Redistricting in iowa after the 2010 census ballotpedia. Gerrymandering and fair congressional districts cato unbound. The effects of redistricting on voting behavior in. Cain and karin mac donald of berkeleys institute of governmental studies 2006, and a reform institute publication from 2005 attached. Developers of the redistricting game and supporters of redistricting reform showed off the interactive tool wednesday on capitol hill. Lessons for reform funded by the james irvine foundation by bruce e.
How redistricting became a technological arms race the atlantic. Voters should choose legislators, not the other way around. Kareem crayton than one house seat, federal law requires state legislatures to divide the population into districts electing one representative each. Redistricting is the process of drawing electoral district boundaries in the united states. In common practice, this law and its analogous state provisions prevent the overlycreative mapdrawer from connecting populations that are dispersed.
Transparency and redistricting a supplemental report to competition and redistricting in california. Redistricting commission to draw new congressional and state legislative boundaries, as required after each decennial census. The international idea handbook of electoral system design. In this study we examine how party controlled redistricting in 199192 affected the fortunes of u. Cain has consulted on redistricting for many legislative and citizens groups and is the author of the reapportionment puzzle 1984, and coauthor of the personal vote 1987 and congressional redistricting 1992, now in its eighth printing. Redistricting districtbuilder and the public mapping project. Competition, partisanship, and congressional redistricting. In common practice, this law and its analogous state provisions.
Using todays computer software to slice and dice voters. Autobound desktop is the leading desktop solution for legislative and congressional redistricting, and is simply the easiest and most efficient tool for creating legislative boundaries. A gamers guide to redistricting the new york times. Open source software said its going to improve the commissions work. Maptitude for redistricting includes all of the features in calipers maptitude geographic information system gis software. Comparative and theoretical perspectives butler, david, cain, bruce on. Naacp ldf political participation group, independent redistricting commissions. Neither the 1982 california nor the 2002 texas congressional redistricting are usual cases, but they both figure prominently in the motivations for both political and judicial reform of redistricting. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading party lines. Our representatives and their parties armed with finegrained voting data and sophisticated mapping software case 1.
Many hope that independent citizen commissions iccs will. The origin, meaning, estimation, and application of the concept of partisan symmetry in legislative redistricting, and the justiciability of partisan gerrymandering. A commissioner s guide to redistricting in michigan. As bruce cain, director of the institute of governmental studies as the university of california at berkeley has observed. Cain, the reapportionment puzzle nathaniel persily, the law of the census. When you get right down to it, a large element of the noncompetitiveness were seeing in america is social sorting, says bruce cain, a redistricting expert at the university of california. Political scientist bruce cain of stanford university calls this a pluralist approach that emphasizes bargaining over neutral procedures. The new institutionalism in election law aims to lessen the necessity of court. Our electoral exceptionalism chicago unbound university of. By creating a transparent redistricting process that is independent of elected officials, voters sent a strong message that fair and representative elections remain a core component of american democracy. David butler and bruce cain s book, congressional redistricting, makes this point.
Although numerous studies have assessed the influence of the 1990s redistricting on u. We explore the strategic differences between the partisan. Software tools provide capability from development of precinct boundaries at the city and county level to geocoding, disaggregation of election results, desktop and web based. Jan 15, 2004 part one of two bruce cain is the robson professor of political science and director of uc berkeleys institute of governmental studies. The aim is to ensure a place at the table for as many groups as possible, knowing the outcome will always be imperfect and that the logic in drawing maps may be inconsistent in any given cycle. One, professor bruce cain, an expert on redistricting in california and at the time, associate director of the igs, was willing to handle the project as principal investigator. The new institutionalism in election law aims to lessen the necessity of court intervention in politically sensitive election administration matters such as redistricting by harnessing politics to fix politics. For more on transparency in redistricting, see an essay by bruce e. Part of charge from governor is to look at how redistricting has worked in other states professor cain starts out with overview of other types of commissions. The 1990s redistricting was an important factor contributing to the republicans house majority because voters drawn into districts with a different incumbent standing for reelection were much more likely to vote republican. Cains expertise has led him to work as a redistricting consultant to several government. We explore the strategic differences between the partisan redistricting plans implemented unilaterally by one party, and the bipartisan plans im plemented as the result of party compromise, arguing that effective analysis of incumbency. Based on esris proven arcgis software platform and dataset components, esri redistricting provides comprehensive tools for plan creation, management, visualization, editing, and collaboration.
Competition, partisanship, and congressional redistricting kindle edition by mann, thomas e. Part of the esri geospatial cloud, esri redistricting is a webbased software that enables governments, advocates, and citizens to complete and share regulationcompliant redistricting plans. International institute for democracy and electoral assistance, 1997. It is very difficult to achieve equal district populations, respect compactness and. More than one person can edit a map simultaneously. Software user guide we have written a user guide which describes all the software features and functions. How democrats fooled californias redistricting commission. Redistricting is done in the united states after the completion of congressional reapportionment, which decides how many seats each state has in the 435 member house of representatives. Despite iowas respected nonpartisan process, he noted.
