https://www.washingtonpost.com/
Last week the Supreme Court began reviewing a Wisconsin Gerrymandering case Gill vs. Whitford. From most accounts, the Court’s decision could have some significant impacts on the whole Gerrymandering business. About time something was done.
According to one summary that ranks the most gerrymandered states, Maryland is the worst offender and landed at Number One (click here.) (Also, check out this article on how Maryland successfully gerrymandered it so that we became famous for the “broken wing pterodactyl” district shown in the photo above (click here))
As for a gerrymander fix, a Princeton professor has a solution that will ensure fairness across the board and take politics out of the mix. His solution is based upon something known in statistical circles as Student’s T-test but has little to do with real life students.
The Student T-test was developed by William Gossett, a chemist who worked for Guinness Beer. Guinness would allow their scientists a couple months off each year to work on research. However, because Guinness would not allow the scientists to publish their results under their own names, the scientists were forced to use pseudonyms. Gossett’s nickname was Student.
Stay tuned for how the Supreme Court rules on this and then standby for the States’ reactions to it. Since we live in such crazy and chaotic times, epitomized at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., I’m betting that the whole Gerrymandering thing will just end up even more screwy than it currently is. Then again, like John said “It couldn’t get no worse.”