Do you recall the Times' opposition to the Georgia gerrymandering in the early '90s (it might be another Southern state, I'm not certain) that favored Congressional Democrats? I don't either.

Sorry, I totally disagree. True, the NYT and others only get upset about gerrymandering (or possible voting fraud) when it hurts Democrats, but it's a bad practice that has gotten worse. Congressional districts should be sensibly related to geography, not running along single roads for scores of miles or whatever. Plus, with the extreme efforts taken these days, districts are designed to lock in incumbents, which helps make them immune to challengers, which means they don't need to pay much attention to the will of the voters.

What could possibly be bad about districts drawn compactly, according to geography and population instead of voting patterns, by non-partisan panels, producing congresscritters who are less secure in their seats? Sounds like a win all around to me.

Papaya:

That's how they were drawn until the Court forbade it--one man, one vote and all that nonsense...

Not where I lived, they weren't.

I'm with Papaya, but those pesky voters have a habit of upsetting the best conspiracies of the pols. When I lived in Iowa, which then had 6 congresspersons, the state was redistricted, and everybody expected that the eastern districts would be solidly Republican, the western districts would be solidly Democratic and the middle districts would be competitive.

It worked out with Democrats in the east, 2 Republicans in the west and the least competitive district in the nation in Des Moines.

Tee hee.

One man, one vote is hard to fit into Hawaii. We end up with "canoe districts," and whichever island has the larger moiety gets represented, and we in the lesser moiety (which is where I usually end up) never see or hear from our elected "representative."

I can see both sides of this one. However, if I understand the reasoning from Texas, and it is accurate, they are undoing previous (unfair?) gerrymandering to their advantage. Why not?

Harry and Papaya's reasoning has hypothetical logic, but is pragmatically irrellevant, Re: Harry's Iowa anecdote, and perhaps Because of American's highly mobile culture.

Whoever explains all this to Sistani may want to share their reasoning with us.

Sorry, but I have a hard time losing any sleep about the process on account of being either (a) objectively wrong analytically or (b) morally.

Analytically, the process is a leveraged form of democracy, in that the party in political ascendancy gets to solidify its political base(federal congressional districts) as a byproduct of its success in the local democratic process. Those of you on the dissent appear to value randomness (competitive outcomes), but do not explain why this is necessarily good. And if randomness is good, why not introduce term limits, handicap systems, two-out-of three (wait, the Dems have tried this) etc. Or what about rotating, governments like in pre-Chavez Venezuela.

Morally, there is only one questionable element to gerrymandering, and that is the only one Liberals never gripe about: minority districts. On all other cases the moral indignation is transparently hypocritical as was pointed out before, and appears to have reached a crescendo as the Democrats continue to lose their domination over national and local politics.

Funny no one has commented on the delicious doubt in the first sentence - all the Times can do is hope for a close election, and when it isn't they are afraid the Democrats will become disillusioned and apathetic!

MG, I don't see the act of preventing the winning party of a state's legislative elections from slanting the rules of their state's federal Congressional elections in their favor as valuing "randomness." Preventing the tilting of the playing field by the winners leaves the winners less entrenched, which certainly seems like a good thing to me.

On a completely unrelated note, congrats on the Drudge link, Harry.

Papaya, unpredictability does not necessarily bring competitive elections, and neither do they necessarily bring better elected representative Democracy. A representative Democracy in a huge, diverse country as ours has to minimize (not eliminate, but minimize) the significance of the actual individual being elected and augment that of the general political agenda being pursued. On that basis, allowing the process to give some momentum to an emerging political agenda (through a party) can be effective in terms of getting things done. There are checks to this. There are primaries, there are general elections, and there is redistricting based on which must satisfy democratic wishes subject to legal review. Democtrats want to change every one of the SOPs under which the built huge majorities at every level of government through the 20th century, appointed justices, counted people, etc. when they began to realize that they could cut both ways.

What MG said. Redistricting is a fool's erand. There is no way to create an unhackable redistricting system. Nonetheless, I believe that incumbency has an unwonted power. I think my second best alternative would be term limits on all top federal jobs. Say 6 terms in the Senate no more than 2 continuously, 15 terms in the House no more than 4 in a row. 4 Terms as president no more than 2 in a row. Term limits for judges. (Supreme Court Judges could be rotated back to the Courts of Appeal) Manditory retirement for all at age 84.

Nobody likes my proposal for assigning people to congressinal districts by last name...

Malcolm X would have.