Congressional Plan Research Articles

An Optimization Case Study in Analyzing Missouri Redistricting

Every 10 years, U.S. states redraw their congressional and state legislative district plans. This process decides the political landscape for the subsequent 10 years. Prior to the 2021 redistricting cycle, Missouri enacted new criteria for state legislative districts. The Missouri League of Women Voters (LWV-MO) contacted the authors to analyze the potential impact of these new criteria on the map-drawing process. We apply recombination (a spanning tree method) within a local search optimization framework to analyze the interplay between political geography, constitutional requirements, and political fairness in Missouri. We use this framework to produce district plans that satisfy the new criteria and prioritize different aspects of fairness. The results, quantified by several measures of fairness, reveal an inherent Republican advantage in Missouri because of the state’s political geography and constitutional requirements. We conclude that Missouri’s political geography and constitutional requirements prevent the optimization framework from substantially improving political fairness in state legislative plans. In contrast, the framework can substantially improve political fairness in Missouri congressional plans, which are not subject to the new requirements. The LWV-MO used this work to advocate for fairness and transparency in their testimonies for the Missouri redistricting commission’s public hearings. History: This paper was refereed. Funding: This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program [Grant DGE-1746047]. S. H. Jacobson was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research [Grant FA9550-19-1-0106]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/inte.2022.0037 .

Redistricting optimization with recombination: A local search case study

In the U.S., states redraw electoral district boundaries every ten years. Given that redistricting affects political representation at both the state and national levels, it is crucial to prevent the manipulation of district boundaries for political gain. Optimization methods can be valuable tools for promoting transparency and fairness in redistricting. Here we examine a novel local search approach for redistricting that transitions between feasible solutions using Recombination (a recently introduced spanning tree iteration). We compare the performance of multiple local search heuristics using both Recombination and more traditional Flip iterations by optimizing congressional plans for Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee with respect to several common fairness objectives. We evaluate which heuristic produces the best objective value within limited time periods and generate collections of optimized plans. The Recombination heuristics produced excellent objective values, often far superior to the Flip heuristics; they also maintained more compact district shapes when the objective was not compactness. However, the Flip heuristics converged to a local optimum more quickly and occasionally achieved better solutions than the ReCom heuristics within short time periods. Hence, while the use of Recombination within local search frequently improves solution quality, there are some scenarios for which Flip may be preferable.

Estimating Seats–Votes Partisan Advantage

A new classification of metrics is introduced: Seats–Votes Partisan Advantage (). Metrics in this class measure whether redistricting plans favor one political party or the other. Ten prominent measures of partisan bias are computed for a cross-section of past, present, and hypothetical congressional plans and are classified with respect to this new taxonomy. Of these ten, only (dis)proportionality and the efficiency gap are found to be measures of . One newer metric measures as well.

An Exact Solution Method for the Political Districting Problem

Mehrotra, Johnson, and Nemhauser (1998) [Management Science 44, pp. 1100–1114] addressed a problem for political districting and developed an optimization based heuristic to find good districting plans which partition the population units into contiguous districts with equal populations. Their case study found a good South Carolina plan at a penalty cost of 68. This paper develops a strong integer programming model identifying the exact optimal solution. Our model identifies the optimal South Carolina plan at the minimum penalty of 64. Motivated by the 2019 lawsuit challenging the congressional plan as gerrymandering, we inspect the actual Maryland plan.

Mathematical Analysis of Redistricting in Utah

We discuss difficulties of evaluating partisan gerrymandering in the congressional districts in Utah and the failure of many common metrics in Utah. We explain why the Republican vote share in the least-Republican district (LRVS) is a good indicator of the advantage or disadvantage each party has in the Utah congressional districts. Although the LRVS only makes sense in settings with at most one competitive district, in that setting it directly captures the extent to which a given redistricting plan gives advantage or disadvantage to the Republican and Democratic parties. We use the LRVS to evaluate the most common measures of partisan gerrymandering in the context of Utah’s 2011 congressional districts. We do this by generating large ensembles of alternative redistricting plans using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. We also discuss the implications of this new metric and our results on the question of whether the 2011 Utah congressional plan was gerrymandered.

