Every state that uses a commission runs it differently.
My ratings would be:
A:
None
B:
Michigan: I like how the commission is a commission of normal people who live in the state; not politicians, political appointees, or other sorts of "insiders". It started out a bit rocky with them producing some pretty crazy maps, but their final map options for both Congressional and State Legislature seem good, and really do a good job at ensuring partisan fairness. I feel like the relationship between commissioners was less toxic than it was on most other commissions, and I think in large part it had to do with the fact they were regular citizens and not party operatives or anything.
I only watched the selection process and the initial meeting.
My concern was that "ordinary citizens" would be cowed by the experts they hired, along with the SOS, and coerced to follow the order of requirements in the constitution.
The selection process was largely by lottery, including sending out thousands of applications. Perhaps the requirement to attend dozens of meetings produced some self awareness.
The SOS who was charged with overseeing the selection process is a hack. She decided to add voluntary questions on the application so it might be more like the process in California where the commissioners were screened.
Michigan does not have partisan registration, and voters select their primary ballot in secret. If someone says on their application they were a "Republican" then they were a Republican. Some persons said they were Democrats because they hated Republicans. I don't know why they would do that, since it would likely draw a strike from the legislature. Others said they generally vote Democrat, but have crossed over. One of the persons struck said they were a Libertarian.
There was also a question added about why they wanted to be on the commission. Those who indicated having special interest or experience in redistricting were also struck.
The lottery was stratified so that you had proportional numbers of age groups, sexes, races, regions, on the final panel. The way they did this was to weight the chance of being selected. So let's say that 2/3 of the applicants were men, then women applicants would have double the chances. Younger people who had fewer applicants also were weighted higher. But I don't think they took account that the various characteristics were not independent.
A black applicant would be more likely to be a Democrat, female, and from Detroit than the general public. When they drew a possible panel they would check its overall composition. They were out of balance, I think because they did not compensate for dependencies.
They live-streamed an accountant who was doing the selection. He explained the process and they would show his screens. They ceremoniously brought out a thumb drive, and then he copied it into an empty folder. He clicked on run, and continued to explain the process. Every so often he would check the number of attempts. It ran well into the thousands.
I watched the first meeting and it was reassuring that it was not just a random sample of voters, and many had some experiences that would help in a meeting. The temporary chair was a labor negotiator who had presided over 100s of labor negotiations.
I assume the first maps were trying to link Detroit with Republican areas. The latest maps appear to create three Democratic sinks in Detroit and Ann Arbor, but keep them around 70% D.
The map I did look at appeared to pair Kalamazoo with Ottawa County, and carved up Kent County to make it competitive (Grand Rapids was matched with Muskegon).
It will be interesting to see how predictive their suite of elections.
They did a good job of matching county boundaries, despite being stuck with equalizing populations, so you ended up with a bunch of micro-chops which are there, but you have to hunt for. They would have been much better going with the county boundaries.
Their compactness measures used the water boundaries. A district that extended into Lake Michigan was rated as long and skinny because he reached all the way to Wisconsin.
A better approach to the final decision would be to draw a much larger panel 10,000 persons, and have them rank their districts in each of the plans. The ranking for their district in a plan would be the ranking for the plan. The best plan would be chosen by Condorcet.
Arizona: This commission has been pretty quiet compared to others, but I like the diversity in the different maps they've produced so far and the tie-breaker seems pretty fair.
The Republicans seem to have learned from the 2010 disaster. Arizona has pretty stupid provisions. With only five commissioner, the two Democrats and the one "independent" lined up for a bunch of 3:2 votes. Also why Arizona has an extensive open meeting laws, they don't apply to the one agency you would most want to have open meetings, since it was created by the Arizona Constitution. In 2011, you had the map drawing firm going over to the "independent" commissioner's house and drawing maps. They agreed to have a Republican and Democrat legal advisors. The Democrats and the "independent" then chose both firms. "We want these advisors for us, and these advisors for you."
California: Considering how big and diverse the state is, I feel the commissioners have done a pretty good job at making initial maps that represent the state well. Simillar to Michigan, I like how this commission uses a system of "ordinary people", and overall the commissioners seem to get along well. I'm curious to see their final product.
The selection process is not really similar to that in Michigan. Candidates have to file a resume, along with 3 recommendations. Finalists were interviewed. Candidates also had to file financial disclosure reports, which "ordinary people" do not like being made public.
In 2011, one of the commissioners was the former head of the Census Bureau. He would not had a chance in Michigan. There were also several lawyers, who would be more accustomed to evaluate the
advice of legal advisors.
The selection process has a geographic bias. Persons who live in the Sacramento or Bay Areas are more likely to apply. Since the auditors doing the selection were in Sacramento they had a regional bias. Applicants were classified by region, and to ensure a "diverse" panel they had to make sure there were applicants from each of the northern and central regions. Southern California (LA, Orange, and San Diego counties) were treated as a big amorphous blob. They also mixed up Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. So people from San Jose were in the Central Coast, while those from Santa Cruz were Bay Area.
Colorado: It was ok until the end where the main Dem became toxic. I also didn't like their obsession with 5-3 map at all costs, and also how they choose to follow some really ugly municipal boundaries in their final map, which kinda ended up being a light-R gerry. I wish the Hispanic groups they interviewed were a bit more focused on representing Hispanic voters than making Dem gerries as I don't think that helped either. The final map despite it's flaws does do a reasonably good job at representing COIs though in a state with quite unique geography.
I had high hopes for Colorado since it was the legislative staff drawing the maps, which the commissioners then listened for comments and made recommendations for changes. I also liked that they had two commissions.
Observing municipal boundaries is in the constitution. You might not like the Colorado city boundaries, but that hardly is to blame on the commission. I actually like that they have to adhere to that discipline. Someone who was lay would claim they were matching city boundaries but then ignore them for partisan reasons and claim they
