Pennsylvania Congressional District Map Is Ruled Unconstitutional

[SummerMadness]

Pennsylvania Congressional District Map Is Ruled Unconstitutional

Pennsylvania's congressional district map is a partisan gerrymander that "clearly, plainly and palpably" violates the state’s constitution, the state's Supreme Court said on Monday, joining a string of court decisions that have struck down political maps that unduly favor one political party.

The court banned the current map of 18 House districts from being used again, and ordered that a proposed new map be submitted to the court by Feb. 15. But the state's Republican-dominated legislature, which approved the current district map in 2011, has already said it would seek to overturn such a decision in federal court. That would set up another legal battle over gerrymanders in a year already filled with them.

Congressional districts should simply be drawn by a non-partisan group, the idea that the party in power gets to draw districts to advantage itself for a decade is just backwards to me. I personally like the idea of not having any districts at all, and having a parliamentary style system for the House of Representatives. Each state gets a certain number of representatives based on their population and you'll vote for a party, who will then send representatives to the Congress. For Senate and President, I would still have it as popular vote, but I think the House should work differently. I think in such a system, you would also see some third parties emerge, which would certainly change the almost unworkable two-party system we see now.

 

[Tanj]

Or, you could just use proportional split lines.

Also, you misunderstand how parliamentary systems work, most of which work on a district basis. If you want to enable more than two parties and risk the potential instability you often see in European countries then you need a proportional voting system.

Here's how Germany and a number of other countries do it:
Germans elect their members of parliament with two votes. One vote is for a direct candidate, who ought to receive a plurality vote in their election district. The second vote (considered as more important) is to elect a party list in each state as established by its respective party caucus. Half of the Bundestag is then filled with candidates that won their electoral districts by the first votes and the other half by candidates from the party lists according roughly to the proportion the parties receive from the second votes according to a complex mathematical formula. Common practice is that direct candidates are also placed on the electoral lists at higher rankings as a fall-back if they do not win their districts.