Barack Obama's post-Presidency career: redistricting

[lpetrich]

Obama’s post-presidency political focus: Redistricting - The Washington Post

Hoping to regain lost ground in the states before elected officials there redraw congressional maps for the next decade, Democrats have launched a new group that will enlist the aid of President Obama as well as a slew of the party’s liberal allies.

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which will be chaired by former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr., will focus on key legislative and gubernatorial races, voter initiatives and legal fights.

This group will have a lot of work ahead of it, considering how much many state legislatures and Congressional districts have been gerrymandered by the Republicans.

But I hope that they recognize that the Democrats have also done some gerrymandering. They should even propose a deal: we'll stop gerrymandering if you stop gerrymandering.

Admittedly, reform of districting does not go far enough. What would be better would be multimember districts with proportional representation or at least semi-proportional representation.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Plus a full attack on voter disenfranchisement, caging and suppression, and discouragment.

 

[ideologyhunter]

But...I thought Barack and Michelle were going to go house to house, taking people's guns away. That's what Wayne LaP. said.

 

[Rhea]

Yes, I look forward to improvements from this effort. And as you say, ending gerrymanders is not an end-goal, there's more.

But I hope that they recognize that the Democrats have also done some gerrymandering. They should even propose a deal: we'll stop gerrymandering if you stop gerrymandering.
.

Agree. I'd like to see some sort of guideline/rule for limiting it that applies to all parties in all states.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

This is cool. I always got the sense that Obama was a pretty good guy. He just lacked the courage and strength that he promised he'd have when he was put in power. I would have liked to have seen him ram more of his agenda (and I think it was genuine) through, and I think he could have, as Bush did before him, but all in all he seems like a guy with his heart in the right place. He will make a decent cheer leader for liberal causes going forward.

 

[lpetrich]

2010 Redistricting Results -- Brian Olson wrote some redistricting software and used it to find maximally compact equal-population districts for the US House and state legislatures.

The results are very plausible: big districts for low-density areas and small districts for high-density ones.

Rig The Election … With Math! | FiveThirtyEight

See how well you can gerrymander the maps in that page.