12 ms·

Delaney Introduces Bill to End Gerrymandering, Reform Elections

278 points by kyledrake 9y ago

drspacemonkey 9y ago
As a Canadian, this doesn't affect me. But the bill seems refreshingly straightforward, and introduces several reforms that I would argue seem desperately needed in American elections. Sadly, I also have very little hope that this will go anywhere.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kodis 9y ago
  Sadly, I believe that you're correct: the bill was also introduced in the previous two congressional sessions, where it presumably went nowhere.
zeckalpha 9y ago
I feel like most of these changes would require a constitutional amendment.
- jack9 9y ago
  Why? Federal holiday? Nope. Top-two primaries? Nope. The us constitution doesnt address political parties, currently. Redistricting rules? Nope. Take a look at Article 1, Section 4 of the us constitution and/or https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedures https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedu...
  - cjensen 9y ago
    Not sure, but under the US Constitution, I'm pretty sure that the states get to decide this particular matter for themselves. So this bill is unenforceable. Both parties like to pass symbolic gestures like this on occasion even though they know it cannot be law. The only restrictions on the states is that they may not do obviously unconstitutional stuff when drawing districts like attempting to disenfranchise a race. Corrections welcome.
    - jack9 9y ago
      > I'm pretty sure that the states get to decide this particular matter for themselves Please participate in the discussion by checking on the relevant sources you're citing. From the US Constitution: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but /the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations/, except as to the Places of chusing Senators The bill is legal by this provision.
      - cjensen 9y ago
        I did check the sources. The line you quote is the wrong line. The topic of "how apportionment is performed" is a different line. Further, "how districting is performed" is pretty vague in the original Constitution which I believe means it is left to the states to decide. The 14th Amendment implies that the states must use districts -- before then they could have used a statewide system.
        jack9 9y ago
        > The line you quote is the wrong line I'm very sure it is not. Article 1, Section 4. > The topic of "how apportionment is performed" is a different line. That's not how the law is read (X "topic" is governed by Y statute solely). One section does not provide the guidelines for apportionment, alone. Preceding sections generally override following sections when in doubt, unless explicitly overridden in following sections. Reapportionment has nothing to do with elections, but the result of the elections as it pertains to the composition of Congress in relation to population. There is nothing in regard to this to require a change to the constitution, as an amendment.
- baron816 9y ago
  We don't just need a Constitutional amendment, we need a new Constitution. People act like the Constitution we have came down from the heavens in a beam of light. But it was written by a bunch of guys who had never lived in a real democracy before. In fact it was written at a time when there pretty much hadn't been ANY democracies in the whole world for two thousand years. We've had two hundred years of experience and hundreds of iterations of the concept since then, so we have a much better idea of what will work and what won't. It bothers me so much the passion for the Constitution people have. Yet, there is almost universal distain for Congress and the entire political establishment. Washington is entirely a function of the rules that are set by the Constitution. Electing different people isn't going to change anything. Ending Gerrymandering (if possible while using districts) would help, but it doesn't go far enough. You would still have a two party system. You would still be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils every time you go to the polls. And a large chunk of the country would always feel that they don't have someone in government representing them. If we want people engaged in government, and to have a government engaged in them, then we need proportional representation in one form or another. Anything else is just a bandaid.
  - zeckalpha 9y ago
    The entire constitution could be rewritten through amendment.
    - CalChris 9y ago
      Or we could just have another Constitution. It wouldn't be our second. It would be our third.
  - thatswrong0 9y ago
    > We don't just need a Constitutional amendment, we need a new Constitution. Uh you can achieve that via amendments. And just who is going to write this new Constitution? > Washington is entirely a function of the rules that are set by the Constitution. And all of the Supreme Court precedents that have bent the hell out of the document such that it's hardly the same document that it was 200 years ago. States could, if they wanted to, implement proportional representation themselves without having to amend the Constitution. It obviously wouldn't mean that the entirety of Congress is proportional, but it'd be a start.
- ccleve 9y ago
  Why was this downvoted? Yes, it's likely you would need at least one amendment. The Supreme Court has ruled that the government cannot impose open primaries on the political parties. See California Democratic Party vs. Jones: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1999/99-401 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1999/99-401 This decision has been affirmed more than once, and it makes sense.
  - donarb 9y ago
    Although in 2008 the SC upheld Washington state's modified primary system, called the top-two primary. In the top-two primary the two candidates who receive the most votes go head to head in the general election. Candidates no longer are listed on the ballot by party, the candidate states what their party preference is, regardless whether the candidate is the official party candidate or not. The parties are still free to choose a candidate and place them on the ballot, but the ballot does not state that the candidate is the one chosen by the party. The candidate or party can advertise that in campaign literature if they want. http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-washington-state-top-two-primary/ http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/supreme-court-rules...