The Critical Role of Private Antitrust Enforcement in the United States Commentary on: 2020 Antitrust Annual Report: Class Action Filings in Federal Court

With all of the attention currently focused on public enforcement and legislative reform of the antitrust laws, less attention is being paid to private enforcement. But Congress considered private antitrust enforcement indispensable for promoting competition. The judiciary has so recognized time and time again. In California v. American Stores Co., for example, the Supreme Court proclaimed, “Private enforcement of the [Clayton] Act was in no sense an afterthought; it was an integral part of the congressional plan for protecting competition.” Private enforcement is not a substitute for vigorous public enforcement. Both are necessary to foster competition. But private enforcement plays an important part, one that becomes more significant when public enforcement recedes. And, unlike public enforcers, private enforcers can obtain significant damages on behalf of the victims of antitrust violations. This serves as a crucial source of deterrence for illegal anticompetitive conduct and the primary means of compensating victims for harms suffered at the hands of cartelists and dominant firms. The importance of the antitrust class action, a major private enforcement device, is clear. The recently released 2020 Antitrust Annual Report: Class Action Filings in Federal Court (“2020 Report”) by Huntington National Bank and the University of San Francisco School of Law (“USF Law”) reflects that the cumulative total settlement amount recovered for victims in antitrust class actions from 2009-2020 was over $27 billion. Antitrust class actions recover damages from companies engaged in harmful, illegal conduct, such as price fixing and attempted monopolization, in markets for important and essential products and services. The most active defendants during the period, for example, included companies providing financial services, pharmaceuticals, automobile parts, and electronics parts. In light of the vital role played by private antitrust enforcement, and the antitrust class action in particular, continued empirical analysis of trends in activity is essential. This analysis aids in understanding and evaluating proposals for reforming the antitrust laws in the U.S. and such proposals’ impact on private enforcement, the public-private partnership, and ultimately on competition and consumers.

Can State Courts Cure Partisan Gerrymandering: Lessons from League of Women Voters v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (2018)

Abstract In League of Women Voters et al. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania et al. (2018), henceforth abbreviated LWV, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down that state's congressional plan as an...

Can State Courts Cure Partisan Gerrymandering: Lessons from <i>League of Women Voters v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania</i> (2018)

In League of Women Voters et al. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania et al. (2018), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down that state’s congressional plan as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. It did so entirely on state law grounds after a three-judge federal court had rejected issuing a preliminary injunction against the plan. The aim of this essay is to examine the implications of LWV for future partisan gerrymandering litigation. In particular, we look toward the applicability of the Pennsylvania court’s approach to other potential partisan gerrymandering challenges brought under state law, especially those in the twelve states whose state constitutions have provisions essentially identical to the one relied upon by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and in states with similar provisions. We pay particular attention to how the Court made use of the expert witness testimony in the case, relying on some of it, while rejecting or critiquing the applicability of other elements, since such a discussion can inform future litigation in state courts drawing on the LWV opinion for ideas. In our concluding discussion we contrast the criteria used to evaluate partisan gerrymandering by this court with those used by federal courts, and we look at how it may impact the decisions of legislators about line drawing in 2020.

