Talk:Redistricting

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 August 2021 and 11 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alyssabpantoja, Ameliamw, Jdalfonso9, Auset J, Robirvingmiller1987. Peer reviewers: Boyramrel.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 07:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reapportionment or redistricting?[edit]

We probably need to somehow decide which term has greater usage, reapportionment or redistricting. Whichever one "wins" should be the leading article. -- Stevietheman 15:31, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Reapportionment is not the same as redistricting. Reapportionment is the process whereby seats are allocated; for instance, after the decennial census in the U.S. seats are reapportioned from states which have lost population to those which have gained. Redistricting in contrast is the drawing or re-drawing of constituency boundaries, far more controversial because of gerrymandering. --Choster 18:50, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There's still controversity regarding Reapportionment in the last-out state. (Utah saying, probably correctly) that if Mormon Missonaries overseas had been counted, they and not North Carolina would have gotten the last seat. Joncnunn 18:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Iowa[edit]

Iowa also has a board that's responsible for redistricting, that is in fact instructed to ignore where the incumbents live, the political and racial background of the areas, and are instructed to only look at making districts that are compact and equally populated. The legislature though can veto a plan sending it back to the board, and when that occures, the board must make the districts more equal in population. The legislature can veto that revised plan as well at which point the legislature would take over. A source needs cited on this before adding. Joncnunn 18:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Missouri[edit]

In Missouri, while the legislature redraws the congressional district, there's a state commission responsible for redrawing the state legislative boundaries compossed of equal number of Republicans and Democrats which is required to pass a plan by a 2/3rds vote. If this fails, the Missouri State Supreme Court redraws the lines. A source needs citied on this before adding. Joncnunn 18:35, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatives to Districts[edit]

So if the state legislatures have the right to decide on the districts for the US House seats (within reasonable limits), couldn't a state institute a proportional system for its Congressional delegation? I know that in the first few decades under the Constitution, many states used the General Ticket system, which elected the entire delegation on a state-wide ticket, much how most states give all of their electoral votes to a single candidate as a bloc. It seems that if a state were to use a proportional system, it would eliminate all worries of gerrymandering and malapportionment. If a single state (say Missouri (I can at least hope my home state would be the progressive one, can't I?)) legislature were to institute such a system, just think what long-term effects that could have on American politics. But would it even fly? Federations seem to have a tendency to want all political units to operate in a similar fashion, and this would be way outside the American norm. --Xyzzyva 14:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

States cannot do this because Congress' exercise of its Article I, sec. 4 powers to make rules for how States go about drawing up districts includes a requirement that they use single-member districts. 35.10.230.213 22:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Article I, section 4 says nothing about single-member districts. We have single-member districts not because of a specific constitutional provision mandating them but because of Supreme Court decisions forbidding other forms of representation. For example, multi-member districts were struck down in many decisions in the '60s and '70s because they were found to dilute the representation of racial minorities in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Dce7 01:42, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The norm in America has been experimentation and variation in electoral procedures among the states. Multimember districts are not necessarily prevented by Supreme Court rulings - they are only prevented if they result in discrimination against minorities who would otherwise be able to elect a representative if a single-member district were used. See Thornberg v. Gingles (1986). There have been statutory restrictions against multimember districts, such as in the Reapportionment Act of 1842, but in that case the single-member district requirement was not actually enforced. I'm not sure if there is currently such a statutory restriction in effect. ChrisKennedy(talk) 03:00, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That was true for most of American history, although I'd say that the norm in America since Baker v. Carr in 1962 has largely been the Supreme Court dictating which forms of electoral systems are impermissible; multimember districts have not been the only form of electoral system ruled (at least in some circumstances) unconstitutional by the Court. I didn't mean to suggest that multimember districts were necessarily prevented. It is true, though, that multimember districts have largely disappeared at the state and federal levels since the Supreme Court first ruled that multimember districts were unconstitutional if they diluted the voting power of racial minorities in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, or, later, the Voting Rights Act. (It first did this well before Thornburg — see, for example, White v. Regester in 1973.) Some commentators give credit to the decline of multimember districts as an important factor behind the rise in minority representation in state and federal government. I'm also not sure if there's a specific statutory restriction against multimember districts — I'll look into that. Dce7 04:17, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok I looked it up and single-member congressional districts have been required since 1967 by 81 Stat. 581. If that requirement were repealed, in my opinion multimember districts would likely withstand judicial scrutiny IF they used a proportional (or semi-proportional) representation system (say cumulative voting or CPO-STV) OR were in areas where voting is not racially polarized. - ChrisKennedy(talk) 01:16, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above comment didn't say Article I, sec. 4 says anything about single-member districts. It said we have to use single member districts because of Congress' exercise of its Art. I, sec. 4 power to make rules for how States draw up Districts; that is the power by which Congress passed 81 Stat. 581. 35.10.246.164 19:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Am I right in assuming the multi-member districts in the past were elected on a "winner takes all" rule? The UK still has some councils with multi-member wards where each voter gets to vote for as many candidates are there are positions to be filled and because of party loyalties it's common for a single party to carry each seat. Or were the multi-members proportional, similar to the STV system used in both Irelands? (Which would be strange as its proponents generally argue it increases minority representation - the opposite of the Supreme Court rationale.) Timrollpickering (talk) 18:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There has never been a state legislature in any state that's decided to apportion its seat by proportional representation, besides Illinois which used cumulative voting in three-member districts (still not really proportional) until it was defeated sometime in the 70's. So yes, it would have been by winner-takes all rules. If states were allowed to send their delegation to congress by winner-take all multi-member districts it would be very likely that most states would only have one party represented in their delegation - a lot worse than the current situation. But of course, PR is a lot better than either alternative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.227.62.51 (talk) 00:09, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The general effect in IL for the three member districts was in most cases both the Republicans and Democrats were each virtually guartined one of the seats while they would fight over that other seat. Strictly speaking that is PR. Jon (talk) 20:11, 20 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's not really proportional at all - smaller parties wouldn't stand a chance and you could still get distortions with the big parties if lots of close races yielded the same 2:1 breakdown. Timrollpickering (talk) 00:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article split?[edit]

