{"id":1954,"date":"2013-01-29T09:46:25","date_gmt":"2013-01-29T14:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/?p=1954"},"modified":"2013-01-29T09:46:25","modified_gmt":"2013-01-29T14:46:25","slug":"the-best-reporting-on-redistricting-shenanigans-muckreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2013\/01\/29\/the-best-reporting-on-redistricting-shenanigans-muckreads\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Reporting on Redistricting Shenanigans (#MuckReads)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\tby \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChristie Thompson<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t and \t\t\t\t\t\tTheodoric Meyer<\/a><\/p>\n

Republicans in the Virginia Senate made headlines Jan. 20 when they rammed through legislation that would concentrate the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Democratic voters into fewer districts.<\/p>\n

The Virginia bill is the latest effort by both parties to turn redistricting to their advantage around the country. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve rounded up some of the best reporting on how the parties have tried to influence both congressional and state electoral maps \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and, in most cases, gotten away with it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00c2\u00a0for political gain.<\/p>\n

Republicans Seeking Electoral College Changes<\/strong><\/a>, The Washington Post, January 2013<\/strong>
\nOnly two states \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Maine and Nebraska \u00e2\u20ac\u201d currently apportion their electoral votes by congressional district. But Republicans in Virginia, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania have recently proposed switching their states to a similar system. Each of those states \u00e2\u20ac\u0153went for Obama in the past two elections but are controlled by Republicans at the state level.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Va. Republicans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Redistricting Draws Criticism<\/strong><\/a>, The Washington Post, January 2013 <\/strong>
\nWhile Virginia state senator Henry Marsh was in Washington celebrating Obama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inauguration, state senate Republicans were redrawing district lines to favor GOP candidates. Republican senators took the opportunity of Marsh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absence to pass a bill, 20 to 19, that made \u00e2\u20ac\u0153technical adjustments\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to district boundaries. State Democrats are decrying Republicans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 political maneuver, accusing them of trying to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pack and crack\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the influence of the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s black voters.<\/p>\n

How Maps Helped GOP Keep the House<\/strong><\/a>, The New York Times, December 2012<\/strong>
\nDemocratic House candidates across the country won more than a million more votes<\/a>than Republicans ones, but the Republicans kept control of the chamber. How did they manage it? Republicans seized the upper hand in redistricting: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thanks to the gains they made in 2010 state-level elections, Republicans controlled the redistricting process in states with 40 percent of the seats in the House, Democrats controlled it in states with 10 percent of the seats, and the rest of the seats were drawn by courts, states with divided governments or commissions.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

So Few Swing Districts, So Little Compromise<\/strong><\/a>, Five Thirty Eight, December 2012<\/strong>
\nWhy is it so difficult for members of the U.S. House to find compromise? Because most members come from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hyperpartisan\u00e2\u20ac\u009d districts where they face no real threat of defeat. Nate Silver breaks down the decline of swing districts due in large part to redistricting (as well as less split-ticket voting).<\/p>\n

How Dark Money Helped GOP Hold the House<\/strong><\/a>, ProPublica, December 2012<\/strong>
\nRepublicans launched an effort in 2010 designed to help the party win statehouses \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which control the redistricting process in most states \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in the elections that fall. We detailed how dark money helped fund the GOP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s statehouse victory in North Carolina and subsequently helped pay for redistricting consultants, who worked out of the Republican party headquarters in Raleigh.<\/p>\n

The League of Dangerous Mapmakers<\/strong><\/a>, The Atlantic, October 2012 <\/strong>
\nWho are the cartographers behind the U.S.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s constantly shifting district maps? Journalist Robert Draper follows Republican National Committee redistricting consultant Tom Hofeller as he travels the country, advising legislators how to best designate districts to their advantage. Draper charts the history of redistricting, to show how what \u00e2\u20ac\u0153was intended by the Framers solely to keep democracy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s electoral scales balanced\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6has become the most insidious practice in American politics.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Redistricting, a Process Cloaked in Secrecy<\/strong><\/a>, Center for Public Integrity, November 2012 <\/strong>
\nThough the Supreme Court has dictated how often states redraw district lines, how they do it is mostly up to them. The State Integrity Investigation rated each state on the transparency and potential for public input of their redistricting process. Roughly half didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make the grade: \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153while 18 states received A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s; 24 received a D or an F.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

How Democrats Fooled California\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Redistricting Commission<\/strong><\/a>, ProPublica, December 2011 <\/strong>
\nIn an attempt to insulate redistricting from party politics, California created a citizens\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 commission in 2010 to determine state districts. But Democratic strategists still found new ways to influence the process: from secretly enlisting local organizations to creating a sham community group to push for a map that favored Democratic candidates.<\/p>\n

Welcome to America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Most Gerrymandered District<\/strong><\/a>, The New Republic, November 2012<\/strong>
\nDemocrats have been especially aggressive about redistricting in Maryland, where they dominate the state legislature. Maryland Democrats approved a new congressional map so tortured that a federal judge called the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Third Congressional District \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reminiscent of a broken winged pterodactyl, lying prostrate across the center of the state.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The redrawn maps helped Democrats capture seven of Maryland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eight House seats, despite winning only 62 percent<\/a>of the total votes cast in all the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s House races.<\/p>\n

Did you find this useful? Get our latest reporting roundups by following ProPublica<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0on\u00c2\u00a0Facebook\u00c2\u00a0<\/a><\/em>and\u00c2\u00a0Twitter<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n


<\/em><\/p>\n

\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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via ProPublica: Articles and Investigations http:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/the-best-reporting-on-redistricting-shenanigans-muckreads<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Christie Thompson and Theodoric Meyer Republicans in the Virginia Senate made headlines Jan. 20 when they rammed through legislation that would concentrate the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Democratic voters into fewer districts. The Virginia bill is the latest effort by both parties to turn redistricting to their advantage around the country. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve rounded up some of the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Best Reporting on Redistricting Shenanigans (#MuckReads)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[50,6,388],"class_list":["post-1954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-reader","tag-author-unknown","tag-ifttt","tag-propublica-articles-and-investigations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2skW4-vw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}