Taking Steel Seizure Seriously: Reflections on the Iran Nuclear Agreement

This article examines constitutional validity of President Obama's decision, as part of his 2015 with Iran, effectively to repeal 17 different sanctions laws for 15-year life of agreement. Although Congress had legislated extensively in this area, President effected this change by entering into a nonbinding political agreement with Iran and by aggregating individual waiver provisions in sanctions laws into an-across-the-board waiver of sanctions. We argue that commitments made by President in Iran violate a fundamental separation-of-powers limit on executive power—what we term the Steel Seizure principle, after Youngstown Steel Seizure Case. As Supreme Court reaffirmed in Steel Seizure Case, President does not have lawmaking power even where national-security and foreign-relations concerns are at stake. A vast literature has grown around Steel Seizure Case, especially influential concurring opinion by Justice Robert Jackson. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to majority view of Justices that President Truman’s seizure order was unlawful not because it contravened any express statutory prohibition but because it flouted congressional plan for addressing particular policy issue. This central aspect of Steel Seizure Case highlights what is particularly problematic about President Obama's decision to aggregate authorities in sanctions laws and to commit United States to an across-the-board waiver of nuclear-related sanctions pursuant to his with Iran. The President treated waiver provisions as an invitation to end congressionally prescribed sanctions regime for addressing Iran's nuclear weapons program and to replace it with his own non-sanctions regime for addressing same issue. Yet President lacks unilateral power to overturn Congress's prescribed policy and to replace it with his own.The President is both an agent and, particularly in foreign relations area, can be viewed as a co-principal with Congress. The Steel Seizure principle highlights limits of co-principal conception of President. Once Congress has developed a legislative framework for a subject matter, that framework occupies field; President's role becomes one of a responsible agent. In Iran sanctions laws, Congress provided bounded waiver authority, acting responsibly to allow limited executive discretion rather than requiring President to seek new legislation each time flexibility was needed. It did not, however, invite President to override sanctions framework altogether, as occurred in connection with Iran nuclear agreement. An emergent literature in administrative law has praised Congress's delegation of waiver authority to executive branch as providing needed flexibility and other policy benefits. Yet that literature recognizes that President's exercise of waiver authority must be carefully circumscribed to avoid problem of President revising a statutory regime out of disagreement with Congress's policy choices. Such limiting principles are no less necessary in foreign-affairs context, where President has used purported waiver authority in Iran sanctions statutes to pursue his own independent policy in defiance of Congress.

Redistricting by Formula: An Ohio Reform Experiment

We analyze sixty-six Ohio congressional plans produced during the post-2010 census redistricting by the legislature and the public. The public drew many plans submitted for judging in a competition hosted by reform advocates, who awarded a prize to the plan that scored best on a formula composed of four permissive components: compactness, respect for local political boundaries, partisan fairness, and competition. We evaluate how the legislature’s adopted plan compares to these plans on the advocates’ criteria and our alternative set of criteria, which reveals the degree by which the legislature placed partisanship over these other criteria. Our evaluation reveals minimal trade-offs among the components of the overall competition’s scoring criteria, but we caution that the scoring formula may be sensitive to implementation choices among its components. Compared to the legislature’s plan, the reform community can get more of the four criteria they value; importantly, without sacrificing the state’s only African-American opportunity congressional district.

The Nursing Shortage: What Does The Nurse Reinvestment Act Mean to You?

During 2002, the 107th Congress passed landmark legislation, the Nurse Reinvestment Act, P.L. 107-205. This article discusses the specific provisions of P.L. 107-205 within the context of the contemporary literature and the experience of the nursing shortage. The authors ask nurses to examine what the Nurse Reinvestment Act means for their career development. In laying out the anatomy of the Nurse Reinvestment Act, title by title, and section by section, the article presents the Congressional plan for addressing the two faces of the shortage: Nurse Recruitment, Title I, and Nurse Retention, Title II. Under Title I, Nurse Retention, Section 101 presents Definitions used in the public law. Section 102, promotes the development of Public Health Service Announcements about the nursing profession. In the last section of Title I, Section 103, Congress establishes a National Nurse Service Corps. Title II, Nurse Retention, Section 201, is directed toward Building Career Ladders and Retaining Quality Nurses. In Section 202, the development of Comprehensive Geriatric Education is encouraged. Section 203 establishes a Nurse Faculty Loan program, while the last section of Title II, Section 204, mandates reports from the General Accounting Office. The 107th Congress adjourned in November 2002 without acting on the appropriation bill that would have made the Nurse Reinvestment Act a reality. Before the new Congress meets in January 2003, nurses must join with their colleagues to assure adequate funding for P.L. 107-205. The websites of the American Nurses Association (www.nursingworld.org), the National League for Nursing (www.nln.org), The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (www.aacn.org), and the Specialty Nursing Organizations (www.aspanlorg/Spec) provide direction in approaching members of Congress. However, because of the importance of the Nurse Reinvestment Act, nurses must also align themselves with representatives from the many groups who supported the legislation. Readers of this Online Journal in Nursing article should be empowered to contact the American Hospital Association, the Catholic Hospital Association, the American Association of Retired Persons, the American Medical Association, the National Association for Home Care, and the Service Employees International Union for their assistance and the support of their membership in the passage of the FY 2002 Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations Bill.

