Memorandum
Date: September 22, 2021
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To: Name
From: Name
Subject: Policy Memo – The Fair Representation Act of 2019
Main Takeaway
Independent redistricting commissions, as proposed by the Fair Representation Act of 2019, would likely result in a considerable decline in gerrymandering. This could improve voter sentiment about elections, improve voter approval ratings of elected bodies, and generally result in more representative elected bodies.
Background
The Fair Representation Act is a bill introduced in the US House of Representatives in 2019. Its three main policy actions would be to:
- Require Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) in all federal house elections
- Require Multi-Member Districts (MMD’s) for all federal house elections
- Require each state to adopt an Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) to draw federal house districts during redistricting. (H.R.4000, 2019)
For this analysis however, we will focus exclusively on the implementation of independent redistricting commissions.
It is true that American trust in elections and political institutions is low, and that legislative bodies in America are often not very representative of their constituencies (Gallup, 2020) (FairVote.org, 2021). Certainly for the latter issue, a great deal of the problem is caused by the fact that our current election system dramatically limits voter choice, causes massive rounding errors representation, and allows politicians to draw legislative district maps to their personal and political benefit. H.R. 4000 seeks to address these issues, but would these policies be truly effective at accomplishing their goal if the bill were to ever be passed?
IRC’s exist largely to curtail Gerrymandering, and multiple states have adopted them already. Gerrymandering is the process of strategically drawing legislative districts to minimize the political influence of political or demographic groups disliked by those with the authority to draw the maps, usually state legislators (Dawkins, 2014). IRC’s are committees of appointed citizens, not legislators or government actors of any kind, who are charged with drawing district maps in a way that is hopefully politically neutral. Being a member of the commission is much like jury duty, in the sense that an average citizen, in the name of fairness, can be called upon to take part in a crucial aspect of free democracy.
Evidence
A thesis titled “The Limits of Partisanship in Citizen Preferences on Redistricting” studied the preferences of respondents who were showed a variety of district maps. One map had been drawn with a severe gerrymander to the benefit of Republicans, another had been drawn with a severe gerrymander to Democrats, one was drawn to give a near 50/50 split to Democrats and Republicans, and the final map had been drawn by a non-partisan commission to give each party a share of seats very close to its share of the statewide vote. McCarthy found “The most striking finding is that the nonpartisan map is by far the most popular option across all treatment groups and both parties” (McCarthy, 2019).
Take, for example, the results of California’s and Michigan’s 2012 elections for all US congressional seats in each state. 2012 was chosen as the measurement year because that was the first election after the 2011 redistricting cycle, so any gerrymandering effects would be most pronounced in that year. California’s citizens were voting in a map drawn by an IRC, whereas Michigan’s voters were voting in a map drawn by the state legislature at a time when Republicans had unified control of the state.
| State | Democrats Share of Votes Received | Winning Party Share of Seats Won | “Representation Error” |
| CA | 60.57% | 71.70% [38/53] | 11.12% |
| MI | 50.89% | 35.71% [6/15] | 15.18% |
(California SOS, 2012) (Michigan SOS, 2012)
Democrats in California received 60.57% of the votes, but 71.7% of the seats. |71.7-60.57| = 11.12% representation error. In Michigan, Democrats received 50.89% of the votes, but only 35.71% of the seats. |35.71-50.89| = 15.18% representation error. Just based on this quick comparison, it appears that California’s IRC produced a map that is more representative of its population
Conclusions and Implementation
Early evidence suggests that IRCs could be an extremely effective method for reducing the impact of gerrymandering on legislative bodies. However, politically, IRCs are an uphill battle. Firstly, state legislatures have an obvious incentive to oppose them. Second, IRCs almost always require an amendment to the state constitution, which can be a heavy lift even for very popular initiatives (NCSL, 2020).
Despite these challenges, IRCs have been largely embraced in the states where they have been proposed in recent years. Michigan, Utah, Ohio, and Colorado all approved some kind of redistricting commission in 2018 (to be used for the first time in the 2021 districting cycle).
As such, I would recommend that the state-level ballot initiative strategy continue to be rolled out. After such substantial success in Michigan and other swing states, it seems that those states would be an excellent place to target ballot initiatives prior to the 2030 redistricting cycle – for example Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, or Indiana.
Works Cited
California SOS. (2012). General Election – Statement of Vote, November 6 2012. Retrieved from sos.ca.gov: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/prior-elections/statewide-election-results/general-election-november-6-2012/statement-vote
Dawkins, Wayne. “In America, Voters Don’t Pick Their Politicians. Politicians Pick Their Voters.” The Guardian, October 9, 2014, sec. Opinion. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/09/virginia-gerrymandering-votingrights-act-black-voters.
Electoral Reform Society. “Single Transferable Vote.” Accessed September 24, 2021.
FairVote.org. “Gerrymandering.” FairVote. Accessed September 24, 2021.
Gallup. “Faith in Elections in Relatively Short Supply in U.S.” Gallup.com, February 13, 2020. https://news.gallup.com/poll/285608/faith-elections-relatively-short-supply.aspx.
“H.R.4000 – 116th Congress (2019-2020): Fair Representation Act.” Webpage, August 28, 2019.
2019/2020. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/4000.
McCarthy, D. (2019). The Limits of Partisanship in Citizen Preferences on Redistricting. upenn.edu.
Michigan SOS. (2012). 2012 Michigan Election Results. Retrieved from mielections.us:
NCSL. (2020). Creation of Redistricting Commissions. Retrieved from
Rep. Beyer, Don. “Beyer, House Democrats Introduce Fair Representation Act Following Supreme Court Decision On Gerrymandering,” July 25, 2019.