The Redistricting Game is designed to educate, engage, and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting. Currently, the political system in most states allows the state legislators themselves to draw the lines. This system is subject to a wide range of abuses and manipulations that encourage incumbents to draw districts which protect their seats rather than risk an open contest.
By exploring how the system works, as well as how open it is to abuse, The Redistricting Game allows players to experience the realities of one of the most important (yet least understood) aspects of our political system. The game provides a basic introduction to the redistricting system, allows players to explore the ways in which abuses can undermine the system, and provides info about reform initiatives - including a playable version of the Tanner Reform bill to demonstrate the ways that the system might be made more consistent with tenets of good governance. Beyond playing the game, the web site for The Redistricting Game provides a wealth of information about redistricting in every state as well as providing hands-on opportunities for civic engagement and political action.
The Redistricting Game was created at the USC Game Innovation Lab - part of the USC School of Cinematic Arts', Interactive Media Division.
Play the game here: http://www.redistrictinggame.org/index.php
Redistricting Game for Real in Illinois
In January, it was announced that Illinois will lose a congressional seat, the U.S. Census Bureau said; following the 2012 elections, Illinois will send 18 members to the House of Representatives, down from the current 19.
Lynn Sweet of the Sun-Times wrote about the redistricting, re-apportionment, possible gerrymandering and the political wrangling that will be going on in Springfield. To an earlier post with the re-districting game, how would you draw Illinois' new 2012 Congressional map?
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WASHINGTON--Illinois will lose a congressional seat, the U.S. Census Bureau announced on Tuesday; following the 2012 elections, Illinois will send 18 members to the House of Representatives, down from the current 19.
Nationally, the reapportionment favors Republicans: states that vote Republican gained the most seats, which has implications not only for the balance of power in Congress, but in the 2012 presidential campaign, because the the electoral votes are based on the new census counts.
In Illinois, Democrats will take the first stab at drawing the new district maps at a time when the GOP just picked up four seats. Presumably, the Illinois Democrats will mull whether they can throw together in a fight for survival any of the 11 Illinois Republicans who will be sworn in on Jan. 5 with GOP Reps. Joe Walsh, Bob Dold, Adam Kinzinger, and Bobby Schilling potentially the most vulnerable.
Illinois remains one of the top five most populous states in the nation, with a new official population total of 12,864,380, according to the new Census figures.
The Tuesday announcement just deals with reapportioning the 435-member House of Representatives. Starting in February, the Census Bureau will start announcing the state-specific numbers that are needed in order for redistricting. In Illinois, the Democratic controlled Illinois General Assembly will try to draw new boundaries for House, state legislative, city wards, judicial and other districts--though if there is not agreement, the job is kicked over to a commission.
The reapportionment favors Republicans: Texas picked up the most seats--four, with Florida gaining two and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington gaining one.
In all, ten states lost seats. Eight of them are states that vote Democrat: New York and Ohio lost two seats, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are down one.
Missouri and Louisiana are also down a seat.
Illinois has been loosing congressional seats since 1930. Here's a recap on the number of House members Illinois has been sending to Washington each decade:
2010: 18
2000: 19
1990: 20
1980: 22
1970: 24
1960: 24
1950: 25
1940: 26
1930: 27
In Illinois there will be a political struggle over whether a new congressional map drops a seat from northern Illinois or Downstate. There also will be internal wrangling between GOP and Democratic incumbents who would not be threatened with losing their seat because of population shifts--but would want to improve or enhance political viability by having new district maps include neighborhoods that would be reliable Republican or Democratic votes.
If the census shows a big Hispanic population increase in Illinois--and if that growth is not scattered across the state--Illinois Democrats may be under pressure to create a second Hispanic district. The first Hispanic district in Illinois was drawn following the 1990 census--a convoluted "C" shape district that includes Hispanic neighborhoods on Chicago's North and South Sides wrapped around a district running from the lakefront to the near western suburbs drawn to yield an African American representative.
