I confess to having mixed feelings about the brouhaha in my home state of Pennsylvania over the drawing of fair congressional maps. The state’s Supreme Court, which has an overt Democratic majority, decided to play hardball and declare the existing maps in violation of the state constitution. Just a quick glance at the odd, and in some cases meandering districts currently in use will confirm for you that they’re absurdly gerrymandered. If you know a little about Pennsylvania’s political geography, you’ll see that they’re gerrymandered to benefit the Republican Party. I don’t know how it suddenly became unconstitutional to draw district maps to benefit your own party, but some arbitrary line seems to have been crossed. The state’s Supreme Court took particular offense to examples where the GOP divided counties, cities, incorporated towns, boroughs, townships, or wards. So, they demanded that the legislature provide new maps that place more emphasis making compact districts in “contiguous territory.”
The GOP controls the legislature and they grumbled about this court order, with some members even suggesting that they might impeach all the Democrats on the Supreme Court, which they theoretically have the raw majorities needed to do. Instead, they produced a new map that eliminates the most ridiculous looking districts and gives more heed to keeping cities, towns, and wards whole. The problem is that the governor, Tom Wolf, is a Democrat, and the Supreme Court gave him veto power. Wolf has declared the new map as badly gerrymandered as the old one, and this means that the Court will appoint an independent expert, Prof. Nathaniel Persily of Stanford University, to divide the districts.
To be clear, I’ve had enough of watching the Republicans ignore norms and abuse processes in order to unfairly advantage themselves in elections. I’ve seen them create a nontroversy around in-person voter fraud and then impose voter ID laws meant to disproportionately disenfranchise Democratic voters. So, part of me feels like it’s about time that the Democrats fight back. The other half of me doesn’t like seeing a party use their raw majority on a court to impose their political will on the state legislature. And that’s how I see this, because districts have been gerrymandered or drawn to benefit certain politicians since the beginning of time.
But more than my ambivalence about the court’s power play, here, I don’t think it will really benefit the Democrats that much. And that’s because a state like Pennsylvania, where the voters were split fifty-fifty between Clinton and Trump, should actually have more Republican representatives due to the way the voters are distributed. Most Democratic votes in Pennsylvania come from the southeast corner of the state, which includes Philadelphia. The Dems also do well in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh. There are some other cities of modest size where the Democrats pick up chunks of votes, and some college towns where they dominate. But geographically, it isn’t possible to draw maps that create parity based on contiguous territory and undivided cities. In fact, the only reason this is currently considered anything but laughable is because the Dems have gained the upper hand in the suburbs of the two big cities, making it possible for them to win some districts that have been historically among the most reliably Republican in the country.
When the Republicans came back with their revised maps for the Supreme Court, the basic predicted result was almost unchanged. They probably were conceding the suburban 7th congressional district in the Philadelphia suburbs, but otherwise they had the same advantage as before. An independent analysis by Brian Amos of the University of Florida found that twelve of the state’s eighteen districts would still be Trump territory and the average margins would change “a little over four points.”
So, under the revised maps that Gov. Tom Wolf rejected, the split would go from 12-6 Republican to (probably) 11-7 Republican, which seems about right. Given the problems the Republicans are currently having in the suburbs, they could lose an additional seat based in Bucks County. Under the revision, another vulnerable district (my own), based in Chester County, would probably go from lean-GOP to safe-GOP. Add it all up, and we’re looking at something like a 11-7 or 10-8 win for the GOP.
Now, when an independent analyst comes in and decides to redraw these districts without any regard for partisan advantage, I suspect he is going to produce something where the Democrats, if they have a very good election cycle, can hope to win seven or eight of the eighteen seats. An even nine-nine split is possible, but only in a perfect storm, and it’s not likely to be sustainable.
This upper limit is a result of a realignment that is a kind of natural gerrymander. Where Democrats exist, they exist in large numbers and have huge majorities. Therefore, the only way to avoid a bunch of wasted votes (where they win 90% of the votes in a district when 50%+1 would have been sufficient) is to divide their communities and split them into several districts. But the state’s Supreme Court considers that kind of move to be unconstitutional. Or, at least, they consider it unconstitutional when the Republicans do it.
I’ll be honest. The Democrats are in position to win a few seats back in Pennsylvania based purely on the politics of the moment. New maps will make it look like a partisan Supreme Court accomplished this rather than the Democratic candidates and organizers on the ground. But the result probably won’t be too different. My guess is that at best the Democrats will be gifted one extra seat based on an independent map drawn by Prof. Nathaniel Persily of Stanford. The biggest advantage will probably come in 2020 when the wind might not be at the Democrats’ backs and they’ll have an easier time defending what they’ve won.
This just seems like a lot of raw, partisan controversy and politicization of the high court in order to get very little advantage. But, this kind of thing hasn’t bothered the GOP lately, so my criticism of the Dems here is a bit muted.
