Gerrymandering and term limits

#76
#76
CSpindizzy said:
Gerrymandering to the point it is currently IS avoidable. Leaving it to a partisan legislature or commission guarantees a system where the incumbents are protected and the party in power protects its interests.

If you don't like your representative - how many Republican voters would dare vote D to unseat a disliked incumbent? How many people willingly run against entrenched incumbents with millions in the bank? Statistically, the odds are in the incumbents' favor. More money means odds become even better.
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Where are you going to get the objective, non-corruptible committee to redraw lines?
 
#77
#77
OrangeWayOfLife said:
The lines should be drawn to represent geographic communities, not a neighborhood on one side of town, a few people south of town, and that neighborhood on the east of town that will always vote the same way.
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PKT_VOL said:
A bunch of white noise theory until you put it in practice.
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OrangeWayOfLife said:
Let me whip out my executive pen and sign that into action. If I'm the only one voting for candidates who want to fix congressional issues then it never will be put in to practice. All I can do right now is try to spread the idea to others.
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PKT_VOL said:
Totally missed the point.
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OrangeWayOfLife said:
I think you're missing the point by declaring all we have to do is vote them out. They're gerrymander their districts to keep votes coming their way. I can only vote in my district
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It point was about the implementation of redistricting in a non-zero sum way; not voting.
 
#78
#78
PKT_VOL said:
Where are you going to get the objective, non-corruptible committee to redraw lines?
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You can have an open commission that is bipartisan and has a minimum threshold for conditions on districts. Leaving it purely in the hands of a partisan legislature bent on protecting their party's hold for a decade at a time is set up for corruption. Most of the time they draw lines behind closed doors and no public viewing or responses allowed. Quite a few ways to make it less corrupt than it is now.
 
#79
#79
PKT_VOL said:
Term limits are dumb. If you don't like your representative, vote them out. Again, the electorate is the issue.

"Gerrymandering" is unavoidable. There have to be lines drawn. Lines have to be redrawn every so often to reflect changes in population/demographics. Anytime there is a change, there will be some perceived winner or loser in a zero sum game.
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You did say vote them out. Districts should be set by county lines or something of that nature
 
#80
#80
CSpindizzy said:
You can have an open commission that is bipartisan and has a minimum threshold for conditions on districts. Leaving it purely in the hands of a partisan legislature bent on protecting their party's hold for a decade at a time is set up for corruption. Most of the time they draw lines behind closed doors and no public viewing or responses allowed. Quite a few ways to make it less corrupt than it is now.
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My argument isn't that such a process can't be more transparent. It certainly can be and should be.

It is this naive idea that redistricting isn't inevitably gerrymandering or political in nature due to the process itself being a zero-sum game.
 
#81
#81
OrangeWayOfLife said:
You did say vote them out. Districts should be set by county lines or something of that nature
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Talking about reelections. Different topic.

County lines would be fine for some elections but is impractical for many elections due to population density and the shift of population change over time.
 
#82
#82
PKT_VOL said:
Talking about reelections. Different topic.

County lines would be fine for some elections but is impractical for many elections due to population density and the shift of population change over time.
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Why should that change the principle for setting district lines? In dense areas, fewer counties per district.
 
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#83
#83
I never understand why people are hellbent on remedying situations which already have obvious remedies in place. If you like limiting terms or disapprove of districting, just don't vote for incumbents.
 
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#85
#85
GAVol said:
I never understand why people are hellbent on remedying situations which already have obvious remedies in place. If you like limiting terms or disapprove of districting, just don't vote for incumbents.
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I can only vote in my district. The problem are these districts tailored to continue the staying power of incumbents. Why can so many not grasp this? If the districts were divided on a more bipartisan basis, then your suggest makes sense, but that's not the case.
 
#88
#88
OrangeWayOfLife said:
Why should that change the principle for setting district lines? In dense areas, fewer counties per district.
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If you go old school, you have the idea in the original Constitution that representation should not exceed 1 in every 30,000. Today, the average is roughly 1 in every 700,000.

Just take my home state of Georgia. Georgia has 159 counties and a population of roughly 10 million. Metro Atlanta has roughly 4.2 million people spread across mainly 5 counties. Gwinnett County has roughly 850,000-900,000 people alone. If you limited it just one county (Gwinnett) in dense areas, and matched population per district for other counties, you would have a dozen representatives for the whole state of Georgia. Thus, Gwinnett and others, would have to be carved up.

Personally, I think increasing the number of representatives (decreasing the per capita representation) at the state and federal levels of government would go a long way to decreasing the power of a politician.

Regardless, districts and population density are going to follow each other. Counties are not sufficient means to divide districts.
 
