News. Debate. Community. Levers for a better democracy.
MOST READ
Get some leverage.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter.
Hill Street Studios/Getty Images
Redistricting reformers to Oregon voters: You've got mail
Jun 11 2020
In keeping with social distancing mandates, crusaders against partisan gerrymandering in Oregon have settled on a new old-fashioned way to recruit allies: Send a letter, by snail mail.
With the coronavirus pandemic ruling out traditional in-person canvassing across the country, many grassroots democracy efforts have gone silent — some after failing to get permission to obtain electronic signatures for their ballot measures.
Redistricting reformers in Oregon aren't going down the online route. Instead they are mailing copies of their ballot proposal, which would turn legislative mapmaking over to an independent redistricting commission, to half a million residential addresses in search of handwritten endorsements.
<p>Time is of the essence. Political maps generally get drawn once every decade, after the census provides detailed population figures, so the reliably Democratic majorities in the Oregon Legislature will claim the job for themselves next year unless voters decide otherwise in November. And the measure won't be on the ballot unless 149,000 people sign and return the forms in the next three weeks.</p>
<p>The <a data-linked-post="2638675562" href="https://thefulcrum.us/directory/league-of-women-voters" target="_blank">League of Women Voters</a> and People Not Politicians are behind the flooding of the Postal Service in the Oregon campaign. Their mailing, which includes a postage-paid return envelope, is going to 500,000 households identified as having more than one registered voter.</p>
<p>Voters can also download the <a href="https://www.peoplenotpoliticiansoregon.com/sign-the-petition/LWVOR/" target="_blank">petition</a> on the People Not Politicians' website or they can ask the group for a version in the mail if it doesn't show up soon.</p>
<p>The measure would establish a commission of four Democrats, four Republicans and four people unaffiliated with a major party. It would draw the district lines for the state House and Senate and set the boundaries of congressional districts — six of them, probably, up from five because of the state's population growth during the 2010s.</p>
<p>Oregon is one of a handful of states where advocates for taking mapmaking away from its beneficiaries are still campaigning. The group pushing for creation of a commission in newly blue <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/redistricting/nevada-redistricting" target="_self">Nevada</a> was recently given more time to collect signatures to get on the ballot. But the effort in reliably red <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/redistricting/arkansas-signature-lawsuit" target="_self">Arkansas</a> has been hobbled since a federal judge refused to allow e-signatures on petitions.</p>
<p><a href="https://thefulcrum.us/redistricting/virginia-redistricting-amendment" target="_self">Virginia</a> is the only state that for sure will have a referendum in November on creation of an independent commission, while <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/redistricting/gerrymandering-missouri" target="_self">Missourians</a> will vote on whether to largely undo a redistricting reform initiative they approved two years ago.</p>
<p>At the moment, 14 states will use independent commissions to draw the next decade's legislative districts, and eight of those will also take over congressional cartography.</p>
<p>Massachusetts and Michigan are the only states that have so far permitted electronic signatures for ballot measures in light of Covid-19. At least two dozen citizen democracy efforts, including four related to democracy reform, have been suspended due to the pandemic.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Lessons from Oregon, the top-ranked vote-by-mail state - The Fulcrum ›
- Coronavirus ends last Illinois redistricting reform effort - The Fulcrum ›
- More states consider anti-gerrymandering efforts - The Fulcrum ›
- Oregon, Illinois may take gerrymandering power from Democrats ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Keep reading...
Show less
Cinderella bracket continues in Democracy Madness
Apr 27 2020
The Final Four in the Elections quarter of our Democracy Madness draw is upon us — and it turns out only one top seed has made it to the regional semifinals.
<p>
Turning redistricting over to independent commissions, our No. 2 seed, advanced by cruising past the call for congressional term limits.
</p><p>
The biggest upset in the weekend voting: The idea of electing several members to represent each U.S. House district, our No. 9 seed, snuck out a win over the top-seeded proposal of presidential elections simply by popular vote.
</p><p>
Multimember districts now face Supreme Court term limits (No. 13), while anti-gerrymandering commissions confront the No. 11 proposal, states promising to award their electoral votes to the national popular winner.
</p><p>
Press the Vote Now button to make your two choices. (You can click the matchups, then each label, for more on the proposals.)
</p><p>
We're hoping to learn what readers think is the best of 64 ideas for reforming our governing systems and putting voters back at the center of things. The money in politics "region" starts next.
</p><p>
<br/>
</p><div class="commonninja_component" comp-id="883f938f-8456-4d9d-9ceb-7280eba254ce" comp-type="bracket">
</div><p>
<br/>
</p><script type="text/javascript"> (function() {
var script = document.createElement('script');
script.type = 'text/javascript';
script.src = 'https://cdn.commoninja.com/sdk/latest/commonninja.js';
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);
})();
</script>
Keep reading...
Show less
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Inmates at the Cook County, Ill. jail vote in the state's primary earlier this month. Colorado has passed a law that counts prisoners at the address where they last lived instead of the prison for the purposes of drawing legislative boundaries.
Colorado ends prison gerrymandering
Mar 25 2020
Colorado has become the eighth state to end prison gerrymandering, meaning prisoners will be counted for redistricting purposes at the last place they lived instead of at the site of their incarceration.
