headline: "Well-used cooking pot describes kettle as black"
If anyone truly cares they should conduct a meta-analysis of university journal publications on exactly how to do this. Lefty academics have been researching efficient gerrymandering for at least 50 years per state paid jobs, tenured jobs, and by using said research to gain tenure.
Look at Rep. Nadler's (D-NY) district. Yes, this is a two-way street.
I call horseshit on the premise of this article. Georgia is not growing more Democratic. Atlanta, and southern Fulton County IS growing more Democratic. And that's the rub. Democrats are (seemingly as usual) congregating, packing, and living in the densely packed urban area of Atlanta and the growing southern county area of Atlanta (more suburban in layout). That Democrats tend to congregate into packed clusters is a Democratic living choice.
Georgia is a large state and a rapidly growing state. Not everyone chooses to live in the lower half of Fulton County. In fact, northern Fulton County wants to break off entirely from Fulton County, as they are tired of seeing their taxes continue to go up to pay for the City of Atlanta and not for their own areas.
This type of Gerrymandering goes on in every state. But you only hear the cackles when Democrats get displaced. You don't hear anything about how Republicans were Gerrymandered out of the entire State of California. Or how they continue to be removed, one at a time, from Illinois. These are crocodile tears.
Gerrymandering creates safe districts for both sides, so all incumbents have a rooting interest in it. It also creates “majority minority” districts, without which minority voting power would be “diluted”, so it’s good for “diversity” and may be required by the Voting Rights Act.
Yes - redistricting is only good when the left can consolidate power.
See Colorado.
I thought the name "Michelle Au" sounded familiar. Indeed, she has been blogging for a very long time as a medical student, resident, and mother at http://theunderweardrawer.blogspot.com/ . It looks like she has not posted for quite a while there but she was smart and very funny. Too bad she is a Dem but she grew up in NYC so it is to be expected I guess. I was not aware that she ran for political office.
Now do Maryland. Or anywhere the Democrats are in charge.
Nobody’s fooled by your sudden concern Ms. Au.
Senator Au must have been looking at the Illinois maps the Dems have drawn up. She could have been looking at typical Illinois Dem politicos, too (Blago excepted).
Self-awareness is not strong in the Dim Party.
Ha! I want to see how Democratic Georgia actually is in the next few elections before we jump to conclusions about how purple the state is.
I will also point out that some gerrymandering is court ordered. Minority majority districts are pretty much set and the other districts must work around them.
Jim Crow lives in the shriveled hearts of the bitter confederacy clingons.
Ms. Au’s misandrist and coy dog whistles aren’t sitting well with her colleagues. This isn’t her first demand for laws and privileges to apply only to certain groups. She’s not stupid and knows perfectly well that if the Democrats had taken the legislature, she would be redrawing lines to suit their candidates, just like they did in the last time they held power.
The GOP here is also eliminating districts to punish Republicans who won’t bow to our sleazy House speaker David Ralston, a defense attorney who abused his privileges to delay several trials for so long that his child rapist clients walked free.
And the Georgia GOP should know that this behavior is not sitting well with many of their voters. They are the authors of their own demise.
There literally are many people out there who don't know and don't care that the same thing is done in Democrat states. They consider themselves well-informed and are furious about the gerrymandering that they think only Republicans do. They also don't see that the desire and need for majority-minority districts concentrates Democrats in those districts and makes it harder for them to win in other districts.
I'll also add that the minorities that move into suburban counties aren't quite as partisan as the Dems wish. Consider that Gwinnett and Cobb County have consistently voted down mass transit in their counties to the horror of the technocrats.
Democrats are the originators of the vast majority of political maneuvers (including gerrymandering)
Sorry to break it to you, but Elbridge Gerry was a Republican. (Not to be confused with any support of Democrat tactics. Just a sad historical note.)
Michelle Au - is she another one of them pesky Asians who are keeping the black candidates down and so bitterly disappointing NPR?
Ha. Ha. Ha. I live in MD 7. Michelle Au is being very silly.
But the question is: What would a gerrymander buzzcut look like? Can we leave it to a computer that is programmed with information that does not include anything about race, ethnicity, past voting patterns, or political affiliation?
Would Au agree to that?
Who cares...the federal government and federal courts wouldn't.
@eLocke, sorry to break it to you, friend, but Elbridge Gerry died forty (that’s four whole decades) before the Republican Party was founded (in Wisconsin, of all places). Your mistake probably comes from the fact that in late 18th and early 19th centuries the Democrats called themselves the “Democratic-Republicans.”
