Is the North Carolina 2016 Congressional map gerrymandered?

Question

User Dunk claims that North Carolina is not gerrymandered:

...people are ... ignorant to use North Carolina as some proof of gerrymandering. ... The republicans changed the boundaries into extremely common sense divisions. Representatives now share the common interests of the people they represent...

Are North Carolina's political districts in fact merely "extremely common sense" boundaries?

score 14 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 29 '21 at 12:54

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Are North Carolina's districts extremely common sense?

You can look for yourself - the colors designate each district.

Other than 2 and 4, they look pretty common sense and even those aren't particularly egregious by the (admittedly low) standard of east coast state congressional districts. Just based on looking at them and how they interact with municipal boundaries, they don't have any wild curves or exclaves. There seem to be more deviations from county lines than necessary, but superficially they aren't the snaking salamander districts that come to mind when we think of gerrymandering.

Are North Carolina's districts competitive and does the party makeup of representatives roughly match the population?

Jontia's answer covers this quite well to a resounding no. The entire Supreme Court signed onto opinions labelling this as egregious partisan gerrymandering.

Extremely common sense districts and outcomes that drastically favor one party over another are not mutually exclusive possibilities. Even computer algorithms designed purely for geometry can favor one party depending on the demographics. This compact algorithmic districting, results in far from the close to 50/46 split seen in the presidential popular vote for North Carolina.

In this case, (and most cases in contemporary US politics) cities are strongly progressive while rural and suburban areas are more split. In order to create districts that don't favor one party over another, the districts might actually have to look somewhat odd. Compare 538's hypothetical map designed to promote competitive elections:

...to the current map. The competitive one actually looks just as gerrymandered as the current one, thanks to demographic concentrations of voters. One promising way of promoting fair districting involves not geometry and common sense, but self interest in shaping districts.

edited Oct 29 '21 at 12:54

CDJB

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answered Jul 03 '19 at 14:24

lazarusL

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The general comments about the lack of mutual exclusion is a really good one. However looking at the map, I'd pick out districts 2 and 4 as looking "salamander" like, although I've seen worse. Districts 1/3, 10/11 and 13/6 seems to take half a chunk of each other's whatever the underlaying thick black lines represent. The last time it looked "extreme common sense" based on a high level view like this would be 1992 – Jontia Jul 03 '19 at 14:39
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Also, I love the fivethrityeight links. It's worth noting that the "current" and "gerrymander to favour Republican" maps produce the exact same result. – Jontia Jul 03 '19 at 14:42
@Jontia you're right, I tried to leave it a bit more open. – lazarusL Jul 03 '19 at 14:44
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"Extremely common" is an inadvertent oxymoron... blame me for including Dunk's wording in the question. – agc Jul 03 '19 at 15:13
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I'm not sure that I'd call that extension of 10 that takes up half a county(?) that's otherwise in 11 a "common sense" border. Ditto the tiny extension into 13, or the 13-6 border. I like the rest of this answer, but I feel like that whole first paragraph is disingenuous. – Bobson Jul 03 '19 at 17:53
@Bobson better? – lazarusL Jul 03 '19 at 18:08
@Bobson I feel like I can give NC a little benefit of the doubt because my whole point is that you can't tell a gerrymandered state from looking at a map unless the state legislature is completely shameless about it. – lazarusL Jul 03 '19 at 18:10
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For those questioning the borders, you obviously have no idea of the geography of North Carolina. It is not Kansas. It is not one big flat piece of paper. Add the mountains, add the different farming regions, add the cities, add the coastal areas to the equations and you'd see that representatives have fairly common interests covering the territory they represent. This is unlike when the democrats drew the boundaries that snaked throughout the rural areas which ended up ensuring the that rural areas had absolutely nobody to represent their interests. – Dunk Jul 03 '19 at 18:24
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@Dunk you're right I don't know much about NC geography. Do the county lines not take any of those points into account? County splitting is the most obvious question mark from looking at a map. The other being the linked 538 map, where ignoring all state rules the best possible gerrymandering result gives the same effect as the current maps, that is or should be concerning to say the least. – Jontia Jul 03 '19 at 19:01
@Jontia The historical record of congressional districts here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina%27s_congressional_districts If you want to see what gerrymandering districts look like, there it is. Unfortunately, you can't see the cities on those maps but the democrats sliced the large city populations (Charlotte/Raleigh) in order to move excess votes into other districts creating contortionist looking districts. Basically, the representatives in those districts catered to the city dwellers while totally ignoring their constituents that were frequently located over 100 miles away. – Dunk Jul 03 '19 at 20:47
The reason the democrats had to snake the districts was because the suburbs of the cities are conservative leaning. Thus, by creating 'reasonable' looking districts that would cut across cities and suburbs the democrats ran the risk of not having guaranteed 'safe' districts. – Dunk Jul 03 '19 at 20:52
@lazarusL - Definitely better. I'm not sure I agree with you, but it now feels reasonable enough to give you the upvote. Thanks for revising it. – Bobson Jul 03 '19 at 22:08
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@Dunk - I'll agree that the 93-98 map (which I assume was Democrat-designed) is particularly absurd. That said, I'm not sure what relevance that has now. Just because that was a particularly egregious example doesn't mean that the current map is not gerrymandered. – Bobson Jul 03 '19 at 22:15
I feel the 538 mapped in this question is picked disingenuously. The selected map has terrible boundaries because it is deliberately gerrymandered to be competitive. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/redistricting-maps/north-carolina/#Compact is probably a fairer comparison. – Jontia Jul 08 '19 at 22:02
@Jontia I think that's a lovely nap and it looks quite fair, but it gives Republicans almost all the seats they would want to gain by gerrymandering. My point is that nice looking fair maps can push seats to one party well above what they would get in something like proportional representation by vote share. – lazarusL Jul 08 '19 at 22:27
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I think that's just the nature of a two party first past the post system. After all if votes were split 51/49 and evenly distributed around the country, the result would be a 100% of seats victory for the 51 guys. – Jontia Jul 08 '19 at 22:54
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On consideration, this answer seems to be based on a questionable premise, namely that gerrymandering must be as visually obvious as the infamous 1812 South Essex Massachusetts state Senate district. But with computation, it now appears possible to achieve the same dastardly effect in a more subtle way with the principle of concealed distribution used in various popular puzzles, by slightly zigzagging district borders just so. – agc Sep 04 '20 at 07:43