Gov. Jared Polis signed that switch into law last week after the bill was passed by his fellow Democrats in control of the General Assembly. New Jersey passed similar legislation earlier this year, and nearly a dozen other states are considering bills, according to the Prison Policy Initiative's Prison Gerrymandering Project.
Proponents of the change say counting people where they are imprisoned when drawing congressional, state legislative and local government districts unfairly shifts power to rural districts at the expense of urban areas where a majority of the prisoners are from.
<p>Those representing areas where prisons are located disagree, saying they deserve a greater share of government services — often tied to the population totals reported by the census once a decade — because of the people housed in prison.</p><p>The Colorado law addresses congressional and state legislative districts; counting people at their last place of residence will remain optional for some forms of local redistricting. </p><p>Advocates for ending all forms of prison gerrymandering say that elected officials whose districts include prisons often do not treat inmates as constituents.</p><p>The sponsors of the Colorado bill said they asked members who represent areas with prisons in the state whether any had held a town hall at a correctional facility. None had.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Florida joins debate over where to count prisoners when drawing ... ›
- Federal court to hear challenge to prison gerrymandering - The ... ›
- Movement to restore felons' voting rights keeps growing, and in ... ›
- Virginia becoming 9th state to end 'prison gerrymandering' - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Keep reading...
Show less
Princeton Gerrymandering Project
Sam Wang is the director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.
Meet the reformer: Sam Wang, a professor of fair redistricting math
Mar 13 2020
Sam Wang is a professor of neuroscience at Princeton, where he's been on the faculty 14 years and focuses on how the brain processes sensory, cognitive and emotional information. But he's also part of the university's Program in Law and Public Affairs. He created the Princeton Election Consortium in 2008 to come up with statistical models for predicting presidential and Senate results based on polling. And after the last nationwide redistricting, in 2012, he created the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. Today he and his seven-member team run a website that permits voters to use mathematical models to decide if where they live is in an unfairly skewed legislative or congressional district. His answers have been edited for clarity and length.
What's the tweet-length description of your organization?
Combining data, tech and law to help citizens make district lines fairer and eliminate bugs from democracy.
<p><strong>Describe your very first civic engagement.</strong></p><p>In 1978, when I was in sixth grade in California, I became very interested in two ballot propositions that would affect school funding. I loved school so these were important to me. The one that would have increased school funding, Proposition 8, failed. The other was Proposition 13, the first of many tax-cutting initiatives passed across the nation. After that, school funding was cut dramatically. So my side lost. But in politics you should never give up.</p><p><strong>What was your biggest professional triumph?</strong></p><p>In neuroscience it's a tie. First, figuring out how a brain structure, the cerebellum, which is mainly known for processing sensory information to help us move smoothly, could also guide higher function and when it goes off track lead to autism. Also, seeing the success of dozens of great students and scholars who have gone on to do all kinds of amazing things.</p><p>In redistricting it's another tie. First, seeing my team shape redistricting fairness in New Jersey by stopping a ballot initiative that would have biased districting, possibly helping with the wording of a fairer initiative and then getting an actual law passed to mandate transparency in precinct voting data so citizens can see what's being done to their district lines. Second, seeing Chief Justice John Roberts quote my words that there are good mathematical tests for identifying partisan gerrymandering</p><p><strong>And your most disappointing setback?</strong></p><p>Chief Justice Roberts again. He is not a math guy and he was not taking our side. Despite having no quarrel with our math, he wrote the majority opinion last year that wussed out and turfed the question of partisan gerrymandering back to the individual states to deal with. It was in my view an abdication of the Supreme Court's duty to stop a clear constitutional offense in the face of airtight mathematical and geometric approaches. The good news is that all our technical approaches can be used in the states — and we are doing that in North Carolina, Virginia, Michigan and half a dozen others. So we get to stay in business for a while.</p><p><strong>How does your identity influence the way you go about your work?</strong></p><p>As a former physics guy from a relatively privileged demographic, I started thinking about districting fairness in simple terms for which we could establish a national standard: fairness between the parties and numerical tests for racial bias. After encountering the needs of real communities, I've now learned that the richness of communities across the nation deserve consideration. We're working on ways to present that effectively across many states. This probably fits well with my work as a biologist, part of which involves attending to a lot of details.</p><p><strong>What's the best advice you've ever been given?</strong></p><p>It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.</p><p><strong>Create a new flavor for Ben & Jerry's.</strong></p><p>Honey-dipped locust. (An homage to the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/11/12/pollster-eats-bug-after-trump-win-smerconish.cnn" target="_blank">cricket I ate live on CNN</a> in 2016 to settle a bet. My statistical analysis of the polls had prompted me to wager I would "eat a bug" if Donald Trump won more than 240 electoral votes.)</p><p><strong>What is your favorite TV show or movie about politics?</strong></p><p>"Mean Girls."</p><p><strong>What's the last thing you do on your phone at night?</strong></p><p>I don't understand what the word "last" is doing in that sentence. That implies stopping, right?</p><p><strong>What is your deepest, darkest secret?</strong></p><p>I once made a pilgrimage to <a href="http://carhenge.com/" target="_blank">Carhenge</a>.</p>
From Your Site Articles
- Experts identify the worst examples of gerrymandering - The Fulcrum ›
- There's a new state-by-state guide for tackling partisan ... ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Keep reading...
Show less
