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> You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states. But Congress is a national body. Maryland is almost the exact fl
by rayiner 1y ago
> You can't look at gerrymandering at that scale. It exists on the scale of individual states.
But Congress is a national body. Maryland is almost the exact flip of Tennessee (2:1 democrat) and democrats have gerrymandered the state so there's only 1 GOP district. Republicans have 35% of the vote, but only 12% of the representatives. At the end of the day, Congressional votes aren't taken state-by-state, and the delta between each party's share of the two-party popular vote and their share of seats typically is small.
There's no fair way to do districting. "Independent" redistricting commissions don't work. In California, which has an independent redistricting commission, republicans have just 17% of the seats despite getting 39% of the vote. It's not that much better than Illinois's extreme gerrymander, where the GOP got only 17% of seats with 46% of the popular vote.
If we mandated districts be drawn by independent commissions in every state, they'd get taken over by democrats, just like every other non-elected institution (everything from NPR to the ABA). At least the adversarial political process we have now results in relatively small, non-permanent advantages to either side. The only solution would be to ban districts all together and have a statewide vote for a party slate of candidates.