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    It's not so bad, states can just tell the parties to go eat dirt and have the same requirements for anyone to get on the ballot. In such a system private groups would still be free to endorse a particular candidate. Won't happen, but the problem isn't that primaries are closed, it's that they impact the names that end up on the ballot.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - anarazel 9y ago
    I think you're right that this probably couldn't be done without an amendment, but I don't see how California Democratic Party vs. Jones actually is a strong argument for that. That seems to largely have been a first amendment case, if I understand the opinion correctly. The basic argument being that blanked primary systems forced parties to associate with candidates, which'd in turn be forced speech ("freedom of association"). Isn't the issue more around Article 1 enumerated powers?
baron816 9y ago
The problem with a system that's easy to manipulate is that the benefitting/manipulating party doesn't like giving up their advantage.
- ruleabidinguser 9y ago
  Being easy to manipulate is already a problem
CalChris 9y ago
We have gerrymandering at every level, but first with the States. Why does Wyoming have two Senators and California have two Senators? We have 12% of the population of the US. Wyoming has 0.18%, smaller than DC. Of course, this continues with the House and the Electoral College. Et cetera. However, there is no incentive for Wyoming and ND and Alaska and ... to fix this. No Taxation Without Representation? Sure, but that doesn't mean the representation has to be fair.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  This is by design. The whole point of the House is proportional representation. Recall that senators originally weren't even directly elected.
  - CalChris 9y ago
    Gerrymandering is always by design.
    - aptwebapps 9y ago
      But that's not gerrymandering. It's a different thing. Gerrymandering is specifically the process of drawing otherwise unthinkable district boundaries to achieve some particular electoral result.
      - CalChris 9y ago
        Wyoming became a state on July 10, 1890. It then had a population of 62,555 and now has 563,626 [1]. The population of the US in 1890 was 62,979,766 and is now 321.4 million. So with Wyoming's 0.1% population of the US then and its 0.17% now, is that a thinkable process or is it gerrymandering? [1] http://eadiv.state.wy.us/demog_data/cntycity_hist.htm http://eadiv.state.wy.us/demog_data/cntycity_hist.htm
        aptwebapps 9y ago
        I think maybe you're operating at a higher level of abstraction than I am. Electoral distortions like the allocation of two Senate seats per state regardless of population share, or failure to keep representation inline with original intentions are definitely things to carp about. They might even have a similar effect as gerrymandering in some cases. But unless you're redrawing borders for purely electoral reasons you're not gerrymandering. Is this really debatable? Are we actually arguing about something that can be settled by referencing a dictionary?
thephyber 9y ago
While it doesn't sound like a bad proposal and could probably get a strong majority of votes in some alternate dimension, the party in power will never allow this to make it to the floor of the House for a vote.[1] The more cynical I become, the more I think the party in power doesn't actually want to solve any problems, they only want to focus on wedge issues to ensure they can use {rage, fear, some other emotion} to keep their party constituents engaged enough to vote but not enough to hold their feet to the fire on getting things done. Incumbents in Congress still have 95%+ re-election rates and in 2010 when those rates dipped, Congress was remarkably less productive than usual. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule
- dvt 9y ago
  > the party in power will never allow this to make it to the floor of the House for a vote The implication here is that the Democrats don't gerrymander. This is patently false. The Democrats are just pissed that the Republicans did a massively better job at it in the past decade. In many ways, it was an arms race, and the Democrats chose not to focus on small and local districts and elections (instead, worrying about the "big picture"). As it turns out, politics trickles up, and small wins for Republicans eventually turned into big wins. To see a perfect exemplar of this, just look at Jon Ossoff's crushing loss last week. There's an excellent NPR podcast about this very issue I listened to a few years ago.
  - devwastaken 9y ago
    I think they meant any party in power won't allow it, because partly how they get in power, is gerrymandering.
    - noobermin 9y ago
      There's some merit to this. Chances are the democratic leadership won't let this through. Doesn't hurt to try though.
  - jccalhoun 9y ago
jbyers 9y ago
"Delaney also introduced the Open Our Democracy Act in the 113th and 114th Congress."
mobilefriendly 9y ago
This is hilarious because Delaney was first elected in a gerrymandered district created specifically for him, the state legislature literally looped in his house by two blocks. http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/cct-arc-acca0c6c-9aa4-5159-b6ef-82eb618dd4a9-20120909-story.html http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/cct-arc-acca0c6c-9aa4-5159... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Delaney_(Maryland_politician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Delaney_(Maryland_politic...
- noobermin 9y ago
  I'm not sure how that is hilarious, it shows a little character in being willing to reign in a system that even got you into power.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    It's more likely the other way around, showing very little character by using the rules of the game to his advantage to get into office and changing the rules of the game to stay in office.
    - mabbo 9y ago
      But surely if he's in a gerrymandered district, passing these rules would make it harder for him to be re-elected? He's shooting himself in the foot to do the right thing. I can respect that.
