Friday September 10, 2021
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Online Zoom Meeting
Dear Colleagues:
Greetings, and I hope that you and yours are healthy and safe in this better but not quite better enough time for the world, our nation, our community, and Case Western Reserve University.
Our “Friday Lunch” continues as an online-only event. Students have returned and two weeks of classes have mostly gone well. But the spread of the Delta variant and somewhat expected news that protection through vaccination appears to decline over time still leave reason for caution. I do not see how the kind of distancing and care that public health would recommend can be combined with a large group of people having lunch in a fairly crowded room. Perhaps in a few weeks there will be less reason for concern, and we will revisit whether we can meet in person later in September. Please e-mail me if you have suggestions about other approaches – for instance, does it make sense to do “Friday Lunch” without, well, lunch? My e-mail is joseph.white@case.edu.
This Week’s Program
However we meet, there is lots to talk about this semester, and our next topic is very timely. After the 2020 Census, both Ohio’s state legislative districts and its seats in the U.S. House of Representatives must be redrawn in order to maintain districts as close to equal in size as possible. This is made more stressful (at least for politicians) for the U.S. House because Ohio is losing a seat.
The stakes are extremely high because, as readers know, how the lines are drawn shapes how many seats each party will win. Republicans want to maintain the large advantages they established after the 2010 census, which have given them much larger majorities than their advantage in the presidential vote. Thus after 2020 Republicans hold 64 of 99 seats in the state House, 25 of 33 in the state Senate, and 12 of 16 U.S. House seats, while President Trump’s decisive victory was still only by 53.3 to 45.2%.
Democrats of course would like a different result. And Ohio’s voters seem to have responded to claims that redistricting had led to unfair “gerrymanders” by adopting by wide margins (more than 70% support) two constitutional amendments to make the process less partisan. Issue 1 in November of 2015 created a new Ohio Bipartisan Redistricting Commission to draw lines for state legislative districts, and Issue 1 in May of 2018 created new Congressional Redistricting Procedures. Both new procedures attempt a lot in rather brief language, creating complex new requirements.
One aspect is rules meant to encourage districts that are more compact and contiguous than, for example, the current U.S. House districts 9 and 13 (Marcy Kaptur and Tim Ryan). In particular Cuyahoga County, currently split among four U.S. House districts, could only be part of three; and Summit County, also split among four, could only be part of two. Both also require minority party support for passage of a new ten-year map. But that could lead to no agreement at all, so in each case the majority can, after other efforts fail, impose a map but only for the 2022 and 2024 elections.
The challenge is made even more complex by the fact that maps really should be drawn rather soon, so candidates can figure out where and whether to run. So both processes have deadlines – of which the most immediate is that the Ohio Bipartisan Redistricting Commission is supposed to issue a draft map on September 15, and a final map has to be approved, somehow, by November 30.
And what each party can do depends, to some extent, on what kinds of voters live where. So political operatives are busy manipulating various demographic databases. We are fortunate to have in our community Mark Salling, one of the leading experts on the use of GIS databases for redistricting. Dr. Salling has contributed extensively to efforts to improve redistricting processes as both expert and advocate. So he joins us to discuss the new rules, how much room for manipulation they offer considering the distribution of voters, and what the results might be.
Signing In
This semester’s discussions will begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. The meeting will be set up as from Noon to 2:00 p.m., so people are not all signing in at the same time and to allow for the discussion to run a bit long. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. Every Monday the same information will be posted on our website: fridaylunch.case.edu.
If you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. This week’s link for registration is:
https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJctcOmorjopG9YjLZq-dwaQR-PyekXWx1wp
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.
Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,
Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies
About Our Guest
Dr. Mark Salling is a Senior Fellow and Research Associate in the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs. At the university since 1981, he has served as the Director of the College’s Northern Ohio Data & Information Service (NODIS). He holds a B.A. and Ph.D. in Geography from Kent State University and an M.A. in Geography from the University of Cincinnati. While semi-retired, he stays active in research and public service.
Dr. Salling has authored papers dealing with Geographic Information Systems (GIS), public participation GIS, voting rights, redistricting, poverty, residential mobility, environmental equity, demography, computer applications in planning, and data dissemination. He has taught courses on GIS, urban geography, statistical and computer methods, and demography. He continues to teach GIS workshops and is a certified GIS Professional (GISP) by the Geographic Information Systems Certification Institute (GISCI).
Schedule of Friday Lunch Upcoming Topics and Speakers:
September 17: After the Pandemic… A roundtable discussion with Maxwell J. Mehlman, J.D., Distinguished University Professor and Arthur E. Petersilge Professor of Law; Mark Turner, Ph.D., Institute Professor and Professor of Cognitive Science; and Joe White, Ph.D., Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy.
September 24: Civilian Oversight of Police. With Ayesha Bell Hardaway, J.D., Associate Professor of Law and Deputy Monitor, Cleveland Police Monitoring Team.
October 1: What’s Happening in the Labor Market? With Bruce Fallick, Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Research, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
October 8: A Conversation with Scott Cowen, Ph.D. President Emeritus and Distinguished University Chair, Tulane University, and Interim President of Case Western Reserve University. (October 1, 2020 – June 30, 2021)
October 15: Germany’s New Government – and Europe’s New Leadership? With Mark K. Cassell, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Kent State University.
October 22: The Biden Administration’s Immigration Policies. With Aleksandar Cuic, J.D., Director of the Immigration Clinic, Milton A. Kramer Law Clinic Center, CWRU School of Law.
October 29: Continuity and Change in the Opioid Epidemic. With Lee Hoffer, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anthropology and Professor of Psychiatry.
November 5: Redeveloping Buckeye/Woodhill. With Taryn Gress, MSSA, Strategic Director, and Debbie Wilber, Assistant Director, National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities.
November 12: Can India Survive as a Secular Democracy? With Ananya DasGupta, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History.
November 19: Hospital Boom and Busts. With J.B. Silvers, Ph.D., Associate Dean of Finance and Professor of Banking and Finance.
December 3: President Biden’s Trade Policy: Continuity and Change. With Juscelino Colares, J.D., Schott-van den Eynden Professor of Business Law. |
