(03-05-2022, 10:16 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: [ -> ] (03-05-2022, 08:51 AM)mikesez Wrote: [ -> ]How long? Wouldn't it be better to just set a maximum age?
If you don't keep an eye on race while drawing the lines, and you have a racial minority that consistently wants candidates that the majority doesn't like, you will consistently disadvantage that racial minority. Is that OK by you? It's not OK by me.
And if you don't pay attention to political leanings while drawing lines, you will randomly give an advantage to one political side over another. You have to actually pay attention to the political leanings on the map in order to make a balanced map.
The problem we have today is that the mapmakers use the race and political data to make maps unfair. The data should be used to make the maps fair.
If there is a sizeable minority population in any district, the candidates will have to pay attention to them. As it is now, the Republicans love majority-black districts because it keeps a lot of Democrats out of their district, so they get re-elected over and over. They create nice safe seats for themselves- both parties. Congressional elections are basically uncontested because of that. It contributes to polarization because the real election is in the primary. The general election is a non-event.
And beyond that, why should we guarantee any number of seats to any ethnicity? That presupposes that white voters won't vote for a black candidate. In fact, it actually institutionalizes that idea- that white voters are racist.
My amendment would eliminate gerrymandering of that type.
You have to look at how the VRA jurisprudence actually works.
This type of racial gerrymandering doesn't just happen anytime there are a significant number of racial minorities.
The minority have to be the majority in a compact area, and numerous enough to control that area if the area were given a district.
The minority have to be relatively homogeneous in their voting preferences. They have to have a clear "candidate of choice".
There has to be a recent history of the ethnic majority voting against the candidates that the minority prefers. In other words, there has to be recent history showing that the majority doesn't have to, in your words, "pay attention to them." If the history shows that the winning candidates are paying attention to the minority, then there is nothing to remedy and district lines don't need to be re-drawn.
As for what the Republicans do today, they pack and crack for partisan gain. Good judges applying the VRA will try to ensure that just the right number of the ethnic minority are in the district, no more and no less. Bad legislators claiming to apply the VRA will either pack too many into the district, giving the minority one seat where they could have influenced two or three seats, or too few, giving them no seats at all.
So we're already pretty close to "as good as it gets" on this issue, but it would be good if US Congress would give federal courts clearer guidelines on all of this. Roberts said he doesn't have to police the partisan outcomes of district lines because the VRA doesn't speak to partisan outcomes. He's right. But a new federal law should speak to them. This doesn't have to be a constitutional amendment.
Like you, I'm frustrated when an election is decided in the primary and the general election is a foregone conclusion. The new federal law for district boundaries could say that they have to make as many competitive districts as possible, after they're done protecting the minorities and establishing partisan balance. But such districts would end up pretty snake-like. I'm not sure that's a good idea.
A better approach would simply allow voters to pick more than one candidate in the general election. That would encourage independent candidates to run, and independent candidates don't have to go through the primary. That doesn't have to be a constitutional amendment either.