score 12 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 29 '19 at 04:34

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The recent Supreme Court ruling on this specific case is available. In this instance the court was split 5-4 along Conservative/Liberal lines.

The majority opinion states that Partisan Gerrymandering is outside the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the conservative 5-4 majority in Rucho v. Common Cause, admitted that excessive partisan gerrymandering is “incompatible with democratic principles” and “leads to results that reasonably seem unjust.” But, the Court held, challenges to the practice “present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts.”

The minority opinion notes that the cases before the court had been subjected to common judicial tests and that both Maryland (Dem) and North Carolina (Rep) had been shown to be Gerrymandered for Partisan political gain.

Applying that test to the North Carolina and Maryland cases, Kagan determined that illegal partisan gerrymandering had occurred in both. “By substantially diluting the votes of citizens favoring their rivals, the politicians of one party had succeeded in entrenching themselves in office,” she wrote. “They had beat democracy.”

So, the short answer to the question would appear to be Yes, North Carolina's (and Maryland's) districts have been gerrymandered for political gain, but that this is (based on a 5-4 ruling) legal within the United States on a federal basis. Whether this is legal on a state level is still an ongoing concern.

The Federal District courts applied the following tests, both cases failed these tests and were judged to be Partisan Gerrymandering.

Kagan cited the three-part test the federal district courts in North Carolina and Maryland, and other courts around the country, used to decide vote dilution claims. The test examines intent, effects and causation. First, plaintiffs must show that the state officials’ “predominant purpose” in drawing district lines was to “entrench [their party] in power” by diluting the votes of the rival party. Second, plaintiffs must establish that the lines drawn “substantially” diluted their votes. Third, the burden shifts to the State to posit a “legitimate, non-partisan justification to save its map.”

The full opinion of the lower court is available, and appears to set the affect of dilution at 19.4%, but the precise meaning of this is not something I currently understand.

edited Oct 29 '19 at 04:34

Stormblessed

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answered Jul 03 '19 at 13:35

Jontia

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I think this answer could be made more convincing by adding what those "common judicial tests" were and what exactly their results were. – Philipp Jul 03 '19 at 14:03
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@Phillipp added the tests, but I disagree that the Supreme Court ruling is not relevant, because it makes the whole question moot. Gerrymandering is (federally) legal, so the content of the tests is the thing that's irrelevant because the ruling allows districts to be redrawn purely for political purposes. – Jontia Jul 03 '19 at 14:11
OK, but were the results of these judicial tests? How much did the districts "dilute the votes of the rival party" and how can we see that this was intentional? And what are the counter-arguments by those who drew the maps? Also, the question does not ask if it was illegal, just if it was gerrymandering. Just because it was legal gerrymandering doesn't mean it wasn't gerrymandering. – Philipp Jul 03 '19 at 14:15
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Kagan's dissent is fairly specific: "...a map that produces a greater partisan skew than any of 3,000 randomly generated maps (all with the State’s political geography and districting criteria built in) reflects “too much” partisanship. Think about what I just said: The absolute worst of 3,001 possible maps. The only one that could produce a 10–3 partisan split even as Republicans got a bare majority of the statewide vote. ... A map that in 2011 was responsible for the largest partisan swing of a congressional district in the country." – agc Jul 03 '19 at 14:22
@Philipp The Dilution appears to be 19.4% but this is probably not a minimum limit, just the one determined in this case. That said I haven't read/understood the entire 200 page opinion. Percentage appears on page 125 – Jontia Jul 08 '19 at 21:28
This doesn't answer the question, rather it irrelevantly explains that the Supreme Court couldn't presently agree to answer the question. – agc Sep 04 '20 at 09:02
@agc the Supreme Court did answer the question, with a 5-4 majority, that it is irrelevant as federally, gerrymandering is ok. – Jontia Sep 04 '20 at 10:09
@Jontia, the Q. isn't about whether gerrymandering is morally or legally ok or not, it's about whether North Carolina is in fact gerrymandered. – agc Sep 05 '20 at 03:55
@agc I understand that. But I feel the point that partisan gerrymandering is federally legal as per the court's majority opinion is pertinent as generally the reason for asking 'Is something X' is that this is bad and should be stopped. – Jontia Sep 05 '20 at 11:09

Is the North Carolina 2016 Congressional map gerrymandered?

2 Answers2