I can’t see how “we’ve accepted partisan gerrymanders as being fine since beginning of drawing maps in US” leads to the conclusion of “so a reversal of this practice — when the maps drawn by Republicans are beyond absurd — is just partisan power politics.”
It’s not just Pennsylvania elected judges doing this, you know, as federal courts are smacking down Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, etc. I think the line that was crossed is the ability of computers to determine “how ridiculous is this map, really?” in quantifiable numbers.
Until we adopt some sort of proportional representation and/or significantly increase number of representatives, no one is asking Pennsylvania to be made into 9/9 since it’s a 50/50 state, statewide — that would require an extreme Dem gerrymander. Just some fairness would be nice.
Agree on all points.
It should be a Democratic policy goal to impose nonpartisan redistricting nationwide no matter the ultimate electoral benefit. In the long run it can only improve the health of our government.
This.
The legislature should not have control over redristricting. It should be entities that are as neutral as possible.
Just because something has been done a certain way `forever’ does not mean it can never be changed, or done better.
And if by creating `squiggly line’ district they have added a political group simply to create a minority that can be disenfranchised by the majority, that certainly SHOULD be unconstitutional.
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I agree with this.
Nonpartisan lines should be drawn, everywhere.
But this will still give the GOP a big advantage in legislatures, both in the states and in the U.S. House of Representatives.
I’d hope that reducing the ability of the GOP to select their voters rather than vice-versa will have a mitigating effect on their current radicalism.
So attacking gerrymandering and (more importantly) the various forms of voter suppression should be Democratic priorities even though the rewards won’t be immediate and may only come in the form of breaking the wingnut hold over the opposition.
A boy can dream…
It would not shock me in the least that a state sometimes called ‘Pennsyltucky’ would have quite a few republican representatives.
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“a state sometimes called ‘Pennsyltucky'”
I have a meme for that.
“The other half of me doesn’t like seeing a party use their raw majority on a court to impose their political will on the state legislature. And that’s how I see this, because districts have been gerrymandered or drawn to benefit certain politicians since the beginning of time.”
Fuck it. Sometimes you have to hit the bully back. Power is made to be exercised. When the Republicans have it, they wield it with no mercy. Democrats MUST do the same.
This. Why on earth should we unilaterally disarm???
Yes, of course there are limits to the exercise of power — under no circumstances should we make it harder for people to vote just because they will vote GOP, for example.
But nothing you are talking about here remotely qualifies as unfair use of power. After all, the people of the Commonwealth, who elect Supreme Court Justices, put Democrats in those positions for a reason.
And when this gets addressed on a NATIONAL level, and there is a level playing field, then fine.
“… a state like Pennsylvania, where the voters were split fifty-fifty between Clinton and Trump, should actually have more Republican representatives due to the way the voters are distributed.”
Should?
Yeah I guess “should” is bad language, since “it doesn’t have to be this way forever”, but it’s clear what he meant: with current number of representatives to distribute throughout the state, it is not possible to fairly draw lines where R’s don’t have the edge. If you upped the number of representatives, it would not be so hard.
No, insofar as Democratic voters are self-gerrymandered, it’s the reverse: the larger the district the more you tend to have fair districts. If you have tiny districts, there is absolutely no way to prevent large portions of Democratic voters from being in overwhelmingly Democratic districts. With at-large representation, OTOH, there’s no gerrymandering. Generally speaking the larger the districts the smaller the effect of geographical clustering, although with medium-sized district more gerrymandering is possible, so medium-sized districts allow either much fairer districts than geography favors or much less fair.
Yeah there would be “no gerrymandering” but in pretty sure that some amount is required in order to be VRA compliant.
When the Democrats look to be gaining advantages from gerrymandering, and only then, the Supreme Court will abruptly decide that fair districts are Constitutionally required.
This is a necessary means to an end.
“I don’t know how it suddenly became unconstitutional to draw district maps to benefit your own party, but some arbitrary line seems to have been crossed.”
Unlike the federal constitution, which says nothing specific about voting rights, the PA state constitution says: “Elections shall be free and equal” (Art. I Sec 5).
As the PA S Ct wrote:
It is a core principle of our republican form of government “that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around.” … While federal courts have, to date, been unable to settle on a workable standard by which to assess such claims under the federal Constitution, we find no such
barriers under our great Pennsylvania charter. The people of this Commonwealth should never lose sight of the fact that, in its protection of essential rights, our founding document is the ancestor, not the offspring, of the federal Constitution. We conclude
that, in this matter, it provides a constitutional standard, and remedy, even if the federal charter does not.”
I encourage you to read the opinion.
http://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Supreme/out/J-1-2018majorityopinion.pdf?cb=1
To really end gerrymandering in Pennsylvania we need to change the state constitution to put a commision independent of the legislature in charge of the redistricting process. Unfortunately, a change to the state constitution requires that the legislature pass the proposed change twice in consecutive legislative sessions. The proposed change then must be approved by a referendum of PA votors. Despite the long odds, there are people trying to make this happen. Take a look at https:/www.fairdistrictspa.com for more information or to get involved.