This article has always been primarily about redistricting in the US, as this is where the term "redistricting" is mostly used, per the article introduction. While other nations have been added to the article, all of these have main articles which cover the topic in detail. Because of this, I've moved the US section to the top of the main body, and placed the others sections under a main heading below it. I view this as only a temporary solution.

My preferred solution would be to have the US content in one article, as with Redistribution (Australia), and the main definition and summary of nations with their own articles, and possibly expanded to cover other nations with redistribution, in another article. Simple. Except in choosing what to name these articles.

Redistricting (United States) in an obvious candidate, ecxept that it is a bit odd to have the main article on the topic at Redistricting if the US is the only country that uses the term, and the others use "redistribution". However, I am OK with this solution if no other solution is workable. Also ovbviously, Redistribution is the best choice for the main topic, but that title is currently a disambiguation page. Redistribution (election) is one option, but is it the best one? I don't know. - BillCJ (talk) 06:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think "redistricting" is a bad word for a general article because in a lot of countries the term "district" isn't used for the things being changed and so the term isn't even a "we don't use it but we can see what it means" type phrase that is often best for transnational subjects. "Redistribution" and "boundary review" are the most common terms here in the UK - what's used elsewhere? Timrollpickering (talk) 10:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to be bold and split the article. I will keep the history and the US content here, since the original article was US-focused, and thus most of the history relates to that subject. FOr now, I am placing the general material at Redistribution (election), for lack of a better term. It can always be renamed in the future if a more suitable name can be found and agreed upon, but I doubt that this current title will ever be the preferred choice. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 13:36, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is "redistricting" actually a word? There must be a real word that can be used for this process, rather than an invented word.Royalcourtier (talk) 06:10, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Mid-decade Redistricting Precedent?[edit]

In the article, it says:

"The 2003 redistricting in Texas and the mid-decade redistricting in Georgia established the precedent of allowing the majority party in state governments to redraw the boundaries to favor the election of the majority-party candidates in subsequent elections."

This statement is not correct. For example, in Texas in 1983, two Congressional districts were redrawn to shore up the Democratic strength in one district (CD23, the other district involved was CD21 with changes made in the San Antonio and Val Verde county areas). This was voluntarily done, meaning without a court order, by the Texas State legislature even though a valid plan had been put in place in 1981. At the time, Democrats controlled redistricting in Texas.

Those who believe that the Texas Republicans in 2003 were the first to attempt "mid-decade redistricting" (and that the US Supreme Court was now overturning old rules by allowing "mid-decade redistricting") simply have fallen prey to Democratic talking points and uninformed media coverage. MogiDasCruzes (talk) 03:09, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Late to the party, but MogiDasCruzes is incorrect when he claims the 1983 redistricting was done without a court order. The 1983 redistricting was mandated by the federal district court decision in Terrazas v. Clements (you can view the ruling here: [1]) -- Heath 128.173.42.61 (talk) 19:01, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The misplaced worship of competitive districts[edit]

Since this is a discussion page, I'll discuss. Here are some lines from the article as it was September of 2009:

"Partisan domination of state legislatures and improved technology to design contiguous districts that pack opponents into as few districts as possible have led to district maps which are skewed towards one party. So many states (including Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia and Maryland) have succeeded in removing competition for most House seats in those states that it has deadened competition for House seats nationally. Other states (New York, New Jersey, California) have opted to protect incumbents of both parties, again reducing the number of competitive districts. - - - [I]t is up to a small number of competitive districts in a small number of states to determine majority control of Congress, since each party has about 190 districts which have very little likelihood of changing party control."

> Point One

Over the last several years there has been a lot of virtual ink spent extolling the virtue of "competitive districts". Yes, it sounds good, but rarely do those advocating competitive districts demonstrate an understanding of how the ideal of competitive districts really operates, or rather fails to operate, in real world redistricting.

