Jason Tolbert examines the Democrats’ proposal for redistricting in Arkansas, nicknamed the “pig trail”:
The Third Congressional District, ripe with predominately Republican voters, has about 110,000 too many people, while the fourth district and the first district each need to pick up several thousand new residents.
Thus, the Democrats playing with the new Congressional maps have come up with the solution of trying to pull out a Democratic area of the third instead of the Republican areas which line the borders. The only concentration of reliably Democrat voters are in the Fayetteville area. Of course, the problem is Fayetteville is roughly 60 miles away from the fourth district with their Democrat voters tucked behind several hundred thousand voters in the Fort Smith area…
[The Fourth District lines proposed by Democrats go] around any population centers and take in roughly sixty miles of national forest to get to the Democratic voters in the Fayetteville area.
In their defense, most of the trees in that national forest have traditionally voted for Democrats.
If there’s a matching extension on the other side of the district, would that make this the “Pig Tail Restricting”?
To be fair, Jim, a lot of GOP state legislatures will be doing similar things. I'd save your outrage.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseJust as a point, the name "Pig Trail" refers to the Pig Trail Scenic Byway, parts of Highways 16 and 23 that go from Ozark, AR to Fayetteville. So named, in part, because the curvy roads would make your tires squeal like a pig and, of course, because Fayetteville is the home of the Razorbacks.
It is a ridiculous looking map, though. Gerrymandering is an accepted practice, but you don't have to be obvious about it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm not outraged - the Dems have control of the legislature in Arkansas so they can redistrict how they want. Republicans who control redistricting in their states can do it too. The best way is to redistrict to give competitive races, which means through an independent commission like what Florida is going to, but that is just me.
HOWEVER...If anyone on the Dem side tries to raise on outrage over the Republicans trying to gerrymander a Dem seat out of existence elsewhere in the country, we should use this example as shut-up moment for them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"which means through an independent commission"
There's no such thing as an 'independent commission'. They are merely cover for leftists. We have one here in VA, everyone on it is a progressive with life-long associations with the Democratic Party and radical left wing groups. The VA 'independent commission' recommended a couple of different redistricting plans, all of them are as favorable to the D's as possible. To give you some idea how bad they are: they eliminate Eric Cantor's seat. Yes THAT Eric Cantor, House Majority leader. That's just the tip of the iceberg. This in a state with a Republican Governor and split control of the legislature.
"Republicans who control redistricting in their states can do it too"
It would be nice if this were true. Unfortunately, D's have long since learned to use the Voters Rights Act to obstruct Republican redistricting efforts in many states. You see, its 'racist' to draw district lines that favor Republicans. Oddly, Democrats never seem to have this problem...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAlso in their defense, most of those national forest trees have the same IQ as the average Democratic voter...
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