      - afinlayson 9y ago
        We need more of this kind of thinking. For example Trump should want a Russia prob instead of watering down sanctions as he is quietly doing. This is how governing is suppose to work, instead of what ever the hell you call the current state of affairs.
      - IncRnd 9y ago
        This bill, if it becomes law, moves the gerrymandering from one commission to another. It doesn't stop gerrymandering. How does the new commission get formed? How long do people serve on it? Who appoints them? Do they get elected? I'm not saying the system doesn't need to be reformed. It does. However, trusting people who say things that sound good, without evidence, is just following more politicians.
kerkeslager 9y ago
I'm not sure how this would end gerrymandering. Setting up a committee to handle districting doesn't solve anything. If I remember correctly, didn't someone finally come up with an algorithm which evenly divides populations such that average distance from the average location of the district residents is minimized? A law which mandated use of that or a similar algorithm for district boundaries would actually help. Just moving the problem into committee obfuscates the problem.
- SamReidHughes 9y ago
  That would still help whichever party benefits from such a procedure. We've had debates over what the "right" algorithm is before, in regard to calculating the number of House representatives each state gets.
- mful 9y ago
  There may be a better solution than an independent committee, but an independent committee is far, far better than the "whoever is in power creates districts in the way that most entrenches the governing party" system we have today. Independent committees have historically been pretty effective anti-partisan solutions. One prominent example being the CBO, which both parties like to stand up for while in the opposition, and disparage while in power.
  - WillPostForFood 9y ago
    Why is it better? It just means whichever side the independent goes with will benefit. "Replacing whoever is in power" with "whoever is in power, or not in power" is lateral at best.
    - roywiggins 9y ago
      Insulating the commission means you won't allow a party to seize power and then cement it with gerrymandering, which is self-reinforcing. Cutting that loop means the commission can swing back and forth more easily and has the potential to even out. It can't possibly be worse than partisan gerrymandering.
macawfish 9y ago
I'm reading a lot of resignation, and I feel it too. Why is it than when SOPA came out or when health care is on the line, people rally super hard, but when election reform is out, there's almost no effort? Why can't we get passionate about this too?
- nindalf 9y ago
  I think because there are relatively simple solutions to both the problems you mentioned * SOPA - don't pass the bill. * Health care - spend more, if necessary increase the deficit and we'll figure out the problem later through increased taxes or reduced spending elsewhere. With electoral reform, it's hard to know what the right thing to do is. Everyone wants to stop gerrymandering but what's the alternative? An algorithm based on population and population density? That has its own set of issues. Heck, it's not straightforward even figuring out if a particular district has been gerrymandered or not. And in some cases, such gerrymandering is considered desirable - such as when it creates district where minorities are the majority. When the problem is hard to define, hard to explain tangibly, hard to provide solutions for, it's no wonder that people don't get motivated to solve it.
  - NortySpock 9y ago
    I'd prefer the algorithm if it was public and neutral (or at least consistent). See for example the Shortest Splitline Algorithm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A
  - moultano 9y ago
    Moreover there are no apolitical choices of algorithms. When one party is urban and one party is rural, your choice of algorithm determines which party will benefit.
  - kem 9y ago
    There are pretty low-hanging fruit out there, though. Approval voting or ranking are almost universally agreed to be better than what we have (in most places--some places do have that). That alone would make a huge change. Independent districting commissions would be a big step forward. Election day holidays would help. Actually, a lot of the stuff in this proposed bill would help. You're right that there's open questions out there, but it's not like there aren't solutions that are obvious first steps. Re: healthcare, I think that's probably even more complicated than electoral reform. For example, missing from your example are cost-cutting measures, like requiring more transparency in pricing and charging, and deregulating certain things to increase competition.
breatheoften 9y ago
How about something sensible -- take a census of which party each person supports and then you get proportionate representatives from each party above .15% of the population. Elections then just determine who gets the seats allocated to each party. That's roughly how it works in Germany. Poof -- suddenly there is no such thing as gerrymandering.
- nindalf 9y ago
  Does each voter have a particular representative they can express their opinion to? As I see it, calls from constituents is an influence on politicians because they know these are the people who they depend on. I don't know how it works in Germany so maybe there's a provision for this. Also, the unintended consequence of such an electoral system is that it encourages extreme views, rather than moving towards the centre. Of course gerrymandered districts have the same effect, but centrism is worth striving for, I think. It ensures that a majority of people have a candidate who isn't far from their own views. You can see how proportional representation would help parties like the UKIP do far better than they otherwise would have, which is not necessarily in the best interests of the nation.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > You can see how proportional representation would help parties like the UKIP do far better than they otherwise would have, which is not necessarily in the best interests of the nation. In the long run, what's in the best interests of the nation is for the government to fairly represent as much of the electorate as possible, not a fictional "middle ground."