Following the 2000 and 1990 census, in Illinois, the GOP and Democratic House incumbents got together and cut deals with each other in order to try to protect their own seats in the wake of the musical chair scenario where it would be impossible for all of them to return to Congress. Still, they could not all save their seats. The remap after the 2000 Census saw Democratic Rep. David Phelps and GOP Rep. John Shimkus running against each other in the same district. Shimkus won and has been re-elected ever since.
State Sen. Kwame Raul (D-Chicago), who chairs the state senate reapportionment committee, told me on Monday the legislature will try to seize more control of the congressional remap process because it is their "responsibility," he said. Redistricting reform measures Raul backed never won state legislative approval.
View the current Illinois Congressional map, with its represenatives here:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=IL
16 comments:
That was probably the hardest game I have ever played. As soon as I got my party and governor to be happy with the boundaries, the court went against me. I wonder how these corrupt boudaries get passed when there are three stages to get passed. If most people do not like the gerrymandering, why do they then vote to keep the boundaries. And why, if politicians say they are against gerrymandering, like President Barack Obama, do they do nothing to reform the political bondaries?
I had a lot of trouble getting the boundaries correct for the partisan gerrymander; even a slight percentage change in constituent majority made them angry. It was also difficult to meet all the requirements, because as soon as you achieve your party's goal, then population equality becomes a problem.
Carolyn, I think they don't reform gerrymandering because all politicians benefit from it at some point, if not individually then as a party.
Alright, I failed. Obviously I am not corrupted enough to gerrymander. Now, on to the Voting Rights Act. It seems that the Act was originally made in an attempt to equalize black and white voters, but ended up having widespread effects. It now forces states to check their redistricting with a federal preclearance review, which sounds pretty serious. Basically, a racial or language minority can no longer be split up in order to prevent representation. On the other end though, they cannot be all pooled together (or can they?). Basically, it's a mess. There are loopholes everywhere, and gerrymandering still occurs. At least, in the real world. In the game, I can't get anywhere. I think I commented on the other blog twice...
The voting rights act plays a great influence on gerrymandering with people whom draw the boundaries enforce the act in order for minorities to have greater representation. If minorities were split between different districts that did not see their views, there would be no representation for that group in congress. States are gerrymandered in odd boundaries to include a dominate minority. For example, take Illinois' 4th district, the earmuff boundaries are drawn in a way to include a predominantly Hispanic population which leads to the population electing a Hispanic congressman(Luis Gutierrez.
I thought the game was very challenging as the boundaries had to have the same population ratio, and creating a new African-American district started boundary issues with the race population in Hamilton. The Democratic Philip Phlop's district had problems with party representation and his house being out of the district. My boundaries were rejected at first by the courts due to two districts not being contiguous. After taking about a hour, I was finally able to match the five congressional boundaries to the population requirements and a new African-American district.
Although this game provided a great distraction form my English essay, it was very tedious. As I attempted to make a district in which 65% of its constituents we're of african American decent, the population distribution became severely skewed. I dont know who should be in charge, but it seems as if the current system of re-districting is extremely flawed. I would suggest some sort of third party with no political interest ( I know very unlikely) to come in and be in charge of the new system
In the time period given to play the game I wasn't able to beat it. It seemed that as soon as I got certain things right the others were wrong. I think that if I wasn't asked to make a neighborhood with a certain amount of a minority it would have been a lot easier. The game certainly was an eye opener on the time and effort put into trying to give one's political an edge.
I agree with Michelle (Carolyn), I thought games were supposed to be fun...not so brain twisted and challenging. And to top it all of, I only played on the "basic" level. I don't like the concept of Gerrymandering almost as much as I dislike the game itself. I don't think it's fair for politicans to redraw their own district boundries for thier own political gains. I think the redistricting process should be the same as everything else in America (for the most part)...fair!
The Redistricting Game showed me just how much thought is actually put into the boundaries of each district. It showed me why it is that incumbents can win so frequently. Their calculations of their chance of carrying a district are so precise it seems impossible for them to lose.