You can look it up.
Elbridge Gerry was a Jeffersonian Democrat. The Jeffersonians did call themselves "Democratic-Republicans" or "Republicans," but until recent years, Democrats recognized them as their political ancestors. The "Gerrymander" was a district that went from just north of Boston up to the New Hampshire border, and the point was to restrict the number of Federalists in the Massachusetts legislature.
There can be only one solution to this problem, really. Redistribute the population out of cities and across the countryside, to allow proper district boundaries encompassing equal numbers of people in equal areas of land. See Phnom Penh 1975-1976 for an example of how this can be accomplished rapidly.
eLocke said...
Sorry to break it to you, but Elbridge Gerry was a Republican. (Not to be confused with any support of Democrat tactics. Just a sad historical note.)
The only sad thing here is your lack of historical knowledge as you attempt to gaslight the Althouse commentariat. You could have at least tried to make the attempt to argue that political parties back in Gerry's time don't 100% correspond to today's parties, but you went straight for the falsehood.
Gerry was NOT a Republican. Gerry was a member of the, then, Democratic-Republican Party. His opponents were in the Federalist Party. The Democratic-Republican Party split well after his death, and the majority formed the modern-day Democratic Party. The Federalist, his opponents, on the other hand, were later joined by those from the Democratic-Republican Party that did not join the new Democratic Party, and formed the Republican Party. So, Gerry's political lineage traces back through today's Democratic Party, while his opponents' lineage traces back through today's Republican Party.
Now, you could argue weakly that the situation is murky, but you certainly could not argue successfully that Gerry was a Republican (in the sense of today's Republican Party, which is your implication). And you can't argue that Democrats since haven't grabbed onto this tactic and gerrymandered the hell out of their represented districts when in power. Just look back at all the examples given in other comments above. So, this again is Democrats crying crocodile tears and just waiting for the day that they can do the same back to Republicans in Georgia.
NYT's and Wapo are just mouthpieces of the Democrat party..
Republican gerrymandering? Horrible and an insult to Democracy
Democrat Gerrymandering? Clever political strategy.
There are at least two states (Washington and Nebraska) where redistricting is done in a bipartisan manner without gerrymandering. Any state can do the same if its legislature wishes. I'm sure that in Washington and Nebraska both parties work for their own advantage within those constraints.
But in Washington at least, by population, it's practically a one-party (60-40) state (wasn't when the rules went in obviously). Geographically it's not and so the districts east of the Cascades and west of the Olympics elect R's pretty often (currently 3/9). If the rules weren't in place it would be trivial to draw Washington's districts to have D majorities in each.
https://www.redistricting.wa.gov/about-the-commission
What would a gerrymander buzzcut look like? Can we leave it to a computer that is programmed with information that does not include anything about race, ethnicity, past voting patterns, or political affiliation?
It would look like compact districts that honored political boundaries (city and county lines) and physical boundaries, and other than that tried to join "like with like". So, for example, suburb votes with other suburb voters, rural with rural, city with city. Perhaps based on population density.
Would Au agree to that
Absolutely not. Because Democrat voters are concentrated in cities where the population votes ~70% Democrat. They self-gerrymander. What Au wants is districts where it's a wedge going from the city out to the suburb and countryside, where the mass of Democrats in the city overwhelm the preferences of the people in the other two groups
Howard said... Jim Crow lives in the shriveled hearts of the bitter confederacy clingons
https://redistricting.lls.edu/state/north-carolina/?cycle=2020&level=Congress&startdate=2021-11-04
Go down to "The Latest Updates"
Oct 29, 2021 Civil rights groups filed a lawsuit preemptively challenging potential state legislative and congressional redistricting maps based on the legislature's failure to consider racial data when developing new plans.
So yes, Jim Crow lives in the shriveled hearts of the Democrat Party, where it's always lived
https://redistricting.lls.edu/wp-content/uploads/NC-berger-20211029-complaint.pdf
Plaintiffs the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, Common Cause,
and four individual voters, through counsel, hereby file this Complaint for declaratory judgment
and for injunctive relief
...
From the beginning of this process, the Defendant Chairs of the Senate Committee on Redistricting and Elections and the House Committee on Redistricting (the “Redistricting Chairs” of the “Redistricting Committees”) have, despite warnings from citizens and legislators of color, stated their intention to consider neither racial data nor perform any kind of racially polarized voting analysis to understand how district lines would affect minority voting strength and representation. The Redistricting Committees have approved redistricting criteria prohibiting any use of racial data, and the Redistricting Chairs have stated that, despite their legal obligations to do so, they refuse to consider any maps drawn that lawfully and properly utilize racial data.
