I think that it would be rather hard for a Californian representative to co-sponsor the bill given the redistricting proposition in the 2005 special election and I note that a lot of Californians are among the more liberal members of Congress.

I would also be curious to see how many members of the Congressional Black Caucus would endorse a plan that would probably decrease the number of majority minority districts.

Not to want to rain on anyone's parade or anything.

But, to judge from THOMAS, this bill (HR 2642) has got exactly nowhere in the ten months since it was passed to/buried by Judiciary.

Only one of the sponsors is down as having signed on this year. None of them I can identify as a member of the House Dem leadership or as a heavy hitter (I'm not terribly good on House name recognition, so I could be wrong there!).

What's Tim Johnson's game, I wonder? Perhaps, it's to throw a bone to some of his more liberal supporters. What's his record on electoral reform, I wonder?

And, why now?

In any case, I can't see either bill or anything like them being reported out.

Did Johnson's bill get assigned to a committee, or did he get it placed straight on the Calendar. If the latter, he could do some bomb-throwing by standing up on the floor and getting it called off the calendar (which by custom but not by rule is the prerogative of the Majority Leader).

What are the odds...

Quick question: if the Dems controlled both houses right now, would the Tanner bill stand a better chance of passing than now?

I still don't see how this bill helps anything. You're still going to have the majority party voting for the deciding 5th vote.

And it does nothing to stop the gerrymandering of the state legislative districts. Which is what gives republicans the majorities to elect that 5th vote.

I think it's fairvote.org or something like that that had an interesting plan. The super districts would definately give dems a majority. But I'll be an old man before I see that plan come to fruition in this country (I'm 25 right now).

To me this is maybe the biggest issue facing Democrats today.  What's the point of pressing new ideas, new politices, a new way, etc. if you don't have a chance to win.  We talk about reform until we are blue in the face but it won't make one iota of a difference.

Republicans will do everything to ensure this bill goes nowhere.  Gerrymandering is the very reason they are in power in the first place, even more so, in my opinion, than because of weak Democratic opposition.

We have to make this a front-line issue.  We also have to start spending some real money on state legislature races, especially in light of how inexpensive they are.  

We are only a few seats away from taking the Michigan House, for example.  We spend some money on just a few obscure districts in northern Michigan, and wham, we're dancing.

Assuming we have the governorship ofcourse.  

What really needs to be done is to get rid of the empty states like North and South Dakota, Vermont, Montana and Wyoming.  Either join them together into one state (Dakota, Montana/Wyoming Vermont/NH or only allow them to elect one senator.

Why do so many Russian immigrants call America "The Land Of The Stupid?" I think the reason is more obvious than we would like it to be.

Any fool can plainly see that the ruling faction in any government would tend to manipulate redistricting so as to retain its own hold on power.

The only way to overcome that security hole would be to keep politicians out of the redistricting process. And the only way to do that would be to place redistricting procedures in the hands of randomly selected juries. Anything else would just be letting the foxes guard the chicken coops.

The plan as stated would be an incumbent protection racket, much like the proposed California plan.  The only way to shake this up is to have the board filled with minor party affiliated representatives.  No representative from any party earning 30% or better in the two previous general elections.  That would kill off some incumbents I would think.

Too much process.

We need a constitutional amendment requiring all congressional districts to be north south slices of the state, width determined to make the numbers equal.  Have Census Bureau plot them.

The advantages would be (1) no games, (2) transparent methodology -- public confidence, and (3) disparate constituencies within most districts.  This would favor candidates with something for all constituents.

Petition drives could be a vehicle to build support.  Probably take 20 years to get it done.  But might as well get started.  It is important.

This is a great idea, but unfortunately it's completely unconstitutional. The Constitution says what it says about redistricting (not much). Term limits were held unconstitutional because they added an additional (extraconstitutional) requirement for service in the House or Senate. This proposal, and others like it, would add extraconstitutional requirements for the states to follow in redistricting.

This is a great idea to try at the state level, but unfortunately, it wouldn't last two minutes even in a Supreme Court more moderate than the current one.

That lives this as requiring a constitutional amendment. Yeah, that's likely!!

We need to win back state legislatures and governorships. Big surprise -- that's what we need to do for everything else too.

So, again, while I think this proposal is good policy, it's not going to fly. So let's focus on what we can do and what we need to do and not get bogged down in pointless exercises in good citizenship.

This sounds like a bad solution to an important problem -- hell, Schwarzenegger's "unelected judges"  plan was considerably better.  You think the Majority and Minority leaders wouldn't choose commissioners who, ah, shared their thinking on how districts ought to be drawn?  This is just Party leader-led districting once removed, and only barely removed.  And god knows what sort of backroom power broker they'd get to be the 5th commissioner.  

Let's put it this way: imagine DeLay and Pelosi and Frist and Reid each choosing a commissioner.  I guessing they won't be political neophytes.  And then those four have to elect a tiebreaker?  That will devolve into incumbent protection with a limited number of swing districts in which to fight very quickly.  The Colorado map is a pretty good example: most of the districts are designed to tilt to one party, and then the 7th was designed to be a permanent battle, partly cause that's the only way to make both parties agree to the map.  The idea that DeLay's boy or Reid's boy won't be thinking of incumbents and voting patterns when they draw lines, though, is just laughable.

It's also worth noting that Tennessee is under a Democratic gerrymander, a fact of which Jim Tanner is very aware.  Ds control that delegation 5-4.  Marsha Blackburn's district in particular was drawn to protect some Ds in the Nashville area by dumping the R-laden Memphis and Nashville burbs in the same district.

What makes this plan different from the status quo is that it makes the two parties equal players in redistricting in every state.  Each party gets two of five votes and an equal say in determining the fifth.  That is actually a mild improvement, but don't think that it will lead to anything other than mostly safe districts with a handful of tossups.  It's bad reform, bad for voters and bad for a vibrant system in which parties are challenged and must respond to voters.  I'm not in the least bit surprised that the left wing of our caucus is uninterested.  We should be too.  There's better answers than this out there.

No one knows for sure that this is unconstitutional, and the failure of the Democratic leadership to get behind this says as much about OUR cynicism (or, rather, the cynicism of our Dem leaders) as it does anything else.  Is it reasonable for incumbents to win 95% of their races for re-election?  Does this make the public more or less likely to participate, more or less likely to believe "the fix" is in?  If folks are against THIS bill, then what is their solution?  Or do they see that gerrymandering isn't a problem?

When drawing their political districts?  I think that's pretty lame, but it seems to be a theme of independent redistricting commissions.  That said, independent redistricting is clearly preferable to partisan redistricting by Republicans.

But why not try for full representation?  It would eliminate the need for any redistricting in most states, at least simplify the process in others, and elect a more representative Congress.

It'd be a big jump, and lately I've been thinking that it might be easier to start at the local level, with county commissions and city councils, to acquaint people with the process, but it'd be worth trying at least.

Great comments on both sides.  But my two cents, this is one helluva an important issue.  And it needs to be acted on somehow, someway.  At least get it out there to be talked about.

Don't have the answers.  But I truly believe this is an extemely important issue.

And to those that seem to disagree.  We would be willing to hear your plan as well.