First, there is no such thing as an "independent commission" particularly when it comes to redistricting. Commissions are made up of people, each of whom has their own personal political agenda and will use that to influence their vote one way or another.\Blind groper wrote:You Americans could take a tip from little ol' New Zealand (Australia too, I think).
We have an independent Electoral Commission which sets the electoral boundaries. It is totally out of the hands of those bloody politicians. We have another commission which sets the salaries of politicians, which is also totally independent of political control.
New Zealand has been listed as the least corrupt nation on Earth, and it is no coincidence that we take power out of the hands of politicians, when that power leads to corruption.
But, I'm all for taking power out of the hands of politicians, right up until it leads to tyranny of the majority.
That being said, the ONLY way to fairly district any state is to do so by geography. Districts should be laid out according to the UTM grid with no exceptions being made to the boundaries of the grid. Equal representation could only be achieved by adding or subtracting whole ADJACENT grids from a district to balance the raw population numbers in each district based only on Census figures and survey data. Each district would have to be square and aligned with the UTM grid.
This should be a mathematical calculation not subject to ANY political vote whatsoever that is performed by the National Geodetic Survey in cooperation with the Census Bureau. The calculations should be public record that can be challenged in court if the formula is deviated from.