Esri redistricting software for redistricting process. Software administrator guide we have written an administrator guide which describes how to install the software on the amazon cloud servers or your own linux box. For the ethics of local redistricting, see an earlier blog post. Naleo educational fund, latinos draw the lines redistricting toolkit ncsl. These days, software and cheap computing gives every citizen the power to create their own district maps. Competition, partisanship, and congressional redistricting 92, 92 thomas e. Using automated plan generation to evaluate redistricting proposals, with bruce e. His work in the early 1980s ultimately led to the creation of the statewide database. Redistricting is a complex process, so we simplify this process as much as possible by providing tools and visual cues to help a novice draw a legal redistricting plan. During the recent round of united states redistricting public participation and transparency in the process increased many times over, in part through the districtbuilder software development and the. Dec 22, 2011 bruce cain, a legendary mapmaker who now heads the university of californias washington center, once drew an improbablelooking state assembly district that could not be traversed by car.
The site is designed to support citygates enterprise redistricting platform. The supreme courts upcoming decision on redistricting could draw the court into a deep, dark political thicketand. For over 20 years, citygate has been providing nonpartisan consulting and software tools which set the standards in redistricting. If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Ucberkeley political scientist bruce cain further added that 2011 may prove to be a particularly contentious redistricting cycle for iowa. Founded in 1919, igs and its affiliated centers spearhead and promote research, programs, seminars and colloquia, training, educational. Working with nasas jet propulsion laboratory, cains work on californias redistricting was the first effort to employ satellite maps and computer programming in the apportionment process prior to the creation of geographic information systems gis. Part one of two bruce cain is the robson professor of political science and director of uc berkeleys institute of governmental studies. Drawing the line on redistricting the american interest. General michael mcdonald, midwest mapping project micah altman, traditional districting principles bruce e. Maptitude for redistricting software has defined the redistricting software market since its introduction in 1997. How proportional representation would finally solve our.
Minutes for redistricting reform regional public meeting. Some of professor cains most recent publications include redistricting commissions. The game, which was created by a team from the university of southern california, allows players to try their hand at drawing political district lines in three fictional states. Simply open a shapefile, load in census and election data if not already included in the shapefile, and hit go autoredistrict uses a genetic algorithm to design districts that meet multiple criteria, namely geometry. But with the advent of the personal computer, internet access to demographic data from the census, and new userfriendly redistricting software, nearly any organized group can developed their own redistricting plan. Designed with the help of redistricting professionals from many of the state legislatures and political parties, maptitude for redistricting works the way you work, has the features youve requested, is easy to learn and use, and.
Dra 2020 alpha is the new app from daves redistricting. Theories of tradeoffs between different redistricting criteria have long emphasized the geographic dimension butler and cain 1992, canon 1999, chen and rodden 2009. Political science professor bruce cain, director of uc berkeleys institute of. For an attempt to create userfriendly opensource software in order to. Cain, assessing the partisan effects of redistricting, 79 am. Redistricting is the process of redrawing the boundaries of election districts to ensure that the people of each district are equally represented. Jubelirer, pennsylvania democrats asked the court to overturn the states redistricting plan, which was drafted by a republicanled state legislature and signed into law by a republican governor. Cain born november 28, 1948 is a professor of political science at stanford. Cain is robson professor of political science and director of the institute of governmental studies at the university of california, berkeley. Minutes for redistricting reform regional public meeting easton talbot county community center.
Cain and karin mac donald institute of governmental studies university of california, berkeley november 26, 2006 1. A congressional act passed in 1967 requires that representatives be elected from singlemember districts, except when a state has a single representative, in which case one statewide atlarge election be held. Data guide we provide a description of the data that we have created to be used with the software. There used to be two or three groups that were able to draw their own redistricting lines. Maptitude is fullfeatured mapping and gis software that has established new standards for performance and value for over two decades. Cain and karin mac donald institute of governmental studies university.
How democrats fooled californias redistricting propublica. During the recent round of united states redistricting public participation and transparency in the process increased many times over, in part through the districtbuilder software development and the companion public mapping project. Redistricting past, present, and future, in redistricting in the new millennium 3, 45 peter f. Bruce cain, a legendary mapmaker who now heads the university of californias washington center, once drew an improbablelooking state assembly district that could not be traversed by car. Pinpoint redistricting and the minimization of partisan. Redistricting reform makes sense for its own sake and as a safeguard against the entrenchment and insulation of a permanent political class. The effects of redistricting on voting behavior in incumbent. Cain is a professor of political science at stanford university and the spence and cleone eccles family director of the bill lane center for the american west. Bruce cain, a legendary mapmaker who now heads the university of californias washington center, once drew an improbablelooking state assembly district that could not be. Secondly, the institutes library is well known for its extensive collection of research materials on california policy and politics, and additionally is a repository. He received a ba from bowdoin college 1970, a b phil from oxford university 1972 as a rhodes scholar, and a ph d from harvard university 1976. Simply open a shapefile, load in census and election data if not already included in the shapefile, and hit go. Jun 14, 2007 developers of the redistricting game and supporters of redistricting reform showed off the interactive tool wednesday on capitol hill.
Autoredistrict is a free and open source computer program that automatically creates fair and compact electoral districts. Cain has consulted on redistricting for many legislative and citizens groups and is the author of the reapportionment puzzle 1984, and coauthor of the personal vote 1987 and congressional redistricting 1992, now in its. Wrong in the latest round of congressional redistricting, 2 election l. Boundary delimitation ace electoral knowledge network. It provides a complete set of mapping and spatial analysis functions, sophisticated. Ed cook, senior counsel for the legislative service agency, felt that the uncertainty of redistricting is iowas version of term limits. Competition, partisanship and congressional redistricting, bruce cain and thomas mann, eds.
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