Just Look at FHFA Pick Mel Watts's Awful Gerrymandered District

[octoberlib]

President Obama's decision to tap Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency ensures that, if confirmed, he will be playing a pivotal role in housing policy. But it also spotlights the awkwardly shaped congressional district he will be vacating, one of the most gerrymandered in the country. The district was originally drawn to connect scattered African-American precincts in towns from Gastonia 160 miles south to Raleigh-Durham. It now covers a smorgasbord of disconnected metropolitan areas, including parts of the cities of Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Lexington, Salisbury, and High Point.


Starting with the 1990s redistricting, Democrats backed the creation of the snake-shaped district to ensure the election of an African-American member of Congress. But Republicans later supported the gerrymandering too, since it ensured that neighboring districts would remain as conservative as possible by segregating the mostly Democratic black voters together in one district. So when Republicans took control of the state Legislature in 2010, they largely kept Watt's seat intact as part of their plan to maximize GOP representation in the state. (Watt is now one of only three Democrats left in the state's House delegation.)

According to the Almanac of American Politics, Watt's district was "the most litigated district in the country during the 1990s, and was the focus of no fewer than four cases that went to the Supreme Court of the United States."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/just-look-at-fhfa-pick-mel-wattss-awful-gerrymandered-district/275485/

[John2]

1. The county of

Durham is very heavily Democratic and Liberal. The trick for this gerrymandering scheme was to get enough voters in Districts that met population requirements. Watt had more votes than anybody in the State, because it was mostly urban. Most of the Republican Districts are spreaded over very large masses of land and more counties in North Carolina. In some cases they meet the requirements of population by dividing white urban areas that should be in the same District as the cities. It is still racial gerrymandering. The results were good for Watts and the Repubs. They are all in safe Districts for life.

[dsc]

2. the atlantic should do a better job of fact checking

there are 4 dems in the nc delegation (Watt, Price, Butterfield, McIntyre)

[davidt2974]

3. HB 606

FWIW, there is a Bill in the NCGA right now that would take re-districting out of the hands of lawmakers and into a non-partisan group that would not be allowed to use voter data when drawing districts.

There is a petition online now for those who support this bill:
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/an-end-to-gerrymandering

Here's the background statement for it:
Voters should select their representatives, not the other way around. The two political parties have made a complete mess of our electoral process by corrupting it at its foundation. In an effort to make elections more about which side has the better ideas and to reduce the political divide in our country, I propose that the power to create voting districts be taken away from whatever partisan faction is in control and that voting districts be created by a "jury" of citizens tasked with creating political voting districts with only raw population data, no voter registration information, to work with.

And here's the Bill from NCLEG:
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/PDF/H606v1.pdf

[octoberlib]

4. Thanks for the info! nt

[gklagan]

5. research basis?

Any links to nonpartisan evaluation of the impact of this policy would be much appreciated. If you don't have any handy I do have a j-stor account and some book marked pages for UN democracy building groups that may have done some research on similar policies.