Posted by Re-districting is looming on the horizon beyond this year’s census. (Natalie Davis gives us some good reading about the national implications here.)
Want to re-draw the state’s Congressional district lines? Maybe give Republican Mike Rogers a boost in AL-03, or add some Dems to AL-02? Some state politicos have been having a lot of fun with this nifty online app you can use to work out some of the possibilities (though it is a little tricky at first). I’d be interested to know if you come up with something you want to share.
Legislative Dispatch
Purple Dot Connection
2010 Big List
2010 Senate Elections
2010 House Elections
Press Releases
the map’s wrong Danny about the black percentage of cd 3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama%27s_3rd_congressional_district
bobby bright will do all he can to add some counties with a heavy minority vote to AL – 02. in the last re districting, AL – 02 added Lowndes County. I am sure Bright would like to see more of the same this time.
Cong 7 will need a large infusion of voters. Montgomery is the logical place for these to come from. Do you help Bobby Bright at the expense of the 7th District?
jpo,
The map in the post is one example of how the Congressional districts might be redrawn post-census in an effort to forge compromise support. You can see, for example, that Montgomery is not mostly surrounded by the 2nd Congressional District as it is currently, and that the 5th Congressional District doesn’t have a little finger extending down into Morgan County as it does now. (You can see the current map here in a .pdf file.)
Danny
Danny – did bright draw that map? haha. Adding macon county and taking autauga and elmore out of AL 02 make it a democrat win.
But it also makes Rogers’ district better for a Republican, doesn’t it?
More than anything, I was simply including a map to illustrate the post about the application.
How would you draw it? :)
I would put District 2 like it once was (before the last redistricting). Put all of Montgomery county back in district 2 and give Lowndes back to district 7. And yes, that means Autauga and Elmore also stay in district 2.
Danny, our current congressional districts aren’t nearly as insane as are our weirdly gerrymandered legislative districts which were designed to help the party that controlled our state legislature when they were drawn. Those are the districts that I’d like most to see changed. I’d like to see some changes in law that would allow Alabama to have state legislative districts that are more homogenous and look more like our congressional districts.
Why not just use our congressional district lines and elect maybe 7 to 10 legislators at large in each of the 7 districts, and at the same time change to a unicameral legislature (such as Nebraskans have enjoyed having for nearly ¾ of a century) with the Alabama legislature composed of only 49 to 70 legislators all known as “Senators” rather than our present 35 Senators plus 105 Representatives? There are many more advantages in having a legislature designed like Nebraska’s that people can learn about if they research it.
I guess something like that would make too much sense to even be considered, much less approved, until Alabama becomes the 25th state to have an Initiative and Referendum process that voters can use to bring those changes about like Nebraska’s voters did. That’s why I give my full support to Representative Mike Ball’s HB201 as I hope thousands of other Alabama voters will.