The Supreme Court has been emphasizing compactness more for some time. As we say in the podcast, the current decision turned in part on the fact that petitioners demonstrated that there was a map that was both more compact than the state of Alabama's map, and also had more Black ability-to-elect districts. This was done by computational search.
So, is x is a goal and it can be achieved with more compactness than the current choice that looks good.
Now .... merely stopping partisan gerrymandering seems out, but having district lines follow long-standing pre-existing lines (like county borders) might be a fresh avenue of attack ...
I also note that Nevada could easily draw a compact hispanic district rather than crack Las Vegas for Dem purposes, just as Utah could stop cracking Salt Lake for GOP purposes. I wonder if they are next ... Cracking cities seems suspect to me ...
The Supreme Court has been emphasizing compactness more for some time. As we say in the podcast, the current decision turned in part on the fact that petitioners demonstrated that there was a map that was both more compact than the state of Alabama's map, and also had more Black ability-to-elect districts. This was done by computational search.
So, is x is a goal and it can be achieved with more compactness than the current choice that looks good.
Now .... merely stopping partisan gerrymandering seems out, but having district lines follow long-standing pre-existing lines (like county borders) might be a fresh avenue of attack ...
I also note that Nevada could easily draw a compact hispanic district rather than crack Las Vegas for Dem purposes, just as Utah could stop cracking Salt Lake for GOP purposes. I wonder if they are next ... Cracking cities seems suspect to me ...