Sweeping New Congressional Plan to Fight Cancer Is Previewed

Sweeping New Congressional Plan to Fight Cancer Is Previewed

Sweeping New Congressional Plan to Fight Cancer Is Previewed

Sweeping New Congressional Plan to Fight Cancer Is Previewed

Optimal partisan gerrymandering

We look at the problem of devising an optimal gerrymander from the standpoint of the political party in control of the redistricting process in a single-member district system involving two-party competition. In an electoral universe with uncertainty, we show that the optimal partisan gerrymander is different from the classic recipe for partisan gerrymandering if parties are concerned with the long-run risk of electoral defeat caused by shifting electoral tides. We look at two different plausible objective functions: (1) maximizing expected seat share: and (2) maximizing the probability of a (working) legislative majority. In general, the optimal districting schemes which will be generated under these two objective functions will be different, although both will make similar use of the two basic gerrymandering techniques, the concentration gerrymander and the dispersal gerrymander. Also, because of the need to minimize risk, both will resemble a bipartisan gerrymander considerably more than has previously been suggested in the literature. We also look at difficulties in achieving either objective (1) or objective (2) because of conflicts between majority party legislators' own self-interest and the districting that will maximize party advantage, and briefly review evidence that the 1982 California congressional plan was a risk-minimizing partisan gerrymander.

Excerpts from Second Declaration of Bernard N. Grofman in Badham v. Eu

The 1980s California congressional plans are not shown to be gerrymanders by the fact that the 1982 results were grossly disproportional to the votes of the electorate, nor by the fact that these plans each have only a very small number of seats where both parties have reasonable chances for the victory, nor by the fact that each plan is characterized by tortuously shaped districts, e.g., in San Diego and Northern California, which have no justification in terms of minority protection or in preserving city boundaries intact, although all three of these statements are true. It is well recognized that single member districts cannot be expected to yield proportionality between a party's vote percentage and the percentage of seats it wins (indeed, defense experts cite my own work on just this point); and it is also recognized that neither the absence of competition, nor the existence of ill-compact districts, make a gerrymander in and of themselves. Each of these factors, rather, is an indicator of possible gerrymandering efforts. When all three of these factors are found together with others (e.g., a plan passed in frantic haste by a partisan majority with no input from the minority party, a plan with clear discriminatory impact on the incumbents of the minority party) we have evidence for the conclusion that a plan that looks like a gerrymander, was intended to be a gerrymander, and has the effects of a gerrymander, is a gerrymander.

Editor's Introduction

This minisymposium brings together excerpts from the expert witness declarations of four political scientists in an important case challenging California's congressional reapportionment as an unconstitutional political gerrymander,Badham v. Eu(D.C. California, 1984). These declarations are merely the “opening gun” inBadham. If the case goes to trial, we can anticipate additional statistical analyses will be performed and, of course, each of these experts would be subject to cross-examination about his testimony. Nonetheless, these four declarations represent an excellent illustration of the potential for political science (and political scientists) to be helpful to (even if not determinative of) judicial decision-making in an important policy arena.The basic issues raised byBadhamare as follows:What is a gerrymander? Are there manageable standards through which political gerrymandering can be detected and measured? Is there (prima facie) evidence giving rise to a (rebuttable) presumption that the California congressional plans in 1981 and 1983 were political gerrymandering? Ought political gerrymandering to be justiciable? If so, did the degree of political manipulation in the California congressional plan(s) rise to the level of constitutional violation? If political gerrymandering is held justiciable, on whom should the burden of proof of gerrymandering rest?

Excerpts from Second Declaration of Bernard N. Grofman in Badham v. Eu

The 1980s California congressional plans are not shown to be gerrymanders by the fact that the 1982 results were grossly disproportional to the votes of the electorate, nor by the fact that these plans each have only a very small number of seats where both parties have reasonable chances for the victory, nor by the fact that each plan is characterized by tortuously shaped districts, e.g., in San Diego and Northern California, which have no justification in terms of minority protection or in preserving city boundaries intact, although all three of these statements are true. It is well recognized that single member districts cannot be expected to yield proportionality between a party's vote percentage and the percentage of seats it wins (indeed, defense experts cite my own work on just this point); and it is also recognized that neither the absence of competition, nor the existence of ill-compact districts, make a gerrymander in and of themselves. Each of these factors, rather, is an indicator of possible gerrymandering efforts. When all three of these factors are found together with others (e.g., a plan passed in frantic haste by a partisan majority with no input from the minority party, a plan with clear discriminatory impact on the incumbents of the minority party) we have evidence for the conclusion that a plan that looks like a gerrymander, was intended to be a gerrymander, and has the effects of a gerrymander, is a gerrymander.