    - nindalf 9y ago
      I agree with you in principle. But I also think in this particular case the UK has benefited from the UKIPs absence from Parliament.
  - breatheoften 9y ago
    I had to look up the details -- Germany actually uses a mixed proportional system. Each person votes for their preferred candidate in a local race and for their preferred party. Half the total seats are filled by the winner of the local races -- and the remaining half are allocated in proportion to the party votes in order of a pre-determined list of candidates produced by each party. For some parties -- the order of the candidates on the party list is voted on, for others the list order is decided by some central power broker. I guess this means the local races could still be gerrymandered -- however with more total parties I think gerrymandering might be harder to preserve in general ...
notadoc 9y ago
Surely guaranteed to go nowhere.
- heurist 9y ago
  Solid start though. Even if the redistricting measure was dropped, a federal holiday for election day and top-two primaries would clear out a lot of the clogs in our election systems. I'm not sure the top-two measure is constitutional though.
  - notadoc 9y ago
    Oh I agree that it's a good start and gerrymandering is bad, but can you honestly imagine this type of bill passing in this political environment? Congress has a, what, 12% approval rating?
    - heurist 9y ago
      I think it's being presented in the hope that a future Congress will run with it. Or that his constituents will appreciate his ideas. It is beyond this Congress to fix the system they've brazenly manipulated for their own benefit.
arthur_trudeau 9y ago
Current US law requires racial gerrymandering to ensure blacks are able to elect black congressmen. This bill does not obviate that requirement. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/how-a-widespread-practice-to-politically-empower-african-americans-might-actually-harm-them/?utm_term=.68d70f6094f4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/how-a...
- thescriptkiddie 9y ago
  Your article it out of date. Racial gerrymandering is the one kind of gerrymandering that is not allowed according to the supreme court[0]. Representatives will go out of their way to argue that their gerrymandering is purely partisan because that's totally legal – for now. [0] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/supreme-court-north-carolina-racial-gerrymander-case-voting-rights/ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/supreme-court-no...
  - arthur_trudeau 9y ago
    That is incorrect. The Supreme Court's decision is with respect to "overconcentration" of blacks, in a context where, when divided, they were able to elect their preferred candidates. Their guiding principle is still that blacks must be neither diluted enough to make their votes irrelevant in "their own" areas, nor concentrated enough to make their votes irrelevant outside - as the dissent notes, this itself amounts to a racial gerrymander (you don't get to club yourself in the head when drawing district lines and "forget" that certain areas are heavy in both blacks and democrats). They did not overrule Gingles, they cite the state's action as contravening it. Unsurprisingly their jurisprudence on this is a shitshow as they try to square this circle while pretending like it is some sort of neutral antidiscrimination provision while also attempting to secure a minimum threshold of black political power.
heurist 9y ago
Expect this to become a much bigger issue leading up to the redistricting that comes after the 2020 census.
rayiner 9y ago
This is my election district: http://imgur.com/a/C1UmB http://imgur.com/a/C1UmB. It's in the dictionary next to "illegal gerrymandering." The southwest lobe near D.C. is predominantly African American, while the northeast lobe near Annapolis is predominantly Caucasian. Though I can't figure out who is being disenfranchised.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Apparently Republicans. http://www.fairdistrictspa.com/updates/efficiency-gap-votes-cast-vs-seats-won http://www.fairdistrictspa.com/updates/efficiency-gap-votes-...
  - rayiner 9y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if that were the intent. The Annapolis area has a lot of rural places, and the district would be a Republican district if a big chunk of urban PG County weren't glommed on.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    I don't know why this got downvoted. Maryland is infamously gerrymandered to the detriment of Republicans. Both parties abuse redistricting.
delhanty 9y ago
I'm political in outlook, sympathetic to the proposal, and like to see politics on HN as long as it has sort of hacker angle to it. On the other hand, IMO this sort of story crosses the threshold into general politics, which in the long term degrades HN and hence doesn't really belong here.
aequitas720 9y ago
Better than open top-two primaries: ranked-choice voting. Better than districting by committee: multi-member districts. Election Day holiday: good, but throw in automatic voter registration. https://represent.us/ https://represent.us/ http://fairvote.org http://fairvote.org
- ihaveajob 9y ago
  Multi-member districts are what we have in Spain. While in theory they increase the proportionality of the election results, the downside is that there is no clear representative for a district. To whom do I write to complain when my province has 7 seats in parliament? What if it has 30?
TokenDiversity 9y ago
I know this is a digression but can somebody tell me what happened yesterday? Bear with me because I'm not much of a lawyer and I don't get a lot of time to do my original research so I just get it from TV. I'm flabbergasted that the SC was 9-0 in their decision. I guess I just don't understand. I thought the lower courts had applied the ban unanimously and it was made in accordance with the law. Is there a way to challenge yesterday's decision further?
shmerl 9y ago
Will this help reducing de-facto duopoly of incumbent parties?
treebeard901 9y ago
One solution to the problem might be to increase the number of representatives. The house was supposed to scale with the population. This was stopped in early 1900. It's a scaling problem. More people to vote for means less effective gerrymandering.
FellowTraveler 9y ago
TERM LIMITS

