Old trick of gerrymandering?

[imanamerican63]

I just heard Fox News on the radio, that the Republicans are going try to remake rules to their gerrymandering tactics! They wouldn't give details, but said they think it will work! So, lookout for the GOP to rig more elections?

[Igel]

1. I read a fun article last night.

So (R) have challenged the gerrymandering in the blue state of Maryland.

Apparently many (D) like this challenge, even though the gerrymandering was done with the goal of providing another safe (D) seat. Because they figure that banning gerrymandering will help them electorally across the country more than it will hurt them in MD.

Notice the principle involved: Not "gerrymandering is bad" but "if it's banned we get more power."

The MD legislative lines are horrendously gerrymandered. Now, there are more compact districts that could be more partisan, but still, this is gerrymandered. https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/mar/27/how-social-science-can-help-us-understand-moral-tribalism-in-politics

(Even some of the states that we think of as horribly (R) gerrymandered have had programs run a lot of alternative redistricting maps, and usually the bias remains the same way as the gerrymandering tilts. Less so, in most cases, more so in some. And utterly non-gerrymandered districting is probably bad since it cuts across communities and transit routes. Most of the argumentation is just saying that if you gerrymander less, there are slightly gerrymandered districts that favor us. That strikes me not as a moral or principled argument, but "gimme power" argument. I can accept those, but I dislike them masquerading as things they are not.)