#89
#89
GAVol said:
I never understand why people are hellbent on remedying situations which already have obvious remedies in place. If you like limiting terms or disapprove of districting, just don't vote for incumbents.
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Not seeing very many conservatives just massively voting for some Democrat to try and unseat some milquetoast moderate Republican who has used the system to ensure his incumbency is safe. When you have servants of the people who game the system to ensure their reelection we have problems. Add to the fact that we regularly upped the ceiling on members of the House but stopped in 1911 - a period of progressive influence in many things. We've been set at 435 since then with one brief exception.
 
#90
#90
PKT_VOL said:
If you go old school, you have the idea in the original Constitution that representation should not exceed 1 in every 30,000. Today, the average is roughly 1 in every 700,000.

Just take my home state of Georgia. Georgia has 159 counties and a population of roughly 10 million. Metro Atlanta has roughly 4.2 million people spread across mainly 5 counties. Gwinnett County has roughly 850,000-900,000 people alone. If you limited it just one county (Gwinnett) in dense areas, and matched population per district for other counties, you would have a dozen representatives for the whole state of Georgia. Thus, Gwinnett and others, would have to be carved up.

Personally, I think increasing the number of representatives (decreasing the per capita representation) at the state and federal levels of government would go a long way to decreasing the power of a politician.

Regardless, districts and population density are going to follow each other. Counties are not sufficient means to divide districts.
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Maybe not, I see what you are saying. An increase in representatives makes sense. But there has to be a more common sense approach to drawing district lines than what is currently use. If you divided densely populated counties into as many sections needed to reach that 1:700,000 sounds like a common sense approach to me.
 
#91
#91
OrangeWayOfLife said:
Maybe not, I see what you are saying. An increase in representatives makes sense. But there has to be a more common sense approach to drawing district lines than what is currently use. If you divided densely populated counties into as many sections needed to reach that 1:700,000 sounds like a common sense approach to me.
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Dividing is the whole problem. There are political implications however you do it; rural vs urban, conservative vs liberal, this particular interest vs that particular interest, etc. Thus, you come full circle.

The two suggestions made in this thread that make any sense are CSpindizzy's point about transparency and my point about increasing representation. Neither would eliminate the political nature of redistricting, but both would help mitigate an inherently political process.

The idea that you can somehow divorce politics from redistricting is naive.
 
#92
#92
Districts are all based on precincts. They use computer programs that overlay census data. They look at race, household income, and party registration or vote history as well as population changes. They forecast any potential changes in the next decade and then group precincts based on what gives them the best results. Someone mentioned GA. Look at how the lines have been drawn here for the past two decades. Even at the state legislative levels they were drawn to heavily favor Republicans - to the point that white Democrats even switched from D to R just to stay in office.

Typically they will try to keep counties intact - the main reason? To keep party conventions as unified and simple as possible. County and district conventions with split counties cause all sorts of headaches for these party orgs. So they complain and the reapportionment committees try to help and accommodate the concerns.
 
#93
#93
PKT_VOL said:
Dividing is the whole problem. There are political implications however you do it; rural vs urban, conservative vs liberal, this particular interest vs that particular interest, etc. Thus, you come full circle.

The two suggestions made in this thread that make any sense are CSpindizzy's point about transparency and my point about increasing representation. Neither would eliminate the political nature of redistricting, but both would help mitigate an inherently political process.

The idea that you can somehow divorce politics from redistricting is naive.
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Simply increasing representation without changing gerrymandering laws is going to have the same end result as what is currently happening. Don't be so fast to pat yourself on the back.
 
#94
#94
OrangeWayOfLife said:
Simply increasing representation without changing gerrymandering laws is going to have the same end result as what is currently happening. Don't be so fast to pat yourself on the back.
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I'm not sure you are ever going to understand that restricting is inherently political (gerrymandering). I am just wasting key strokes with you.
 
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#95
#95
OrangeWayOfLife said:
Simply increasing representation without changing gerrymandering laws is going to have the same end result as what is currently happening. Don't be so fast to pat yourself on the back.
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What is this horrible result you keep referencing? Sure there are a few entrenched incumbents, but on the whole I'd bet that the average Congressman is serving maybe 3 or 4 terms. Drawing districts is just a political process.
 
#96
#96
GAVol said:
What is this horrible result you keep referencing? Sure there are a few entrenched incumbents, but on the whole I'd bet that the average Congressman is serving maybe 3 or 4 terms. Drawing districts is just a political process.
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The horrible result is our current state.
 
#97
#97
PKT_VOL said:
I'm not sure you are ever going to understand that restricting is inherently political (gerrymandering). I am just wasting key strokes with you.
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The way these districts are drawn need to be changed. Yes, that's political but we need to change the process of which it is done.
 
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