278 points by kyledrake 9y ago

As a Canadian, this doesn't affect me. But the bill seems refreshingly straightforward, and introduces several reforms that I would argue seem desperately needed in American elections. Sadly, I also have very little hope that this will go anywhere.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kodis 9y ago
Sadly, I believe that you're correct: the bill was also introduced in the previous two congressional sessions, where it presumably went nowhere.

zeckalpha 9y ago

I feel like most of these changes would require a constitutional amendment.

jack9 9y ago
Why? Federal holiday? Nope. Top-two primaries? Nope. The us constitution doesnt address political parties, currently. Redistricting rules? Nope. Take a look at Article 1, Section 4 of the us constitution and/or https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedures https://ballotpedia.org/State-by-state_redistricting_procedu...
- cjensen 9y ago
  Not sure, but under the US Constitution, I'm pretty sure that the states get to decide this particular matter for themselves. So this bill is unenforceable. Both parties like to pass symbolic gestures like this on occasion even though they know it cannot be law. The only restrictions on the states is that they may not do obviously unconstitutional stuff when drawing districts like attempting to disenfranchise a race. Corrections welcome.
  - jack9 9y ago
    > I'm pretty sure that the states get to decide this particular matter for themselves Please participate in the discussion by checking on the relevant sources you're citing. From the US Constitution: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but /the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations/, except as to the Places of chusing Senators The bill is legal by this provision.
    - cjensen 9y ago
      I did check the sources. The line you quote is the wrong line. The topic of "how apportionment is performed" is a different line. Further, "how districting is performed" is pretty vague in the original Constitution which I believe means it is left to the states to decide. The 14th Amendment implies that the states must use districts -- before then they could have used a statewide system.
      - jack9 9y ago
        > The line you quote is the wrong line I'm very sure it is not. Article 1, Section 4. > The topic of "how apportionment is performed" is a different line. That's not how the law is read (X "topic" is governed by Y statute solely). One section does not provide the guidelines for apportionment, alone. Preceding sections generally override following sections when in doubt, unless explicitly overridden in following sections. Reapportionment has nothing to do with elections, but the result of the elections as it pertains to the composition of Congress in relation to population. There is nothing in regard to this to require a change to the constitution, as an amendment.
baron816 9y ago
We don't just need a Constitutional amendment, we need a new Constitution. People act like the Constitution we have came down from the heavens in a beam of light. But it was written by a bunch of guys who had never lived in a real democracy before. In fact it was written at a time when there pretty much hadn't been ANY democracies in the whole world for two thousand years. We've had two hundred years of experience and hundreds of iterations of the concept since then, so we have a much better idea of what will work and what won't. It bothers me so much the passion for the Constitution people have. Yet, there is almost universal distain for Congress and the entire political establishment. Washington is entirely a function of the rules that are set by the Constitution. Electing different people isn't going to change anything. Ending Gerrymandering (if possible while using districts) would help, but it doesn't go far enough. You would still have a two party system. You would still be forced to choose between the lesser of two evils every time you go to the polls. And a large chunk of the country would always feel that they don't have someone in government representing them. If we want people engaged in government, and to have a government engaged in them, then we need proportional representation in one form or another. Anything else is just a bandaid.
- zeckalpha 9y ago
  The entire constitution could be rewritten through amendment.
  - CalChris 9y ago
    Or we could just have another Constitution. It wouldn't be our second. It would be our third.
- thatswrong0 9y ago
  > We don't just need a Constitutional amendment, we need a new Constitution. Uh you can achieve that via amendments. And just who is going to write this new Constitution? > Washington is entirely a function of the rules that are set by the Constitution. And all of the Supreme Court precedents that have bent the hell out of the document such that it's hardly the same document that it was 200 years ago. States could, if they wanted to, implement proportional representation themselves without having to amend the Constitution. It obviously wouldn't mean that the entirety of Congress is proportional, but it'd be a start.
ccleve 9y ago
Why was this downvoted? Yes, it's likely you would need at least one amendment. The Supreme Court has ruled that the government cannot impose open primaries on the political parties. See California Democratic Party vs. Jones: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1999/99-401 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1999/99-401 This decision has been affirmed more than once, and it makes sense.
- donarb 9y ago
  Although in 2008 the SC upheld Washington state's modified primary system, called the top-two primary. In the top-two primary the two candidates who receive the most votes go head to head in the general election. Candidates no longer are listed on the ballot by party, the candidate states what their party preference is, regardless whether the candidate is the official party candidate or not. The parties are still free to choose a candidate and place them on the ballot, but the ballot does not state that the candidate is the one chosen by the party. The candidate or party can advertise that in campaign literature if they want. http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-washington-state-top-two-primary/ http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/supreme-court-rules...
- maxerickson 9y ago
  It's not so bad, states can just tell the parties to go eat dirt and have the same requirements for anyone to get on the ballot. In such a system private groups would still be free to endorse a particular candidate. Won't happen, but the problem isn't that primaries are closed, it's that they impact the names that end up on the ballot.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- anarazel 9y ago
  I think you're right that this probably couldn't be done without an amendment, but I don't see how California Democratic Party vs. Jones actually is a strong argument for that. That seems to largely have been a first amendment case, if I understand the opinion correctly. The basic argument being that blanked primary systems forced parties to associate with candidates, which'd in turn be forced speech ("freedom of association"). Isn't the issue more around Article 1 enumerated powers?

