The whole discourse around gerrymandering is fundamentally broken because national politics is too influential compared to local politics.
What should happen is that candidates should position themselves based on the districts that they represent. A West Virginia Democrat is a different creature than a New York Democrat, and a New York Republican is different than a West Virginia Republican. This is how it should be! The candidates should be trying to win races in their districts.
Instead we have this horrifying attempt to fix the parties in time and space and say "this is what the national party represents" and try to shape districts to align to those parties. This is the tail wagging the dog.
In a perfect world the districts should be shaped based on common interests, not based on voting record. Geography or population density are pretty good heuristics. Voting record is not because they are votes for candidates, not for parties.
ninthcat · 13m ago
I don't think national elections need to have districts smaller than a state at all. If all of a state's seats in the House that are up for election were decided in a single state-wide election with multiple winners allocated with proportional representation, it is impossible to gerrymander. Many other countries have this kind of system.
fl7305 · 3h ago
Of course you can gerrymander your way to power. You can turn a fairly small minority in votes to a majority of the seats.
https://archive.ph/RQ0hW if you just want the gist (it is a game to do what the title says). But you’ll need a subscription to do it, the button at the bottom of the archive page doesn’t work.
What should happen is that candidates should position themselves based on the districts that they represent. A West Virginia Democrat is a different creature than a New York Democrat, and a New York Republican is different than a West Virginia Republican. This is how it should be! The candidates should be trying to win races in their districts.
Instead we have this horrifying attempt to fix the parties in time and space and say "this is what the national party represents" and try to shape districts to align to those parties. This is the tail wagging the dog.
In a perfect world the districts should be shaped based on common interests, not based on voting record. Geography or population density are pretty good heuristics. Voting record is not because they are votes for candidates, not for parties.
Professor Braunschweiger explains it well in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2EnuHsRJd4