Consider, for example, the Voting Rights Act, something never mentioned in the same sentence as competitive districts. Why? The VRA ensures that across the nation, a large number of non-competitive districts will be drawn. Districts drawn to specifically protect minority voting rights are among the most non-competitive in the country. Yet when speaking of non-competitiveness, the rhetoric is always negative -- legislators choosing their constituents instead of the people choosing their legislator, legislators not being held accountable to their constituents because they're in a safe district, more corrupt legislators when not accountable, and so on. Are we to assume, then, that the Black and Hispanic legislators from these safe minority seats are not accountable to their constituents and are more likely to be corrupt?

Also, look at a state like Massachusetts which is heavily Democratic. Has anyone ever pointed a finger at Massachusetts and complained about non-competitiveness in U.S. Senate elections, Congressional elections, or state elections? Now look at a place like the Texas Hill County or the Texas Panhandle. I defy anyone to be able to create a district of those two places and make it competitive for Democrats. Likewise you can't go to central Houston and make a district competitive for Republicans. Does the "non-competitive district = bad legislators" platitude work in those places as well?

> Point 2

The writer of this paragraph seems to believe this ability to gerrymander districts is some new discovery, now seized upon by states controlled by one party. I can't speak for most states, but in Texas, overt and one-sided redistricting was not new with the Republicans in 2003. The start of the new technology era in redistricting came with redistricting in 1991. The Democrats controlled redistricting in Texas at the time, and created a Congressional plan that arguably by all standards, other than the targeting of incumbents, was more egregiously partisan than the 2003 Texas plan. Talk about packing opponents into as few districts as possible! And long before the 1990's, Democrats solidly controlled redistricting and never cared to look for opportunities to make competitive districts. Does the article convey this understanding? To me it does not. MogiDasCruzes (talk) 04:20, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Astute observations, good points. Do you have some scholarly literature that analyzes redistricting in this way? Unfortunately, as you pointed out, this article is rather one-sided and doesn't present which scholarly approaches he/she used in the form of footnotes or referencing (see how to use Template:ref). If you have something scholarly or academic that will improve the quality of this article, I would love to support your work in revising this article. Remember when editing Be Bold!.
One point of advice, when entering a discussion page don't attack the authors of the article, but rather attack the positions that are put forward in the article. This is much more effective, and won't be misinterpreted by other editors as slander. By making attacks on authors you encroach upon the possibility of breaching the cooperative nature of Wikipedia.
If you need help, talk on this talk page or on my own.SADADS (talk) 05:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I will try to come up with an entry, or part of an entry, that is more informative and "encyclopedic" in nature, but it may take a while. Thanks for the admonition on etiquette. I can see things could easily get out of hand if comments became personal rather than being directed constructively at the content itself. MogiDasCruzes (talk) 03:19, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cool beans, remember to contact me if you need help.SADADS (talk) 03:24, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

California[edit]

California now has the Citizens Redistricting Commission which will redistrict the state districts. TRS-80 (talk) 09:03, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For the article author: Please rename the title of the article into "Redistricting (United States)"[edit]

or add a clarification below the title that the article concerns itself with US political process, otherwise, it might be tagged as "globalize/United States"

Pcbyed (talk) 17:19, 17 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete 'Public schools' section[edit]

The "Public schools" section is inappropriate in this article. The introduction explicitly states that the article addresses redistricting as "the process of drawing United States electoral district boundaries." That means that the redistricting described here refers to elections. For that reason, it may be appropriate to discuss changing school districts and how they affect school board elections; however, that is not what the section addresses. Brianaburroughs (talk) 23:56, 28 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Something didn't add up[edit]

I'm explaining why I'm about to edit the lead paragraph to say that 32 states give primary responsibility to their legislatures instead of 33.

The seven states with independent commissions are listed.

The four states with commissions that make recommendations to legislatures are listed.

The seven states with single districts are listed.

33 + 7 + 4 + 7 = 51.

Explaining away that 51 by Washington, DC doesn't work. DC isn't a state, so it doesn't have a state legislature. It only has one non-voting delegate in Congress, so if it were included at all it would be one of the seven with on a single district.

The 33 has to be wrong.

--Rhsatrhs (talk) 18:54, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What dimensions state by state analysis are needed?[edit]

I'd like to see a chart added to this article.

This is one potential source: https://ballotpedia.org/State_Legislative_and_Congressional_Redistricting_after_the_2010_Census

Each row of the chart should be a state.

The columns should include:

Current Number of Representatives in the House of Representatives Number of Democrats Number of Republicans Number of Independents/Others Percentage of vote for each party in last statewide offices (maybe just the governor's race) type of redistricting used (see map on https://ballotpedia.org/State_Legislative_and_Congressional_Redistricting_after_the_2010_Census ) The date redistricting will next happen The process for making a change in districts — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsterbal (talk • contribs) 12:14, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikidata list[edit]

List of Wikidata items for redistricting in each US state: < https://w.wiki/fkB >. -- M2545 (talk) 09:36, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Data to update the "Redistricting commissions" section with[edit]

See here: https://twitter.com/ryan_dane/status/1333614785670344704. There is updated data and a thorough list of which states have what kinds of redistricting, as well as the criteria they use for redistricting. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:54, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Redistricting" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Redistricting and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 February 15#Redistricting until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis 11:47, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Redistrict" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Redistrict and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 December 14 § Redistrict until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. feminist (talk) 07:18, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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