Gerrymandered? New lawsuit demands fairer congressional districts

[TexasTowelie]

Pennsylvania's 7th is often cited as Exhibit A when it comes to congressional gerrymandering. David Daley, publisher of The Connecticut Mirror and the author of a book on the subject, described the district as cartoon character Goofy kicking Donald Duck.(Fair Districts PA graphic)


Pennsylvania could be the next key battleground in the fight for redistricting reform following recent incremental victories against gerrymandering in places like North Carolina and Wisconsin.

On Thursday, the League of Women Voters and a group of voters from several of the most convoluted districts to emerge from the Republican-drawn 2011 congressional map filed suit in state Commonwealth Court. The map faced opposition at the time, but the group points to subsequent elections as proof of partisan manipulation.

In the 2012 election, Republican candidates won 49 percent of the vote but wound up holding 13 of 18 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. That continued in 2014 and 2016, as their share of the vote hovered at about 55 percent.

"It's an important issue for all voters, no matter their political persuasion," said attorney Mimi McKenzie, legal director of the Public Interest Law Center. "The Republicans were in charge {of the last redistricting} but when the other party does it, it's just as bad."

Read more: http://www.pennlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/06/pa_redistricting_lawsuit_court.html

[DetlefK]

1. For the ump-teenth time:

There would be non-partisan redistricting if you would just let science do it.

A mathematician would need no more than a month to come up with a non-partisan way to create roughly square or hexagonal districts with roughly the same number of constituents.
And a programmer would need no more than a few months to implement it.