Note, the NAACP is complaining because the Republican redistricters are refusing to make districts based on skin color. Which is to say, the republicans are refusing to do a racial gerrymander, and the Democrats are really upset about that.
So, to answer your question, Althouse, the Democrats would absolutely refuse to accept a "gerrymander buzzcut"
What constitutes a "fair" system? If you want compact districts that don't look weird on a map, you could program an algorithm to minimize the total length of district lines subject to the constraints that (i) the required number of districts are drawn, and (ii) that they all have equal numbers (within a reasonably small tolerance) of residents. But since Democrats tend to be highly concentrated in urban areas, you'd end up with a few heavy-Democratic districts and many more with smaller Republican majorities.
Even if you add in reasonable criteria like not splitting identifiable neighborhoods across districts or following natural physical boundaries like rivers, etc., wherever possible, you're still going to end up with Democrats crowded into only a few districts, with Republicans getting the rest. In most states, you probably can't draw district lines that Democrats will perceive as "fair" without some weird-looking districts.
To think that political considerations can be eliminated from a computer program is preposterous. Computer programs are made by humans. The data mining smarties would find new proxies to deliver desired results.
Cf. the computer rankings in college football. Human judgement would be replaced by dispassionate calculation. By necessity, the ranking factors were selected & weighted by humans. Result: hardware rankings & wetware rankings (AP/Coaches polls) were equally disputed.
Banishing politics from political decisions is an absurdity.
@Jeff (11:58) Fully agree.
If your state is 55-45 in favour of one side, then assuming random voter distribution (high levels of political integration) and random districts, won't you generally end up with a bunch of 55-45 districts, and a congressional delegation that is 100-0 as a result? That's like the opposite of a gerrymander. Balancing that out is what results in stuff like oddly shaped majority-minority districts. And of course, that opens the door to aggressive gerrymanders.
But there's a natural limiting principle to gerrymanders. If you're in a 50-50 political situation and try to maximise your districts by creating a bunch of 55-45 districts and dumping all the excess into a few highly concentrated districts for the opposition, you're a risk of losing not just one or two but every single one of those districts the next time there's a wave election.
The problem isn't situations like what the author suggests is in play in Georgia (where it's roughly 50-50). The problem is one-party states, where the vote is so lopsided (e.g. 65-35) that the party in power can do basically what I had in my first paragraph above -- create a bunch of safe seats to turn a 65-35 state into a 100-0 delegation.
But look -- either way, I don't think anything really needs to be done. Just let it play out. Nothing is forever in politics.
Mocking folks with androgenic alopecia - male patter baldness.
"Trying to hide government overspending is like a fat lady trying to fool the world with an embarrassing girdle."
Birches: I’ve taken public transit in Cobb County occasionally since the mid-90s. It connects directly to the Atlanta system. Same is true in Gwinnett.
But I understand your point: outer counties have voted to keep the Atlanta system from controlling their public transit. They cooperate but maintain a distance. It’s a normal choice in both Dem and GOP states no matter what the journalists say.
Georgia is turning more purple by the day with massive international and inter-state immigration driving it. And with the GOP leadership we have, we might as well be blue. unfortunately, the only organized opposition within the party is a hot mess of billionaire funded leftist libertarians manipulating some naive if sincerely conservative political amateurs. The TEA movements still exist too.
Similar astroturfing is happening in every red state, and “political amateur” is no negative term from me. I only wish I could unsee my 30 years in politics. The near future hope is micro-political pressure and seceding chunks of big cities. Or someone really wild like Trump again.
Ideally all districts would be as geographically compact and contiguous with existing city/town/county borders as possible.
But also ideally people with different political views would be evenly distributed. They are not.
Hence- redistricting conflicts and really weird shaped districts. And the primary beneficiaries of weird shaped districts are Democrats. Who like to all live together. The vote in DemoncRAT cities is what, routinely over 80% for the party? Or is that too low?
Outside DemoncRAT bastions they’re scattered randomly in the population.
I watched a YouTube video where the author wrote a computer program to make Congressional districts that looked perfectly reasonable on the map - no octopus districts, no districts joined at a 40 foot wide corridor across a highway where no one lived, just normally shaped districts - that were so ridiculously gerrymandered that it turned a 50/50 state into a 90/10 state.
