Here's an interesting article<http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.5/jonathan_rodden_jowei_chen_congressional_redistricting.php> :
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.5/jonathan_rodden_jowei_chen_congressional_redistricting.php They survey 11 states with a simulation which creates random political districts, and find that 9 of the 11 have a "natural Democratic bias" because the urban bias to Democrats is stronger than the rural bias to Republicans. That is, even if the electorate were split 50/50 and there is no intentional gerrymandering, in some states Republicans win as many as 2/3 of the seats. The two exceptions are two of the most strongly-Republican states in the country - OK and WY. This kind of thing highlights the need for proportional representation. I believe that hybrid geographical/proportional systems like SODA-PR<http://wiki.electorama.com/wiki/SODA#SODA-PR_.28proportional_representation_version_of_SODA.29>have the best hope of passing in the US. Jameson
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