Again, no one is saying Republican are saints.
And yet you tried to foist a lie on us to imply they were better than they were anyway.
Which is particularly weird given that the facts of them being more likely to win a gerrymandering war didn't need the embellishment.
You have a political science background. Partisanship aside, what can be done to make congressional maps let's say less ridiculous?
I would assume nothing you would like.
Neutral redistricting commissions is something you oppose.
Obviously, the much better idea would be to get rid of single-member districts and move to other forms of elections and voting in general, but if I recall you are against that as well.
Now that courts have reduced some of the burden of creating minority districts, it should be easier to create more reasonably shaped districts if the parties cooperated. I don't favor commissions. The commissions have some restraint but the members are still political appointees.
Again, you want the parties to cooperate more, but are against the means of them cooperating.
Canada uses a commission and transparent methodology.
Federal laws of Canada
laws-lois.justice.gc.ca
Still political appointees, though, so you would be against it.
In the past, I thought there was some effort to create geographically tight districts. That eroded over time.
It's also not the only criteria people think is worth considering.
With the sophisticated voter data we now have, could a system be created and required where each state had to design a map with House representation relatively close the party's aggregate state vote total for the House (or Governor)? For example, a map where Republicans would be likely to win 40% of California's House seats. Likewise in Texas, Democrats would be likely to win 40% of the House seats. Of course, this would be based on the census and voting data every ten years and it would not guarantee future outcomes.
Yes. You can make states where the voting numbers are roughly on par with the seat distribution.
In single-member districts with first part the post, you will never get there exactly. There is always a bit of a winner's bonus.
It's why you can't just look at "percent of vote vs percent of seats" and say that something has been gerrymandered.
In fact, the more competitive the districts are, the bigger a distortion you can get.
If you win 6 seats 51-49, you will have a much bigger distortion than if you drew the maps so that the parties split 3-3 but the seats were completely non-competitive, coming in with something like 60-65 vs 40-35 each. Just a few close races going to the same party will make the partisan gap look much larger in a given election.
