I have LONG been in favor of more independent commissions to draw districts, principally because I think that we have a US House that is too stagnant with too few representatives worried about their general elections rather than their primary elections (creating little incentive to compromise), and I have long opposed redistricting in the middle of the decade, so I was all about this decision. It does beg an interesting question for me, though, in what states would best benefit from redistricting by an independent commission-which states are the least representative of their voters?
To look into this, I decided to use the most recent presidential numbers. Obama/Romney wasn't the closest recent presidential race, but it is the most recent and probably the most indicative of the country as a whole. Also, considering the huge decrease in recent years of people splitting their ballots (this is becoming particularly rare with the House), I figured this was a great barometer. As a result, I looked at the percentages of the vote that Obama and Romney achieved in each state, and then compared it with the percentage of the state that each state's congressional delegation represented. Once I had done that, I figured how much more or less Democratic/Republican the state's delegation should be based on their presidential numbers.
The findings were interesting to say the least. As expected, every state with only one representative in Congress had a member of the House that was the same party as the man who won their electoral votes. However, the rest of the states were quite fascinating to look at, particularly looking at some of the states that had independent voting commissions. Some of the states reflected their presidential numbers marvelously. The states of Maine, Washington, Nebraska, Illinois, and New Hampshire all needed a partisan shift of less than .5 seats, which basically meant that these states best reflect their voters. Other states were less than a 1 seat swing, which means that while they probably should come close to giving up a seat, they still are within the margin and are fairly well-represented; these include Arizona, New York, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, and Utah. It's worth noting that Arizona, the state in question, is at a .-99, which means it is one basis point away from needing another Republican seat, which is probably what the GOP was getting at in the state with the court trial (though their plans to try and defeat both Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick AND Krysten Sinema in redistricting meant that they were going to push it over to the other side too far and under-represent Democrats in the state).
All of the other states not listed should have a swing of at least one seat based on their presidential numbers. It's worth noting that most of these states are Democratic, which is why Democrats seem to trumpet legislation surrounding independent commissions more than Republicans. Only five states (California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, and Oregon) should have more Republicans in Congress than they currently do, though to the GOP's defense the California number is a bigger discrepancy than any other state: they should have roughly seven more seats based on President Obama's numbers in 2012 compared to their current delegation.
On the flip side there are 23 states that should have at least one more Democratic seat in the House. The worst offenders of this are large states with Republican governors, which aides the argument about how this is unfair due to redistricting. The biggest offender is Pennsylvania, where Democrats should have 4.36 seats more than they currently do, followed by Ohio with 4.11, Texas with 3.9, and Florida with 3.5. There are other states you might find somewhat surprising on the list, however. States like Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana, and Kentucky, for example, states that are rarely thought of as being major Democratic sources of votes are still underrepresented, and should have one more seat while Southern states like South Carolina and Georgia, where the president's performance amongst black voters helped his overall margin, should actually have two more Democrats in Congress. Considering the stronghold the Republicans have on the statehouses here (they are most definitely Republican states) independent commissions are pretty much the only way to go to get the states to represent the will of the voters better. Overall, the Democrats should have a net gain of 24 seats, which oddly enough isn't enough for them to take back the House despite Obama being victorious in 2012, but would mean that those states that are marginal and have between .5-.99 seat gains would matter a whole lot more, and would mean the House would be competitive just like the White House each cycle.
It's of course worth noting before we leave that independent commissions aren't perfect, and gerrymandering isn't an exact science. In order to achieve some of those above numbers, particularly in states that are slimly marginal like West Virginia you may have to actually gerrymander and cut up urban areas (Democrats tend to live more closely together while Republicans live further apart), diluting obvious geographic boundaries and potentially minority districts. You also have a case like California where Republicans should hold more seats than they do despite an independent commission drawing the lines, though it's worth noting that the population in that state grows pretty rapidly and at least one of those seat gains actually happened in 2014, two years after these voting results so Obama/Romney might not be up-to-date enough. Still, I think that overall the independent commission model provides a much cleaner and more representative version of the House, and as a result I'm glad the Supreme Court approved it, and wish that other states from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania would follow suit.
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