There has been progress. Bills have been introduced into both the PA House and Senate, though they are stuck in committee. Nevertheless there are 18 Senate co-sponsers (of 50) and 107 House co-sponsers (of 203).
[I’m sorry if I posted this information here before, but people keep talking about Pennsylvania’s gerrymandering problem as though nothing could possibly be done. If you want to help, check the website.]
It might not matter once SCOTUS makes a ruling later this year.
There’s nothing in the Constitution that says that reps have to come from a set geographical location or districts have to be drawn at all
The Pennsylvania case was decided on the basis of the Pennsylvania constitution.
I know but the SCOTUS decision is likely to supersede this one
Actually, it shouldn’t do so. The Supreme Court will be ruling on the requirements of federal law, including the U.S. Constitution. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has the final say over what state law requires; the Supreme Court does not review decisions of state supreme courts based on state law. So the Pennsylvania case has likely reached the end of the line.
most states will do for their state what the feds require for voting – I’m sure some will try to have 2 different rules but they’ll need to be careful about due process rules
There’s also nothing expressly in the Constitution that says that congressional districts have to be equal in population, and until 1964 they often weren’t. In that year the S Ct decided Wesberry v. Sanders, and since then unequal populations have become unthinkable. If the US S Ct ever outlaws gerrymandering, within one election cycle everyone will agree that of course partisan districts are outrageously unfair and unconstitutional.
there’s some thought that Justice Kennedy has an idea on how to end it and that’s why the court took so many of the cases this time around.
The guesses have been varied but one of the possibilities would be if you can’t get a fair distribution with districts you could eliminate them altogether
Help me understand what you’re saying here. If ghe SCOTUS were to decide that Congressional Districts should be eliminated, what would be the alternate electoral method to fill the House of Representatives which would be permissible under the Federal Constitution?
This is basically the text that talks about reps:
It doesn’t say that Reps need to represent specific districts just that each state must get equal to their population. In theory you could vote for parties and assign reps based on vote percentages. I’m sure there’s a better way
It’s relevant here to take notice of a recent major project on gerrymandering at the http://www.fivethirtyeight.com site, which can be found here:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-gerrymandering-project/
Of particular interest, under “The Atlas of Gerrymandering” this project includes interactive methods of applying various redistricting criteria to every state. This tool shows that districts in Pennsylvania can be drawn to produce everything from a 13-5 Republican advantage to a 9-7 Democratic advantage (with two competitive districts). On these charts, the predicted number of Democratic seats runs from six to about nine. Mr. Longman is right that this process may not result in major Democratic gains, but in a situation where House control will shift with a 24-seat Democratic pickup, every seat counts.
9-7 is a trick since that only adds up to 16.
9-7 in favor of R with 2 competitive bringing it to 9-9 if Dems win.
To clarify: the tool used in the “Gerrymandering Project” allows for estimation of expected results based on several possible scenarios, including gerrymandering districts to favor Republicans, gerrymandering to favor Democrats, making districts compact while following county borders, and other criteria. According to this tool, gerrymandering to favor Republicans would produce 13 usually Republican districts, five usually Democratic districts, and no highly competitive districts. Gerrymandering to favor Democrats (which was what I referred to) would produce nine usually Democratic districts, seven usually Republican districts, and two highly competitive districts. If Pennsylvania were to be districted this way (which it won’t be), and Democrats won both competitive districts, the result would be an 11-7 Congressional split favoring Democrats. That is the highest Democratic number available through this tool.
I have 0 problem with a partisan court using its power to draw a neutral district. If as you said it wont change much it will still make things more fair. In fact if anything its a point of pride. When dems could, they redrew lines to benefit no one.
Where in the Constitution, Federal or Pennsylvania, is it written that normal geographic maps must be used. Use a cartogram with map area scaled by population, not acreage. Pittsburgh County and Allegheny County are a third the population of the state, they should occupy a third of the map used for redistricting. The Philadelphia and Pittsburgh metro areas are 2/3 of the population. They should contain 12 0r 13 of the 19 districts.
Using population cartograms would make it obvious that of course you split cities. The GOPs had no problem splitting my home town of Cincinnati in two to create two GOP districts instead of one GOP and one Dem.
Sorry, but I can’t buy this business of Dems live in dense cities so they’ll just have to accept losing.
I grew up in Pittsburgh when it was transitioning, drastically from the Steel City to the Research City (also when the Steelers were ascendant).
I have mostly lived and worked overseas since then but kept touch with my Pittsburgh friends. I think the city and the near suburbs are still pretty democratic.
Nowadays, not sure places like Bethel Park, the North Hills or even Little Washington (frack city!) are reliable GOP voting areas in the midterms given all the political mayhem and chaos of Trump’s administration.
What if we made a point of repealing this: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/90-1967/h48 and started introducing at large seats in bigger states?
Not for nothing, but you’re making the Ancien Regime argument here; the (proverbial) king rules by right of the land, not by the will of the people.
The French thought that argument was garbage in 1789 and I do too.