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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2022 14:39:09 GMT
While internal connectivity is a desirable feature in itself, I think the main reason for such a rule is less to ease travel between the different parts of the seat and much more as an indirect way of stopping whoever draws the boundaries from doing things like this.
 This is the MD-03 congressional district as it has stood since 2013. And before anyone complains about Republican gerrymandering, it was the Democrats that contrived this.
But evidently Marylanders have changed their approach to districting because with effect from 2023 (i.e. the Congress just elected) the state looks like this. (The redrawn MD-03 is the one including Annapolis.)  Though it's worth point out that a lot of the time that sort of gerrymandering is mandated by law. The Voting Rights Act effectively requires the creation of majority minority seats, which means in areas which are moderately diverse (perhaps 30-40% minority) boundaries tend to have to be quite contrived. Also, their maximum variance is 0.75% (iirc) which makes our 5% look incredibly loose! Between 2010 and 2020 Maryland got quite a bit more diverse so presumably it became much easier to create such seats without resorting to horrific boundary gore. Idiots. Whoever came up with, wrote, sponsored that. Idiots. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Nov 22, 2022 14:41:17 GMT
Though that specific one was caused by the white incumbent wanting the district to include his hometown, a couple of military bases and to intrude into multiple media markets to help him if he ever wanted to run statewide. The two VRA districts were much cleaner (and the map deliberately avoided creating a third VRA district because it would have endangered Steny Hoyer.)
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Nov 22, 2022 14:49:34 GMT
Though it's worth point out that a lot of the time that sort of gerrymandering is mandated by law. The Voting Rights Act effectively requires the creation of majority minority seats, which means in areas which are moderately diverse (perhaps 30-40% minority) boundaries tend to have to be quite contrived. Also, their maximum variance is 0.75% (iirc) which makes our 5% look incredibly loose! Between 2010 and 2020 Maryland got quite a bit more diverse so presumably it became much easier to create such seats without resorting to horrific boundary gore. Idiots. Whoever came up with, wrote, sponsored that. Idiots. I think it might be helpful for you to familiarise yourself with US history in the period 1865-1965. VRA districts are far from an unalloyed positive and I certainly wouldn't like to see them rolled out here, but there is a particular context that you seem to be entirely missing. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2022 15:10:05 GMT
Idiots. Whoever came up with, wrote, sponsored that. Idiots. I think it might be helpful for you to familiarise yourself with US history in the period 1865-1965. VRA districts are far from an unalloyed positive and I certainly wouldn't like to see them rolled out here, but there is a particular context that you seem to be entirely missing. You mean small things called slavery, civil war, reconstruction, the civil rights movement, assassinations..? The idea that you have to make majority minority seats, regardless of population distribution, is idiocy. Short sighted idiocy. Not just because it leads to the stupid creations noted above, but because it specifically creates and reinforces distinction and division between races. It effectively ghettoises the electorates. And in the near 60 years since? Do they think you can't mix races in an electorate? You expect that a black candidate can't or shouldn't be elected in a white area? Or a white one in a black area? Are there not in fact sufficient areas with substantial minority populations without having to actually mandate minority seats in law? It's another example of the foolishness of the 'positive discrimination' mindset. It's damaging to the system long term because it undermines the idea of equality, and by legitimising the drawing of boundaries to create specific types of seats it is saying it's ok to fix the system, as long as it's fixed in a way the right people want it fixed. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Nov 22, 2022 16:25:41 GMT
I think it might be helpful for you to familiarise yourself with US history in the period 1865-1965. VRA districts are far from an unalloyed positive and I certainly wouldn't like to see them rolled out here, but there is a particular context that you seem to be entirely missing. You mean small things called slavery, civil war, reconstruction, the civil rights movement, assassinations..? The idea that you have to make majority minority seats, regardless of population distribution, is idiocy. Short sighted idiocy. Not just because it leads to the stupid creations noted above, but because it specifically creates and reinforces distinction and division between races. It effectively ghettoises the electorates. And in the near 60 years since? Do they think you can't mix races in an electorate? You expect that a black candidate can't or shouldn't be elected in a white area? Or a white one in a black area? Are there not in fact sufficient areas with substantial minority populations without having to actually mandate minority seats in law? It's another example of the foolishness of the 'positive discrimination' mindset. It's damaging to the system long term because it undermines the idea of equality, and by legitimising the drawing of boundaries to create specific types of seats it is saying it's ok to fix the system, as long as it's fixed in a way the right people want it fixed. US election results are publicly available and it's reasonably easy to map them up against demographic information, so the answer to that is pretty clear - in most of the US, racial polarisation is lower than it has been, but it's still readily apparent and in some places (the Deep South especially) it's as strong as ever. Black candidates can win amongst white voters in those areas, but only when they lose heavily amongst black voters - and the aim of the VRA is to enable minority communities to elect the candidate of their choice, not to elect more minorities in the abstract. VRA districts are a very blunt tool for achieving their intended aim (some form of proportional representation would be a vastly superior method, but the Americans are much more committed to FPTP than we are.) But they do not ghettoise their electorates. Their electorates were already ghettoised and would have remained so. |
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Post by therealriga on Nov 22, 2022 20:09:02 GMT
While internal connectivity is a desirable feature in itself, I think the main reason for such a rule is less to ease travel between the different parts of the seat and much more as an indirect way of stopping whoever draws the boundaries from doing things like this.
This is the MD-03 congressional district as it has stood since 2013. And before anyone complains about Republican gerrymandering, it was the Democrats that contrived this.