baron816 9y ago

The problem with a system that's easy to manipulate is that the benefitting/manipulating party doesn't like giving up their advantage.

ruleabidinguser 9y ago
Being easy to manipulate is already a problem

CalChris 9y ago

We have gerrymandering at every level, but first with the States. Why does Wyoming have two Senators and California have two Senators? We have 12% of the population of the US. Wyoming has 0.18%, smaller than DC. Of course, this continues with the House and the Electoral College. Et cetera. However, there is no incentive for Wyoming and ND and Alaska and ... to fix this. No Taxation Without Representation? Sure, but that doesn't mean the representation has to be fair.

nerdponx 9y ago
This is by design. The whole point of the House is proportional representation. Recall that senators originally weren't even directly elected.
- CalChris 9y ago
  Gerrymandering is always by design.
  - aptwebapps 9y ago
    But that's not gerrymandering. It's a different thing. Gerrymandering is specifically the process of drawing otherwise unthinkable district boundaries to achieve some particular electoral result.
    - CalChris 9y ago
      Wyoming became a state on July 10, 1890. It then had a population of 62,555 and now has 563,626 [1]. The population of the US in 1890 was 62,979,766 and is now 321.4 million. So with Wyoming's 0.1% population of the US then and its 0.17% now, is that a thinkable process or is it gerrymandering? [1] http://eadiv.state.wy.us/demog_data/cntycity_hist.htm http://eadiv.state.wy.us/demog_data/cntycity_hist.htm
      - aptwebapps 9y ago
        I think maybe you're operating at a higher level of abstraction than I am. Electoral distortions like the allocation of two Senate seats per state regardless of population share, or failure to keep representation inline with original intentions are definitely things to carp about. They might even have a similar effect as gerrymandering in some cases. But unless you're redrawing borders for purely electoral reasons you're not gerrymandering. Is this really debatable? Are we actually arguing about something that can be settled by referencing a dictionary?

thephyber 9y ago

While it doesn't sound like a bad proposal and could probably get a strong majority of votes in some alternate dimension, the party in power will never allow this to make it to the floor of the House for a vote.[1] The more cynical I become, the more I think the party in power doesn't actually want to solve any problems, they only want to focus on wedge issues to ensure they can use {rage, fear, some other emotion} to keep their party constituents engaged enough to vote but not enough to hold their feet to the fire on getting things done. Incumbents in Congress still have 95%+ re-election rates and in 2010 when those rates dipped, Congress was remarkably less productive than usual. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastert_Rule

dvt 9y ago
> the party in power will never allow this to make it to the floor of the House for a vote The implication here is that the Democrats don't gerrymander. This is patently false. The Democrats are just pissed that the Republicans did a massively better job at it in the past decade. In many ways, it was an arms race, and the Democrats chose not to focus on small and local districts and elections (instead, worrying about the "big picture"). As it turns out, politics trickles up, and small wins for Republicans eventually turned into big wins. To see a perfect exemplar of this, just look at Jon Ossoff's crushing loss last week. There's an excellent NPR podcast about this very issue I listened to a few years ago.
- devwastaken 9y ago
  I think they meant any party in power won't allow it, because partly how they get in power, is gerrymandering.
  - noobermin 9y ago
    There's some merit to this. Chances are the democratic leadership won't let this through. Doesn't hurt to try though.
- jccalhoun 9y ago

jbyers 9y ago

"Delaney also introduced the Open Our Democracy Act in the 113th and 114th Congress."

mobilefriendly 9y ago

This is hilarious because Delaney was first elected in a gerrymandered district created specifically for him, the state legislature literally looped in his house by two blocks. http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/cct-arc-acca0c6c-9aa4-5159-b6ef-82eb618dd4a9-20120909-story.html http://www.carrollcountytimes.com/cct-arc-acca0c6c-9aa4-5159... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Delaney_(Maryland_politician) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Delaney_(Maryland_politic...

noobermin 9y ago
I'm not sure how that is hilarious, it shows a little character in being willing to reign in a system that even got you into power.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  It's more likely the other way around, showing very little character by using the rules of the game to his advantage to get into office and changing the rules of the game to stay in office.
  - mabbo 9y ago
    But surely if he's in a gerrymandered district, passing these rules would make it harder for him to be re-elected? He's shooting himself in the foot to do the right thing. I can respect that.
    - afinlayson 9y ago
      We need more of this kind of thinking. For example Trump should want a Russia prob instead of watering down sanctions as he is quietly doing. This is how governing is suppose to work, instead of what ever the hell you call the current state of affairs.
    - IncRnd 9y ago
      This bill, if it becomes law, moves the gerrymandering from one commission to another. It doesn't stop gerrymandering. How does the new commission get formed? How long do people serve on it? Who appoints them? Do they get elected? I'm not saying the system doesn't need to be reformed. It does. However, trusting people who say things that sound good, without evidence, is just following more politicians.

