Courts haven’t provided much further guidance.
Updated November 2010 State lawAfter accounting for districts required by the Voting Rights Act, there are still countless ways to divide the remainder of a jurisdiction into districts of equal population. In drawing the rest of the districts, some state constitutions and state laws provide additional constraints: Contiguity. Most states require districts to be “contiguous,” with all parts of the district physically adjacent to each other. Water — rivers, lakes, bays — gives mapmakers wiggle room, as a sort of bridge to “adjacent” land that may be quite far away. Compactness. Most states also require districts to be reasonably “compact,” though few define the term. A district where constituents generally live near each other or with a regular geometric shape is usually more compact than one with long, extended tendrils. In practice, compactness tends to be in the eye of the beholder: people say they know it when they see it. Academics have proposed more than 30 numerical measures of compactness, focusing on 1) how contorted the district boundaries are, 2) how spread out a district is from a central core, or 3) where the district’s population “center of gravity” is. A district that is compact by one measure may be less compact by another. Only five states (AZ, CO, IA, MI, MT) specify which measure is actually to be used in their state: AZ and CO focus on contorted boundaries, MI and MT focus on the spread, and IA asks mapmakers to account for both. Political boundaries. Most states also take some account of political boundaries — county, city, town, or ward lines — in drawing districts. Some demand that units like counties be kept together whenever possible, or if a county must be split to equalize population or to draw a district under the Voting Rights Act, to be split into as few pieces as possible. Others simply ask that boundaries be followed when it is practicable to do so. Communities of interest.Twenty-four states consider communities of common interest as well. Kansas’ definition is relatively common: in keeping voters together, map drawers are asked to consider “[s]ocial, cultural, racial, ethnic, and economic interests common to the population of the area, which are probable subjects of legislation.” Though it is rare for legislators to articulate specific communities of interest when drawing district lines, districts are often justified in litigation based on a purported community they serve. Political outcomes. Some incumbents may try to draw districts so that they contain as many reliable partisan supporters as possible; a few states try to rein this in either by prohibiting partisan favoritism or by affirmatively encouraging competition. In the last redistricting cycle, nine states (CA, DE, HI, IA, ID, MT, NE, OR, WA) prohibited drawing state legislative districts in order to unduly favor a candidate or political party. Two (AZ and WA), both with independent commissions, affirmatively encouraged the commissions to draw competitive districts when doing so did not interfere with other redistricting goals. Nesting. In 14 states, state House districts are nested inside state Senate districts: a Senate district will be made up of 2 or 3 House districts, and will have the same boundaries. Another four states (CA, HI, NY, and WY) ask to nest districts if possible, but this is often ignored
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