But evidently Marylanders have changed their approach to districting because with effect from 2023 (i.e. the Congress just elected) the state looks like this. (The redrawn MD-03 is the one including Annapolis.) I've seen MD-03 before (the others in the state were pretty awful too) and the one thing that struck me is that it effectively contained a detached part along the coast around Annapolis. If they are going to create such constituencies it would be less horrible if they simply had non-contiguous ones to comply with the VRA and then drew the rest of the map as normal, rather than extremely forced connections using narrow stretches of roads between otherwise separated areas. It's just foolish. |
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Post by andrewp on Nov 29, 2022 23:22:01 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2022 23:40:36 GMT
It's a topic I could write thousands of words upon. I'm sure forum regulars know what those words would conclude. |
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Post by bjornhattan on Nov 29, 2022 23:43:47 GMT
It's a topic I could write thousands of words upon. I'm sure forum regulars know what those words would conclude. I'm imagining the title of this essay - "Constituency Names of Complexity and Length"? |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2022 23:48:26 GMT
It's a topic I could write thousands of words upon. I'm sure forum regulars know what those words would conclude. I'm imagining the title of this essay - "Constituency Names of Complexity and Length"? "Representation Matters: How Naming of UK Parliamentary Constituencies has Changed and should Change Through History." |
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Post by carlton43 on Nov 29, 2022 23:57:25 GMT
It's a topic I could write thousands of words upon. I'm sure forum regulars know what those words would conclude. I'm imagining the title of this essay - "Constituency Names of Complexity and Length"? "Some existential observations upon the nomenclature of the descriptive designation of representative electoral districting in closely defined parts of the greater Walton-le-Dale extended area with especial reference to the lack of concision in the setting out of the definitive structure of such neologisms." |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2022 0:11:51 GMT
I'm imagining the title of this essay - "Constituency Names of Complexity and Length"? "Some existential observations upon the nomenclature of the descriptive designation of representative electoral districting in closely defined parts of the greater Walton-le-Dale extended area with especial reference to the lack of concision in the setting out of the definitive structure of such neologisms." Ooooof, keep talking dirty to me Carlton. |
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Post by carlton43 on Nov 30, 2022 0:14:29 GMT
"Some existential observations upon the nomenclature of the descriptive designation of representative electoral districting in closely defined parts of the greater Walton-le-Dale extended area with especial reference to the lack of concision in the setting out of the definitive structure of such neologisms." Ooooof, keep talking dirty to me Carlton. Woden's teeth! I think I may have pulled inadvertntly, and not for the first time. I am too old to outrun him. Damn! |
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YL
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Post by YL on Nov 30, 2022 10:04:43 GMT
I think he's spot on on the reasons why this is happening. I just don't see why some people think it's such a problem; only a handful of proposed names (generally the double compass point ones, like "Luton South & South Bedfordshire") really seem to deserve the "cumbersome" label. I'd rather have a long name than some meaningless 1970s district name like "Delyn" (thankfully on its way out) or an inaccurate compass point. |
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Post by minionofmidas on Nov 30, 2022 10:31:36 GMT
I think he's spot on on the reasons why this is happening. I just don't see why some people think it's such a problem; only a handful of proposed names (generally the double compass point ones, like "Luton South & South Bedfordshire") really seem to deserve the "cumbersome" label. I'd rather have a long name than some meaningless 1970s district name like "Delyn" (thankfully on its way out) or an inaccurate compass point. yeah, I don't see 'and' as cumbersome. The comma, otoh... Also, Sure about that? Because I keep hearing that people add unmentioned areas instead, eg "Burton & Uttoxeter", "Hove & Portslade". Lazy typing on twitter or here doesn't count. |
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YL
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Post by YL on Nov 30, 2022 10:46:42 GMT
Sure about that? Because I keep hearing that people add unmentioned areas instead, eg "Burton & Uttoxeter", "Hove & Portslade". Lazy typing on twitter or here doesn't count. Indeed Peter Kyle's Twitter profile has him as MP for "Hove and Portslade", Tom Pursglove's has him as MP for "Corby & East Northamptonshire" and Robbie Moore's has "Keighley & Ilkley". All three are now proposed to become the official names. |
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Post by finsobruce on Nov 30, 2022 20:28:22 GMT
Ooooof, keep talking dirty to me Carlton. Woden's teeth! I think I may have pulled inadvertntly, and not for the first time. I am too old to outrun him. Damn! Just point to a large picture of Preston bus garage. That should give you a good head start. |
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Post by carlton43 on Nov 30, 2022 20:32:07 GMT
Woden's teeth! I think I may have pulled inadvertntly, and not for the first time. I am too old to outrun him. Damn! Just point to a large picture of Preston bus garage. That should give you a good head start. Yeahh! I was going to rely on shouting "Emergency Lock Down called. Mask up and go home, go straight home, do not 'collect' or you go to gaol." |
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Post by greenhert on Dec 5, 2022 22:52:57 GMT
Just over an hour left now to submit your comments to the BCE. Speak now or for the next decade at least hold your peace with the revised proposals.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Dec 5, 2022 23:31:14 GMT
I am at peace with them. I was delighted that the initial proposals in Hertfordshire exactly matched what I would have done there myself and the revised proposals only changed the name of Three Rivers/South West Herts (which I also would have done, and suggested in the first consultation.)
I am irritated by what they've done in the Luton area but I've done what I can there.
I'm very happy with the revised proposals in North London (the initial proposals were a mess) and suggest no changes there.
The one region where I am quite unhappy with the overall plan is the South West but this is a region I have very limited connections to and I can live with that if they've got Hertfordshire and Middlesex broadly right.
I haven't paid too much attention to the Northern regions but from what I've seen most of the proposals look satisfactory there and I do not share this forum's obsession with the details of the boundaries in Leicestershire
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