solarbird | (Reply)

From:

One thing I've noticed about redistricting commissions, at least the way Washington state does it, is that with the legislature still in charge, the commission becomes all about incumbent protection -- so you get gerrymandering to create safe districts for everybody. Hence why last time around you got CD 8 going over the mountains to grab more R areas to give Dave Reichert a safer seat while Rick Larson's district was split E-W and he was given all of the coastal areas to make *his* district McDermott levels of bullet-proof while the eastern part became the new CD1, and it's something of a fluke that Suzan DelBene was able to win it.

I think the only right way to do it is algorithmically; which means we'll have to fight over the algorithm, but I think in the long run that'll still give better results than endless gaming that we get.

And I suspect National Popular Vote Covenant is going to kick in a lot sooner than they'll get to expanding the House. But if you're going to expand the House, may as well do the 5000 person body, which will (1) actually be able to get more work done, because there'll be more reps to staff the committees (2) will have an easier time with fundraising because the individual campaigns will get way cheaper and there'll be fewer people to call. If we need to expand the Capitol, let's just do that, or yeah, install a whole lot of remote meeting software and equipment; it's not like the Feds can't afford it.