Last November, I wrote an article titled "Gerrymandering and Partisanship" that explored the basics of gerrymandering. Recently, I read an article in the Washington Post about a computer programmer who devised an algorithm that could potentially fix gerrymandering. Considering that gerrymandering is the root cause of many of the problems we see in Congress, this programmer may be onto something.
For those unaware of what gerrymandering is, every ten years the census comes out. When the census comes out, the state legislatures are allowed to redraw the congressional districts for their states in order to better represent the population. The only problem is that there are very few regulations as to the shape or size of the districts. So, the party which controls the legislature looks at the population map and the map of which communities voted for which party, and then draw strange looking districts that maximize the number of districts where their party has an advantage and minimize the number of districts where the other party has an advantage.
Sound fair? No, not really. No matter what party is in power, the members will act in their own self-interest. And what we get are districts that look like an amoeba or a 3 year old's scribble. Not only that, but the problem of gerrymandering influences the gridlock in Congress. In many of these gerrymandered districts, there is such an advantage for one party, that the only thing the representative from that district has to worry about is a primary challenge. Generally, these primary challenges come from the more radical wings of the two parties. If representatives know that they can only lose to someone more radical than them, why become a moderate? There is no incentive to compromise or try to reach a deal with the other party. Gerrymandering is at the heart of the gridlock in Congress.
But what should we do about it? Some people argue that an independent third party should redraw the districts, ignoring the fact that all people have political and ideological biases. It turns out that a computer programmer named Brian Olson had developed an algorithm that would redraw districts based on "compactness," or what I like to describe as "being as square-like as possible." Take a look at the maps of Maryland, the least compact state in the US, with its current districts and the districts created by Olson's algorithm:
Sound fair? No, not really. No matter what party is in power, the members will act in their own self-interest. And what we get are districts that look like an amoeba or a 3 year old's scribble. Not only that, but the problem of gerrymandering influences the gridlock in Congress. In many of these gerrymandered districts, there is such an advantage for one party, that the only thing the representative from that district has to worry about is a primary challenge. Generally, these primary challenges come from the more radical wings of the two parties. If representatives know that they can only lose to someone more radical than them, why become a moderate? There is no incentive to compromise or try to reach a deal with the other party. Gerrymandering is at the heart of the gridlock in Congress.
But what should we do about it? Some people argue that an independent third party should redraw the districts, ignoring the fact that all people have political and ideological biases. It turns out that a computer programmer named Brian Olson had developed an algorithm that would redraw districts based on "compactness," or what I like to describe as "being as square-like as possible." Take a look at the maps of Maryland, the least compact state in the US, with its current districts and the districts created by Olson's algorithm:
As you can see, these new districts are not arbitrarily drawn. Maryland is much more equally split into districts based upon geography, not based on how to grant a certain party an advantage. If we truly want to eliminate, or at least greatly reduce, the dysfunction and gridlock in Congress, eliminating gerrymandering is a pretty good place to start. We already have an algorithm that has been proven to work. Perhaps with some tinkering, we could implement after the next census. Hopefully, Congress could then get back to governing.
Sources:
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/03/this-computer-programmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/
Sources:
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/03/this-computer-programmer-solved-gerrymandering-in-his-spare-time/