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Visualizing the gerrymandering of a Congressional district

Here’s an interesting little GIF that Lazaro Gamio (@LazaroGamio) posted to twitter recently. The visualization shows the historical Congressional district boundaries of Maryland’s 3rd district, from 1789-2017. this district is one of the most gerrymandered in the country. The last few years are particularly startling. As one commenter put it, the later district shape “looks like a Rorschach test!”

The League of Dangerous Mapmakers

The Republican Party is in control of both the House and Senate, and the redrawing of Congressional districts is one of the tools that led America to its current fate. The Atlantic follows Tom Hoffeler, a Republican consultant responsible for the bulk work of the redistricting strategy.

Following the coincidence of the 2010 Census and the GOP’s gain of the House, their ability to redraw the boundaries of where districts lie allowed them to cherrypick constituencies, setting up a domino effect which has crashed this year and will likely reverberate through years to come. The gerrymandering of districts sits at an uncomfortable intersection of racial politics, classism, and politics as blood sport, with the Democrats’ efforts to stall redistricting and make attempts of their own paling in comparison.

And if you’d prefer your Congressional district mapmaking more mathematical than RealPolitik, check out the research a couple of Duke Mathematicians did to study the effects of gerrymandering on the 2012 Election in NC.

The results were startling. After re-running the election 100 times with a randomly drawn nonpartisan map each time, the average simulated election result was 7 or 8 U.S. House seats for the Democrats and 5 or 6 for Republicans. The maximum number of Republican seats that emerged from any of the simulations was eight. The actual outcome of the election — four Democratic representatives and nine Republicans – did not occur in any of the simulations. “If we really want our elections to reflect the will of the people, then I think we have to put in safeguards to protect our democracy so redistrictings don’t end up so biased that they essentially fix the elections before they get started,” says Mattingly.

Let’s end gerrymandering: let the people draw the lines

Gerrymander index
[[Gerrymandering]] has long been a problem in American politics. Every 10 years, after the decennial census, Congressional districts are re-drawn to even out the population of every district (700,000 people / Congressional district). Alan Lowenthal, Representative for California’s 47th congressional district, has introduced H.R. 2978: Let the People Draw the Lines Act of 2013 to help deal with this ongoing and increasingly intransigent issue. If you want to see for yourself, check out the recent Wonkblog post “What 60 years of political gerrymandering looks like.” Truly mind-blowing, and one of the main reasons that the current Congress is the least productive in American history!

So PLEASE contact your representative and tell them we need non-partisan Congressional districts so that politicians aren’t in charge of drawing their own districts to keep themselves safely ensconced in Congress year after year.

Lowenthal’s “Let the People Draw the Lines Act” would create independent panels consisting of five Democrats, five Republicans and four Independents.

“These would be people who haven’t run for office, who aren’t paid by either party, and who haven’t contributed to either party,” Lowenthal says. “That group would follow set criteria for drawing maps, and would hold public hearings throughout the state. The commission would approve the maps, and would not require legislative or governor’s approval. If there was a legal challenge it would immediately go to federal district court.”

via One easy way to end gerrymandering: Stop letting politicians draw their own districts.

Congressional Redistricting: Mapping, Documenting, Planning

It’s time for redistricting and the Columbia Law School has new tool that will help.

  • DrawCongress.org

    DrawCongress.org represents the first attempt to create an internet depository for nonpartisan congressional maps for the entire country.

    DrawCongress.org is an outgrowth of the “Redistricting and Gerrymandering” course at Columbia Law School. At this website you will find a series of student-drawn nonpartisan redistricting plans, which will culminate in a complete map of all 435 congressional districts….

    This website and associated project have three goals.

    First, the project seeks to educate both the students involved and the general public about the redistricting process. We hope that the maps and redistricting plans contained here depict what is possible in the current round of redistricting and what nonpartisan plans might look like.

    Second, we hope that these plans serve as a benchmark against which incumbent-drawn plans can be assessed. While not passing judgment on the plans states adopt this redistricting cycle, we hope that the plans contained here illustrate alternative paths not taken and therefore, both the promise and potential pitfalls of nonpartisan redistricting.

    Finally, for those states that fail to craft redistricting plans, this website provides ready-made legally defensible congressional plans.

    We also encourage others to submit plans to be posted to this website. Students in similar classes at other universities will be posting plans here later in the redistricting cycle.

Printable Congressional District Maps: Behind The Scenes

Printable Congressional District Maps: Behind The Scenes, Joshua Tauberer, February 26th, 2010.

I missed this when it came out a couple of months ago, so this may be old news to some of you. Seems worth mentioning for those who missed it.

Today I’m releasing print-quality maps of congressional districts, with street-level detail and county border lines. This has been one of the most sought-after resources based on emails I’ve received over the last some four years and I don’t think you can find this anywhere else. (At least not comprehensively for the whole nation. Local state clerk’s offices may have them. NationalAtlas.gov has maps but not with very much detail.)

This was a solid 2-day project with less than 300 lines of code and it’s something that only recently became this easy to do.

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