kerkeslager 9y ago

I'm not sure how this would end gerrymandering. Setting up a committee to handle districting doesn't solve anything. If I remember correctly, didn't someone finally come up with an algorithm which evenly divides populations such that average distance from the average location of the district residents is minimized? A law which mandated use of that or a similar algorithm for district boundaries would actually help. Just moving the problem into committee obfuscates the problem.

SamReidHughes 9y ago
That would still help whichever party benefits from such a procedure. We've had debates over what the "right" algorithm is before, in regard to calculating the number of House representatives each state gets.
mful 9y ago
There may be a better solution than an independent committee, but an independent committee is far, far better than the "whoever is in power creates districts in the way that most entrenches the governing party" system we have today. Independent committees have historically been pretty effective anti-partisan solutions. One prominent example being the CBO, which both parties like to stand up for while in the opposition, and disparage while in power.
- WillPostForFood 9y ago
  Why is it better? It just means whichever side the independent goes with will benefit. "Replacing whoever is in power" with "whoever is in power, or not in power" is lateral at best.
  - roywiggins 9y ago
    Insulating the commission means you won't allow a party to seize power and then cement it with gerrymandering, which is self-reinforcing. Cutting that loop means the commission can swing back and forth more easily and has the potential to even out. It can't possibly be worse than partisan gerrymandering.

macawfish 9y ago

I'm reading a lot of resignation, and I feel it too. Why is it than when SOPA came out or when health care is on the line, people rally super hard, but when election reform is out, there's almost no effort? Why can't we get passionate about this too?

nindalf 9y ago
I think because there are relatively simple solutions to both the problems you mentioned * SOPA - don't pass the bill. * Health care - spend more, if necessary increase the deficit and we'll figure out the problem later through increased taxes or reduced spending elsewhere. With electoral reform, it's hard to know what the right thing to do is. Everyone wants to stop gerrymandering but what's the alternative? An algorithm based on population and population density? That has its own set of issues. Heck, it's not straightforward even figuring out if a particular district has been gerrymandered or not. And in some cases, such gerrymandering is considered desirable - such as when it creates district where minorities are the majority. When the problem is hard to define, hard to explain tangibly, hard to provide solutions for, it's no wonder that people don't get motivated to solve it.
- NortySpock 9y ago
  I'd prefer the algorithm if it was public and neutral (or at least consistent). See for example the Shortest Splitline Algorithm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUS9uvYyn3A
- moultano 9y ago
  Moreover there are no apolitical choices of algorithms. When one party is urban and one party is rural, your choice of algorithm determines which party will benefit.
- kem 9y ago
  There are pretty low-hanging fruit out there, though. Approval voting or ranking are almost universally agreed to be better than what we have (in most places--some places do have that). That alone would make a huge change. Independent districting commissions would be a big step forward. Election day holidays would help. Actually, a lot of the stuff in this proposed bill would help. You're right that there's open questions out there, but it's not like there aren't solutions that are obvious first steps. Re: healthcare, I think that's probably even more complicated than electoral reform. For example, missing from your example are cost-cutting measures, like requiring more transparency in pricing and charging, and deregulating certain things to increase competition.

breatheoften 9y ago

How about something sensible -- take a census of which party each person supports and then you get proportionate representatives from each party above .15% of the population. Elections then just determine who gets the seats allocated to each party. That's roughly how it works in Germany. Poof -- suddenly there is no such thing as gerrymandering.

nindalf 9y ago
Does each voter have a particular representative they can express their opinion to? As I see it, calls from constituents is an influence on politicians because they know these are the people who they depend on. I don't know how it works in Germany so maybe there's a provision for this. Also, the unintended consequence of such an electoral system is that it encourages extreme views, rather than moving towards the centre. Of course gerrymandered districts have the same effect, but centrism is worth striving for, I think. It ensures that a majority of people have a candidate who isn't far from their own views. You can see how proportional representation would help parties like the UKIP do far better than they otherwise would have, which is not necessarily in the best interests of the nation.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > You can see how proportional representation would help parties like the UKIP do far better than they otherwise would have, which is not necessarily in the best interests of the nation. In the long run, what's in the best interests of the nation is for the government to fairly represent as much of the electorate as possible, not a fictional "middle ground."
  - nindalf 9y ago
    I agree with you in principle. But I also think in this particular case the UK has benefited from the UKIPs absence from Parliament.
- breatheoften 9y ago
  I had to look up the details -- Germany actually uses a mixed proportional system. Each person votes for their preferred candidate in a local race and for their preferred party. Half the total seats are filled by the winner of the local races -- and the remaining half are allocated in proportion to the party votes in order of a pre-determined list of candidates produced by each party. For some parties -- the order of the candidates on the party list is voted on, for others the list order is decided by some central power broker. I guess this means the local races could still be gerrymandered -- however with more total parties I think gerrymandering might be harder to preserve in general ...

