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As a pracademic for my entire career and a department chair for
almost 20 years, I found the wonderful symposium on pracademics to
be right on target. The examples and the advice for faculty and
administrators are invaluable to our profession. Thank you for
publishing it.

The nation-wide cycle of redistricting is the most consequential, repetitive decision-making process shaping the nature of American democracy. Because the arrangement of the districts forms an essential part of the "rules of the game," the process by which they are drawn is meta-politics or a quasi-constitution making activity. The research on this process is voluminous and includes bits and pieces of the process. But the process is complicated, in part because the criteria for redistricting are in conflict with one another. The criteria include considerations of political geography, physical features, community of interest, one person one vote, race and ethnicity, partisanship, contiguity, compactness, recognition of local political boundaries, incumbents' addresses, and desires for minimal change. The literature also covers the use of geographic information systems in the process and possible reforms. But no overall theory of redistricting has been developed which includes all these features.

The nation-wide cycle of redistricting is the most consequential, repetitive decision-making process shaping the nature of American democracy. Because the arrangement of the districts forms an essential part of the rules of the game, the process by which they are drawn is meta-politics or a quasi-constitution making activity. The research on this process is voluminous and includes bits and pieces of the process. But the process is complicated, in part because the criteria for redistricting are in conflict with one another. The criteria include considerations of political geography, physical features, community of interest, one person one vote, race and ethnicity, partisanship, contiguity, compactness, recognition of local political boundaries, incumbents addresses, and desires for minimal change. The literature also covers the use of geographic information systems in the process and possible reforms. But no overall theory of redistricting has been developed which includes all these features. Adapted from the source document.

The article on the seats-votes curve by Kastellec, Gelman, and Chandler (January 2008,
139–45) presents interesting and helpful analysis and data. Especially important is the
insight that incumbency necessarily requires a minority party to receive more than 50% of
the vote to gain control of the House of Representatives. However the article is misleading
in two respects.

This article uses the unique election history of Charlotte, North Carolina, to study the effects of ballot and campaign types. Charlotte had a nonpartisan campaign and ballot in 1971, a partisan campaign with a nonpartisan ballot in 1973, and a partisan campaign and ballot in 1975. The voting pattern by precinct in these three municipal elections shows that a partisan voting pattern failed to occur in the absence of a partisan ballot, even when the campaign was vigorously partisan. Racial voting patterns were muted when the partisan ballot was introduced, but not in the partisan campaign without a partisan ballot.