Redistricting the Nation kicks off in just a few short weeks, and boy are we excited. It’s the same kind of spine-tingling anticipation we feel leading up to a big game. A really big game. Like the 2006 Penn State-Florida State showdown. The Sunshine State is on our minds again as we countdown the ten most gerrymandered congressional districts. Florida’s Third Congressional District — a classic example of racial gerrymandering — comes in just eight ticks from the end zone.
Florida's Third Congressional District: The 8th least compact U.S. House district
FL-3 — created by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats after the 1990 census — starts in Jacksonville and pulls in African-American communities from Gainesville, Palatka, and Sanford as it moves south to the Orlando suburbs. It’s difficult to say what this district looks like because it’s so oddly shaped. But “flying squirrel, plunging downward head first” comes to mind, as does “mangled alien.” One colleague says that FL-3 reminds her of her toddler’s Ugly Doll, right down to the missing antenna, torn off during a rough-and-tumble play date.
Stay tuned for more countdown highlights later this week. Redistricting the Nation will launch on October 21.
Our work on the Redistricting the Nation site proceeds apace for the big launch on October 21. We’ll be revealing it piece by piece over the coming weeks– head over there now for your first glimpse. In exciting news, we are partnering with the Committee of Seventy (a local political watchdog organization with which we’ve collaborated on election incident mapping) to launch a companion site focused on the Philadelphia region. Both websites are aimed at educating and engaging the public around redistricting issues, prior to the 2010 Census and the 2011 national redistricting process.
Meanwhile, our national countdown brings us to the ninth least compact district in the U.S. House of Representatives: Maryland’s Second Congressional District.
Maryland's 2nd Congressional District: the 9th least compact U.S. House District
This district has a colorful history, having existed since the First United States Congress in 1789. Since that time it has passed through the hands of numerous parties with colorful and unfamiliar names like Know-Nothing and Unconditional Unionist.
While a number of Maryland’s congressional districts earn low compactness scores because their boundaries follow the filigreed shores of the Chesapeake Bay, there is also clearly an element of intent at work here. The district largely curves around Baltimore City to include portions of Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Harford Counties. A contentious redistricting process following the 2000 Census enabled the state’s Democrats to draw boundaries that rendered the Second District competitive and resulted in a pickup after nearly 20 years of Republican control.
Although we were far from a consensus, a quick poll of the office found that a hanger (albeit fragmented and turned sideways) was the most common interpretation of the district’s shape. Tell us what you think.
New Jersey's 13th Congressional District: the 10th least compact U.S. House District, by our reckoning
We’ll be launching our Redistricting the Nation site on October 5th 21st and we’ve decided to kick it off in style (and give our loyal blog readers a sneak peek of what is to come) by counting down through America’s ten least compact Congressional districts.
Coming in at the 10 spot is NJ-13. This Garden State district — first created in 1933 — includes parts of Jersey City, Newark, and the New Jersey coastline. In fact, if it didn’t sneak out into the water, the district’s upper and lower halves wouldn’t be contiguous. Experts are divided on how congressional districts in New Jersey will change form following the 2010 U.S. Census. The state may even lose a House seat, meaning that this could be your last chance to marvel at the shape of the Thirteenth and ask yourself “Y?” Others on the team insist that the district looks a bit like a scorpion. Weigh in with your opinion or join our office game of Redistricting Rorschach by leaving your interpretation in the comments.
Update: The site launch has been changed to October 21st– check out the exciting news. Great content remains consistent.
