Schwarzenegger gives an amusing and substantively sound take on gerrymandering:
His solution is a citizens’ commission to take redistricting out of the hands of legislators. As I have analyzed (see page 1296), the California Redistricting Commission has done a good job of creating competitive races where none existed before.
A commission-based approach has the advantage that it can potentially address a wide variety of offenses: partisan gerrymanders, uncompetitive districts, and racial packing. The key is to write the law with care. For example, in combating partisan gerrymandering, specifying compact districts is not as useful as it sounds unless partisan symmetry is also included as a criterion.
Another approach is to go through the courts. In this domain, an important issue is partisan gerrymandering, where levels of representation are distorted. Cases in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Maryland are percolating through the courts, with at least one of those cases (Wisconsin) likely to hit the Supreme Court in the fall.
If you’re interested in this topic, next Thursday and Friday there’s a major conference on partisan redistricting, at Duke University. If you’re in the area, register and attend!
FoxNews had this on about gerrymandering today:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/25/obama-democratic-super-group-unite-to-end-gerrymandering-win-state-races-reclaim-majorities.html
Maybe Professor Wang will have more opportunities to present his methodology to the public to support reform of gerrymandering.
This is detail on the Tufts program Beth mentions. It is is designed, they say, for doctoral-level mathematicians interested in becoming qualified expert witnesses in redistricting cases.
https://sites.tufts.edu/gerrymandr/
“Politicians picking their voters – instead of voters picking their politicians.”
What a brilliant and folksy definition of gerrymandering!
I can’t go to Duke but I am VERY interested in gerrymandering and in your work in general. If I was still in my 20s and didn’t have a family I would apply for the job you posted. I am, though, applying for the Summer Institute at Tufts.