Editor's Introduction

This minisymposium brings together excerpts from the expert witness declarations of four political scientists in an important case challenging California's congressional reapportionment as an unconstitutional political gerrymander, Badham v. Eu (D.C. California, 1984). These declarations are merely the “opening gun” in Badham. If the case goes to trial, we can anticipate additional statistical analyses will be performed and, of course, each of these experts would be subject to cross-examination about his testimony. Nonetheless, these four declarations represent an excellent illustration of the potential for political science (and political scientists) to be helpful to (even if not determinative of) judicial decision-making in an important policy arena.The basic issues raised by Badham are as follows:What is a gerrymander? Are there manageable standards through which political gerrymandering can be detected and measured? Is there (prima facie) evidence giving rise to a (rebuttable) presumption that the California congressional plans in 1981 and 1983 were political gerrymandering? Ought political gerrymandering to be justiciable? If so, did the degree of political manipulation in the California congressional plan(s) rise to the level of constitutional violation? If political gerrymandering is held justiciable, on whom should the burden of proof of gerrymandering rest?

Excerpts from Second Declaration of Bernard N. Grofman in Badham v. Eu

The 1980s California congressional plans are not shown to be gerrymanders by the fact that the 1982 results were grossly disproportional to the votes of the electorate, nor by the fact that these plans each have only a very small number of seats where both parties have reasonable chances for the victory, nor by the fact that each plan is characterized by tortuously shaped districts, e.g., in San Diego and Northern California, which have no justification in terms of minority protection or in preserving city boundaries intact,although all three of these statements are true. It is well recognized that single member districts cannot be expected to yield proportionality between a party's vote percentage and the percentage of seats it wins (indeed, defense experts cite my own work on just this point); and it is also recognized that neither the absence of competition, nor the existence of ill-compact districts, make a gerrymander in and of themselves. Each of these factors, rather, is an indicator of possible gerrymandering efforts. When all three of these factors are found together with others (e.g., a plan passed in frantic haste by a partisan majority with no input from the minority party, a plan with clear discriminatory impact on the incumbents of the minority party) we have evidence for the conclusion that a plan that looks like a gerrymander, was intended to be a gerrymander, and has the effects of a gerrymander, is a gerrymander.

Who Were the Scalawags?

IN THE DEMONOLOGY OF RECONSTRUCTION NO REPUTATION IS BLACKER than that of the native white Republican. The illiterate and poverty-stricken Negro was often an object of compassion, and the carpetbagger could be partially excused as an outlander with no ties of kinship or sentiment in the land he plundered. But native white Republicans were traitors to race and section alike, and thus deserving of the deepest contempt. The term scalawag, by which they were designated, is said to have come from Scalloway, district in the Shetland Islands where small, runty cattle and horses were bred. Later it became a synonym for scamp, loafer, or rascal, whence it found its way into the lexicon of Reconstruction politics. In this context some people would confine the term in all its impurity to actual officeholders or office seekers. The Dictionary of Americanisms, however, defines scalawag more broadly as Southerner who supported the Congressional plan of reconstruction.' It includes, therefore, white Republican voters, who are the real subject of this article. Like so much of the conventional view of Reconstruction, the caricature of the scalawag as a traitor to race and section gained more and more currency with the lapse of time, as the original receded from sight. What began as a political canard was carried over into canon within a generation by historians and the general public North and South, who came to accept the Democratic opposition's view of Reconstruction as historical truth. Many historians, like the Southern Conservatives of the period, made little or no effort to explain the alleged treason of the scalawags beyond assigning them such character deficiencies as disloyalty, cowardice, greed, or lust for power.2 Others identified them with wartime 1 John Hope Franklin, Reconstruction After the Civil War (Chicago, 1961), 98;