notadoc 9y ago

Surely guaranteed to go nowhere.

heurist 9y ago
Solid start though. Even if the redistricting measure was dropped, a federal holiday for election day and top-two primaries would clear out a lot of the clogs in our election systems. I'm not sure the top-two measure is constitutional though.
- notadoc 9y ago
  Oh I agree that it's a good start and gerrymandering is bad, but can you honestly imagine this type of bill passing in this political environment? Congress has a, what, 12% approval rating?
  - heurist 9y ago
    I think it's being presented in the hope that a future Congress will run with it. Or that his constituents will appreciate his ideas. It is beyond this Congress to fix the system they've brazenly manipulated for their own benefit.

arthur_trudeau 9y ago

Current US law requires racial gerrymandering to ensure blacks are able to elect black congressmen. This bill does not obviate that requirement. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/how-a-widespread-practice-to-politically-empower-african-americans-might-actually-harm-them/?utm_term=.68d70f6094f4 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/09/how-a...

thescriptkiddie 9y ago
Your article it out of date. Racial gerrymandering is the one kind of gerrymandering that is not allowed according to the supreme court[0]. Representatives will go out of their way to argue that their gerrymandering is purely partisan because that's totally legal – for now. [0] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/supreme-court-north-carolina-racial-gerrymander-case-voting-rights/ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/supreme-court-no...
- arthur_trudeau 9y ago
  That is incorrect. The Supreme Court's decision is with respect to "overconcentration" of blacks, in a context where, when divided, they were able to elect their preferred candidates. Their guiding principle is still that blacks must be neither diluted enough to make their votes irrelevant in "their own" areas, nor concentrated enough to make their votes irrelevant outside - as the dissent notes, this itself amounts to a racial gerrymander (you don't get to club yourself in the head when drawing district lines and "forget" that certain areas are heavy in both blacks and democrats). They did not overrule Gingles, they cite the state's action as contravening it. Unsurprisingly their jurisprudence on this is a shitshow as they try to square this circle while pretending like it is some sort of neutral antidiscrimination provision while also attempting to secure a minimum threshold of black political power.

heurist 9y ago

Expect this to become a much bigger issue leading up to the redistricting that comes after the 2020 census.

rayiner 9y ago

This is my election district: http://imgur.com/a/C1UmB http://imgur.com/a/C1UmB. It's in the dictionary next to "illegal gerrymandering." The southwest lobe near D.C. is predominantly African American, while the northeast lobe near Annapolis is predominantly Caucasian. Though I can't figure out who is being disenfranchised.

maxerickson 9y ago
Apparently Republicans. http://www.fairdistrictspa.com/updates/efficiency-gap-votes-cast-vs-seats-won http://www.fairdistrictspa.com/updates/efficiency-gap-votes-...
- rayiner 9y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if that were the intent. The Annapolis area has a lot of rural places, and the district would be a Republican district if a big chunk of urban PG County weren't glommed on.
- tptacek 9y ago
  I don't know why this got downvoted. Maryland is infamously gerrymandered to the detriment of Republicans. Both parties abuse redistricting.

delhanty 9y ago

I'm political in outlook, sympathetic to the proposal, and like to see politics on HN as long as it has sort of hacker angle to it. On the other hand, IMO this sort of story crosses the threshold into general politics, which in the long term degrades HN and hence doesn't really belong here.

aequitas720 9y ago

Better than open top-two primaries: ranked-choice voting. Better than districting by committee: multi-member districts. Election Day holiday: good, but throw in automatic voter registration. https://represent.us/ https://represent.us/ http://fairvote.org http://fairvote.org

ihaveajob 9y ago
Multi-member districts are what we have in Spain. While in theory they increase the proportionality of the election results, the downside is that there is no clear representative for a district. To whom do I write to complain when my province has 7 seats in parliament? What if it has 30?

TokenDiversity 9y ago

I know this is a digression but can somebody tell me what happened yesterday? Bear with me because I'm not much of a lawyer and I don't get a lot of time to do my original research so I just get it from TV. I'm flabbergasted that the SC was 9-0 in their decision. I guess I just don't understand. I thought the lower courts had applied the ban unanimously and it was made in accordance with the law. Is there a way to challenge yesterday's decision further?

shmerl 9y ago

Will this help reducing de-facto duopoly of incumbent parties?

treebeard901 9y ago

One solution to the problem might be to increase the number of representatives. The house was supposed to scale with the population. This was stopped in early 1900. It's a scaling problem. More people to vote for means less effective gerrymandering.

FellowTraveler 9y ago

TERM LIMITS