I am not sure there is a "fair" way to do districting. You could come up with parameters for it that at least would produce consistent districting, but that may or may not qualify as "fair." It seems that "fair" is defined as whatever outcome is desired. For instance, Pennsylvania's districting rules were clearly chosen to try to elect more Democrats, no matter what the logic behind it was. And even truly "fair" rules can be gamed and will be.
Life is easier when everything that does not get you the desired results is "unfair."
Greg the Class Traitor is getting at the main issue: The long agreed to Faustian bargain has been one in which Republicans sought more safe Republican seats, and Democrats sought more safe minority seats. Democrats are going to be unhappy if efforts to reverse this historical bargain result in fewer Republican seats, but an erosion of minority representation in Congress. Can Democrats agree to a "racist" redistricting?
If the government is limited in its power to fuck around in people's lives, redistricting will be less of an issue.
Just sayin'.
Static Ping, what you described is the exact opposite of gerrymandering. Not taking into account political leanings inside the district boundaries. Let’s take PA as an example of another way to do it. Ignore all political and geographic boundaries. PA has 18 congresscritters. A 3 X 6 array. Put 6 vertical lines across the state and place horizontal lines as needed to give each district the same population. The vertical lines are not going to be evenly spaced. You’re going to end up with more Republican than DemoncRAT districts. They’re currently split 9 and 9. Same thing’s going to happen if you draw the most compact districts using existing geographic and political boundaries.
Based on party registration the split would be 10 dems, 8 reps. Would require some serious gerrymandering to get there.
Made impossible because of the Warren court, but what about no districts? Each representative is at large?
Because “My name goes here “ it would ensure rural residents had zero say in any government decisions. Not that we have much say in NY since the SC decided the upper house in each state couldn’t be organized the same way as the Senate. Seems the people that started up the states who wrote the state constitutions, people who overlapped with those who wrote the Constitution were too stupid to understand the state constitutions were unconstitutional because of the invisible “one man one vote “ provision that can only be seen by distinguished jurists, and over 150 years later.
"Can we leave it to a computer that is programmed with information that does not include anything about race, ethnicity, past voting patterns, or political affiliation? Would Au agree to that?"
Hahaha. No.
"Redistricting in this way — drawing districts so contrived as to be ludicrous, to shore up power that is clearly fading — reads like a balding man trying to fool the world with an embarrassing combover."
Or like a plain looking woman (to be kind) wearing bright red lipstick? https://ballotpedia.org/Michelle_Au
Gospace, I disagree. The purpose of gerrymandering is to make the result of elections not match what you would expect given the voter distribution by creating "unnatural" districts. (Putting everyone in a city in the same district may skew the statewide results, but that is hardly unnatural.) We are accustomed to ridiculously shaped districts to produce this result, but sometimes you can do it just as well with regularly shaped districts that are shaped oh so slightly different. That was the point of the exercise: he created districts that looked reasonable but were just as artificial as the ridiculous ones, intentionally moving voters around on the borders to get biased results, splitting up natural constituencies in favor of electoral outcomes. That was sort of the point: he was warning that just because districts seem normal does not mean they are and computers are really good at doing this.
If I remember correctly, the state was North Carolina. He could get districts that were overwhelming lopsided for Republicans but, oddly enough, not for Democrats. They are too concentrated in the cities to pull this off without being ridiculous.
The only sad thing here is your lack of historical knowledge as you attempt to gaslight the Althouse commentariat. You could have at least tried to make the attempt to argue that political parties back in Gerry's time don't 100% correspond to today's parties, but you went straight for the falsehood.
You're right. That is sad. Remembered it from a long time and go, and a quick google came back and said Republican. Should've known better. Wikipedia correctly assigns him to the Democratic-republicans (at least for today).
Lucien,
Gerrymandering creates safe districts for both sides, so all incumbents have a rooting interest in it. It also creates “majority minority” districts, without which minority voting power would be “diluted”, so it’s good for “diversity” and may be required by the Voting Rights Act.
Gerrymandering does create safe districts for both sides; that's its purpose. It might make more R than D (or D than R) in your state, but they are much more likely to be safe seats, on both sides. So, all good, for the people that matter.
"Majority-minority" districts are trickier. Because there, maybe the incumbent is a white person. Or the challenger is a minority. Or, heaven forfend, the person you really, really want to have the seat isn't a minority, and yet you have to put him/her in the "majority-minority" seat. And possibly the idjits in the district actually want an actual minority in the seat. What, you think what the actual, physical voters want counts? Idjit.
“Well, that would not be necessary, Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition.”
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