Gerrymandering

Mentions gerrymandering in his latest column Where Did “We” Go?  As we’ll show in the movie, the relationship between redistricting and partisan polarization is hugely complicated…

I’ve been running all over the place covering New York Film Festival screenings all day, but wanted to link to this article from Roll Call about the National Parties’ plans for the 2010 redistricting.  (This is linked via DLCC since Roll Call is subscription only.)

Charlie Cook looks to redistricting reform as a means to restore bipartisanship in the House.  His argument, that the lack of competitive districts results in the election of representatives from the ideological extremes, is something we look directly at in Gerrymandering.  

Just another periodic reminder to follow us on Twitter: @Gerrymandering1.  (Yes, “Gerrymandering” was taken.  By someone named Gerry. Not Elbridge.)

I’m there tweeting redistricting reform updates (just RT’ed the latest movement in Ohio), updates on the film, and other random bits that I’m doing on the side. My initial hesitation about joining the ranks of the tweeters has subsided, especially as our web traffic has nearly doubled in the month since I’ve been tweeting.

Check us out.

I’ve been meaning to blog this article from the New York Times for a few days now.  It covers a new lawsuit winding its way towards the Supreme Court that highlights yet another fundamental inequity in our redistricting system.

Per the Supreme Court’s rulings during the Reapportionment Revolution of the 1960s, all Congressional districts must be as equal within a state as possible. This means that plans featuring districts deviating from the norm by as little as twenty out of several hundred thousand people have been struck down by the courts. But what about the vast deviations in district sizes between states?

As we all know, each state gets at least one member in the House of Representatives (and two senators). So, that means Wyoming’s roughly half a million people are represented by one member of Congress. That’s the same amount of representation as Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District which comprises about double that number. Is that fair? The suit is asking the Supreme Court to enlarge Congress (many forget that its size increased regularly until the early 1900s when it was frozen for political reasons), but there’s another, more unlikely direction this might take.

Depending on how this plays out, the Court may hove boxed itself in a little bit with its dogmatic (and to my mind unreasonable) adherence to an exact interpretation of “one man, one vote.” If you follow that idea to its conclusion, it’s possible to argue that state boundaries directly impede the equal representation of our citizenry - if you want equal districts, they can certainly be drawn, you’d just have to ignore (or erase) those familiar state outlines. Once they were gone, you could ensure 435 districts of equal population fairly easily. The maps would look very strange, and districts might be cover a couple of states entirely, but every man (and woman) would all have the same voice in Congress.

This all goes to show how any line drawn on a map is an arbitrary creation, and some of the most familiar can serve as structural impediments to proper governance. I’m not arguing we dissolve the states, but I do think this case might present the Supreme Court with some trouble.

Nice post over at the Burnt Orange Report entitled Growing National Focus on Redistricting, including a paragraph on the film.  Thanks for the mention!

A primer on the Michigan dummymander.

More on Indiana redistricting from a former state legislator. (This piece actually does a nice job of expressing some of themes I’m trying to explore in the film around competition, communities of interest, the role of the legislator, etc.)

Redistricting fears in Pennsylvania.

A nice article on prisons and the census.

Brian Oakes: visual effects supervisor. Click here to see some of Brian’s previous work, including motion graphics for Wordplay and IOUSA. Brian’s already come up with some great looks for our “Gerrymandering 101″ sequence, which I hope to post some frames from shortly.

David Wingo: score. You can hear some of David’s work under his Ola Podrida moniker here, including his cover of Joy Division’s “Atmosphere” which I commissioned for a movie I released back at Magnolia called The Signal.  His score work includes George Washington, All the Real Girls and the forthcoming Gentlemen Broncos.  David and I have been talking over a variety of ways to deconstruct American classics like “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “We Shall Overcome” and, yes, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I think it’ll be a fun, idiosyncratic score, not like the sub-Philip Glass wallpapery stuff that gets tossed into docs too often these days.

I’m very excited to have both of these guys aboard.

I’ve read a lot about redistricting over the last few years, but this is the first article I’ve read about the impact of redistricting on the LGBT community.  Really fascinating stuff.

It’s hard to find true novelty in the annals of redistricting reform proposals, but Indiana’s Secretary of State Todd Rokita is in the process of introducing a doozy of a wrinkle: make the consideration of political factors in redistricting a felony.

See the Indy Star for more.

I need to read this more carefully, and think more about this. First question in my mind: how do you prove the consideration of political factors? Reminds me of the intent vs. effect debate over racial redistricting from the eighties.

Still, gotta hand it to Rokita for thinking outside of the box.