During the period I was not able to get the gerrymandering correct. It seemed that even a slight change to the district woud make someone angry. I also found it interesting that even though the majority said "yay" for the lines I drew, the court went against me. Having the correct amount of minority representation in a district made the game even more difficult. The game was a watered-down simulation of how the gerrymandering actually work.
I definitely didn't anticipate the game being as challenging as it was. Clearly gerrymandering takes skill that I do not possess. The game was enlightening about the effort that actually goes into ensuring election wins through redistricting. Judging by the game and what we talked about in class, I don't think that the way the redistricting process currently works is adequate. It seems like it would be much better to leave determining legislative districts up to a third party so that they wouldn’t purposefully influence election results.
I failed the game. Gerrymandering seems like an incredibly delicate-- albeit corrupt-- business with weighty ramifications. Throughout the course of the game, I found it difficult to both further my party's candidates through gerrymandering and meet the minimum requirements for candidates of the opposing party.
Frankly, I don't understand why gerrymandering is still considered acceptable. It is probably one of the more transparent modes of corruption existent in America today, and yet, the practice continues to prosper.
Our current Senators and Representatives are:
-Richard Durbin (Senator, Democrat, elected 2010): won by 68% in last election; is on the Appropriations, Foreign Relations, Joint Committee on the Library, Judiciary, and Rules and Administration committees; is currently working on the Dream Act and the Teachers and Firefighters Back to Work Act
-Mark Kirk (Senator, Republican, elected 2010 replacing Obama): 48% in last election; is on the Appropriations, Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and Special Committee on Aging committees; is working on the International Travelers Bill of Rights, Stop Unfair Giveaways and Restrictions Act, and the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act
(are we supposed to do more than 1 or 2 congresspeople?)
The redistricting game was pretty interesting. I thought it was hard at first, but once I got the hang of it it was easy and fun, which is probably why candidates like gerrymandering. I think it's pretty ridiculous. Gerrymandering is straightforward corruption, but since it's legal most people don't hear about it. Also, those who do know about it, don't take any action; I think it's been allowed to go on for so long simply because the people haven't done anything about it. Which is understandable, since we saw how difficult it would be to reverse just one boundary change in the video about California, but still unfortunate.
The purpose of the Voting Rights Act was to ensure that an equal amount of races were able to vote in each district, so that one group would not be able to vote into office a candidate that would only favor their group unfairly. It has to do with redistricting because Section 2 says that unfair representation can be challenged, so districts can be changed if they are viewed as unfairly representative of each race. I think legislation like this act are the reason behind gerrymandering getting so out of control; senators and representatives probably saw how easy it was to change district lines, and were able to change lines under the guise of ensuring equality.
By the way Max you spelled my name wrong it's MicheLe.... only one L!! And I went back and beat the game... on basic.
I guess that the politicians are super corrupt and only want whats best for them. But maybe they should think about the people. What about what is best for the people. Is what'
s best for the people a corrupt politician who only won his/her seat by gerrymandering, or do we want our candidate to earn their seat??
The game was a lot harder than I anticipated. Every time I would try to gerrymander the districts, I would get shot down in court or in the state senate. Having played this game now, I would think that having all these hoops to jump through with the possibility of total failure at the end would prevent gerrymandering or at the very least, dissuade legislators from even attempting it. Evidently these incumbents want to win much more than I do. Or perhaps they just know the rules and how to get past the barriers in their way.
We should not only allow gerrymandering but expand it beyond districts to entire states. Let the US Congress redraw the borders of all 50 states every decade or so. It will give more jobs to cartographers, after all. I wonder what they can do with Hawaii. America sees itself as a democratic model to the world, so why not use this wonderful tool to show it?
-Nick S.
This game was quite a bit of fun. But after you got to like the fourth level it was pretty hard. I managed to get through them all the first time I played but it took quite a bit of time. I also realized very quickly that you weren't allowed to move people out of their districts.
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