Redistricting as a federal mandate, TX
*Texas Republicans poised to redraw state congressional map on
the
wrecker's orders.*
This is in response to a statement by the injustice department that
accuses Texas (perhaps incorrectly) of violating a
newly distorted version of the Voting Rights Act
(that forbids coalition-defined districts).
*Newsom threatens to redraw California House maps in
protest
at Texas plan.*
Considering that the Republicans hold a one-seat majority in the House,
these plans could make a difference. But that depends on how much
additional voter-suppression Republicans succeed in doing.
What's best for democracy in the long term is to draw districts by the
algorithm that produces lines that optimize the overall
representivity of all the groups of people that
might tend to
have their own statistical leaning.
It generates a large number of possible district maps for the state, and
for each, invents many different preferences, each of which conjectures
how each demographic group could lean; figures out based on those
leanings who would win each district; computes the discrepancy
between the hypothetical percentages of the leanings and the resulting
percentages in the legislature elected; then averages
that discrepancy over all the preference maps. The smaller the
average discrepancy for a certain district map, the fairer that
district map.