🔍 The Problem and Opportunity
The Supreme Court’s recent decision that partisan gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable ends a long search for a judicial standard. That shift increases the importance of legislative solutions. A history of successful congressional action and existing statutory requirements show that the legislative route is more practical than commonly believed and allows consideration of a broader suite of districting objectives.
🛠️ What the Tool Does
A new, flexible software tool and evaluative framework make it possible to model and compare explicit districting objectives and their practical implications. The tool automates district-plan generation under legally relevant constraints and supports rigorous, transparent trade-off analysis among objectives.
🧪 How the Approach Was Tested
Applied to the last set of conditions Congress specified, the tool generated district plans that satisfy core statutory requirements:
- Equipopulous districts
- Contiguous districts
- Compact districts
To probe a long-standing technical controversy, the approach optimized plans according to 18 different formal definitions of compactness and then compared outcomes across those optimized plans. The evaluation contrasted representation outcomes for:
- Political parties
- Racial and ethnic minority groups
📈 Key Findings
- Across the 18 compactness definitions, the representation outcomes for parties and for racial/ethnic minorities were markedly consistent.
- The choice among these formal compactness metrics produced limited divergence in political and minority representation in the tested scenarios.
- The software and framework can be extended to other districting objectives and criteria, enabling systematic comparison of alternative statutory or policy priorities.
⚖️ Why It Matters
With the Court stepping away from adjudicating partisan gerrymandering, legislatures regain centrality for reform. The automated, flexible tool offers a practical way to operationalize statutory objectives, clarify trade-offs, and support evidence-driven legislative action on redistricting.
