An article posted on the website of the Party for Socialism and Liberation criticizes today’s Supreme Court decision on the case of Bartlett v. Strickland. The case arose from a lawsuit filed by North Carolina county officials, over a voting district that was drawn over two adjacent counties. An excerpt from the article:
The stench of racism is in the air after today’s retrograde decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision came in the case of Bartlett v. Strickland (07-689).
Using the most twisted and absurd rationale of diminishing the impact of racism in “American politics,” the Supreme Court invalidated key African American voting rights in the south granted by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The inevitable result will be to reduce Black representation in Congress and in southern state legislatures, county councils and city councils.
The ruling will redraw or eliminate voting districts that contained a substantial plurality of Black voters. This districting stimulated the formation of voting coalitions with a minority sector of white voters in the district, allowing the election of Black candidates.
The case arose from a lawsuit filed by county officials in southeast North Carolina who contended that a particular voting district was drawn from two adjoining counties so as to constitute a voting district that consisted of 39 percent Black voters. This allowed the Black voters to form a coalition with progressive whites and elect Black candidates in the State Assembly.
The full article can be found here. Source: Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Nearly all the districts in the state end up with a tail in Phoenix, because the population of the rest of the state is so sparse. For instance, that area of AZ-01 between the snake’s head and tail doesn’t have nearly enough people in it to fill out the district, so sticking it in there would serve no purpose (trust me, that’s the part of AZ where I used to live).
They could have gone down the west side of the state a bit further and caught some of the outlying areas of Tucson, but — well, that’s Raul Grijalva’s district. CD-02 is Trent Franks’ district. The redistricting commission was instructed to lump people together according to “communities of interest.” They decided that the Focus on the Family folks who vote for Franks and the far-left people of Latino descent who vote for Grijalva weren’t in the same community of interest, and I have to agree with them.
I think communities of interest may be a part of the problem here. Relatively homogeneous, uncompetitive districts mean easier re-election and safer incumbents. I don’t think this is good for the country as a whole – and they vote on bills for the whole country, not just their district.
Nearly all the districts in the state end up with a tail in Phoenix, because the population of the rest of the state is so sparse. For instance, that area of AZ-01 between the snake’s head and tail doesn’t have nearly enough people in it to fill out the district, so sticking it in there would serve no purpose (trust me, that’s the part of AZ where I used to live).
They could have gone down the west side of the state a bit further and caught some of the outlying areas of Tucson, but — well, that’s Raul Grijalva’s district. CD-02 is Trent Franks’ district. The redistricting commission was instructed to lump people together according to “communities of interest.” They decided that the Focus on the Family folks who vote for Franks and the far-left people of Latino descent who vote for Grijalva weren’t in the same community of interest, and I have to agree with them.
Quite possibly.
I just found it in a wikipedia article on gerrymandering.
I’m curious through, what does the head of the snake have to do with its tail in the Phoenix suburbs?
Paulie, the Arizona district you show at #3 was drawn by a nonpartisan commission. That snake to the right leads to the Hopi reservation, which is located inside the Navajo reservation like a donut hole in a donut and which DEEPLY wants to vote in a separate district from the Navajos (the Navajos agree with this). To my knowledge, there’s no one actually inside the “snake” — the sole purpose of that is to get the Hopis into a separate district from the Navajos, something supported by BOTH tribes.
Not all gerrymanders are created equal. Find me someone in AZ-02 who actually dislikes being in that district, or someone in AZ-01 who wants the head of the snake back in theirs, and we’ll talk.
Actually, the PSL seems to be saying that blacks form coalitions with white minorities to get black candidates elected. What they seem to be saying is that black candidates cannot be elected in white majority districts, which, as you note, is not the case with Obama.
Then again, only about a fifth of the population voted for Obama.
The whole idea that only blacks will vote for black candidates is stupid. If that thinking cannot be thrown out with the election of Obama then it will never be thrown out.
The solution to gerrymandering is to govern yourself. All systems of representation involve pretense and difficulty. No agent ever represents his constituents and not his own interest, and to imagine that he does is laughable and jejune. Why consent to be governed by dolts?
Hopefully Prop 11 will stop gerrymandering in California. If it works in 2011, it will be a great step forward.
And welcome to IPR, Morgan!
The partial solution is universal bicameralism, where the next lower level of government appoints the upper body as the Senate used to be pre-17th Amendment.
People elect city councils and lower county houses.
Cities appoint county Senators.
People elect lower state houses.
Counties appoint state Senators.
People elect Congressmen.
States appoint Senators.
With that, all that has to be fixed is the lower houses.
And the vertical checks on government are strengthened considerably in the process.
The Solution to Gerrymandering is Proportional Representation. Adding Gerrymandering Criteria by forcing districting to create minority districts can only make Gerrymandering worse. So if minorities are upset that they may lose out if legislatures aren’t forced to accede to their gerrymandering desires, maybe they will get on the Proportional Representation Bandwagon. With PR major parties will need to make sure that they get minority members elected, otherwise those minorities may form an interest party and defect in future elections.
That one used to be worse in ’92-’02, it went neighborhood-by-neighborhood, street-by-street in Montgomery as well (in addition to Birmingham and Tuscaloosa), plus a big chunk of the rural black belt. Looks like they took it out of Montgomery completely.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Alabama7th.PNG
And i thought mine was bad
Some good examples from Florida…
http://www.fairdistrictsflorida.org/whatis.php
It looks like someone just took the pencil tool in Photoshop and made random shapes because they were bored.
They’re all pretty bad.
The granddaddy: Gerry’s Salamander..
You think that’s insane? There’s a district in Florida that looks like a snake or something.
I think they should take steps to eliminate any sort of gerrymandering.
No excuses left, my next district better be a perfect square.