Comment by j_s | Hacker News Reader

Comment by j_s | Hacker News Reader

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Re-posting my comment on Math Professor Fighting Gerrymandering with Geometry | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13713252 4 months ago:

[...] a need for expert witnesses who understand the mathematical concepts applicable to gerrymandering. To meet that need, she’s spearheaded the creation of a five-day summer program at Tufts [the first in a series of regional trainings] that aims to train mathematicians to do just that

[...] over 900 people have indicated their interest by signing up for a mailing list

http://tufts.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=3529c170e5d9b7...

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Quoting from the end of that article, calling out the "efficiency gap" as the spark for work towards a mathematical definition of "compactness" satisfying districting requirements in a way that is convincingly explainable as fair:

Recently there was a big media sensation in Wisconsin around something called the "efficiency gap." It was a new metric of partisan gerrymandering that, for the first time, a court said they liked. The way it was devised was that the people who created it, they went back and they read all of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s written decisions about measuring gerrymandering. By reading his words and by reading what he said he found convincing and less convincing, they designed a statistic to appeal to him.

To rephrase this a little more concisely:

SCOTUS turns based on which side of the bed Kennedy wakes up on (on most issues). There are 4 solid liberal votes and 4 solid conservative votes and Kennedy in the middle.

Kennedy indicated in a ruling a few years ago that in theory he's uncomfortable with gerrymandering and might be open to striking them down, but apart from "I know it when I see it" he doesn't know a neutral/nonpartisan way to actually detect it. And "I know it when I see it" doesn't work well as a judicial test, there needs to be a bright-line somewhere that lower courts can apply.

Well, a bunch of mathematicians heard that and said "challenge accepted" and have been working on mathematical models to quantify the level of gerrymandering. And now the court cases are working their way back up to SCOTUS, only with the academic models that Kennedy has indicated he wants.

Now we get to find out whether Kennedy's interest in neutering gerrymandering actually goes as far as being willing to strike down a gerrymander. Because it's easy to talk the talk, but at the end of the day Kennedy is still conservative-ish and gerrymandering heavily benefits conservatives overall.

My guess is Kennedy will punt and say there are two many models to choose from with no clear way to determine which one is best even though they are clearly better than what we have now.

To a large extent the court should punt. Congress - as the ones who make the laws - should decide which model is used, not the courts. The job of the courts is only to say if any particular model congress decides on is fair enough.

So you think the very people who unfairly have benefit from this partisan gerrymandering should be able to choose whether to continue it?

Let me guess, you happen to politically side with the benefiting partisans?

the courts benefit too. Liberal justices looking to retire tend to wait for a liberal president, and vice versa conservative justices wait for a conservative president.

> SCOTUS turns based on which side of the bed Kennedy wakes up on (on most issues).

I think this is a little bit misleading. Most Supreme Court decisions are unanimous.

When unanimous, SCOTUS isn't turning.

I was pretty much with you until the last paragraph.

The efficiency gap for all plans[0] shows pretty clearly gerrymandering can occur for either party. In fact, the very pro-Democratic plans are more gerrymandered than the very pro-Republican plans, including the plan in question. There are four pro-D plans with the upper error limit above .2 while the plan in question appears to be at approximately -1.5

There's no need to turn this into "if Kennedy doesn't vote against this he's in favor of gerrymandering because it helps his conservative leanings."

[0] https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/pJwDdPDejaHo83ukoW27r6Yaaxg=...

In fact, the very pro-Democratic plans are more gerrymandered than the very pro-Republican plans, including the plan in question.

The chart shows districing plans with larger efficiency gaps but the article does not offer any of the really damning plan simulation or sensitivity test results for those plans.

How do the current Democratic districting plans fare in terms of the efficiency gap? Can't tell by that graphic, and if the gerrymandered Democratic plans at the top are historical then do you see how Kennedy's conservative leanings would be relevant?

Conservative means resisting change. Gerrymandering, which benefits incumbents over challengers, is then inherently conservative.

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