Do Redistricting Commissions Produce Fair Districts?

• In Event: Redistricting Reform and Impact in the US

Abstract

As attempts to combat partisan gerrymandering transition from proposals to the Supreme Court to state-based districting commissions, it is time to ask two questions. First, how well did the 13 state-based commissions used in the 2010 round of redistricting perform as neutral arbiters in the redistricting process? We answer that question with applications to each of the seven politician commissions (AR, CO, HI, MO, NJ, OH, and PA) and six independent commissions (AK, AZ, CA, ID, MT, and WA) utilized in 2010-12. We take as the neutrality criterion the idea that a commission would produce a district plan that comports with an outcome that could be expected from a set of approximately 10,000 computer generated plans adhering to minimalist constraints of contiguity, compactness, and equal populations. Our preliminary results indicate just over half the commission states produce results at variance with that neutrality standard. We next ask whether violations of neutrality exaggerate or ameliorate the so-called "natural" gerrymandering that results from residential patterns. Our conclusion is that the use of commissions alone is not enough to combat partisan gerrymander; commissions no less than the courts need an easily manageable standard by which to evaluate what they think is a non-gerrymandered design for fair and effective representation.

Authors

• Robin E. Best, Binghamton University (SUNY)

• Steve B. Lem, Kutztown University

• Daniel Blyth Magleby, Binghamton University

• Michael D. McDonald, SUNY, Binghamton University