New US Congressional maps are the fairest in a decade — but not quite as fair as people want you to believe

Analysts are also systematically ignoring the diminished responsiveness of the legislative chamber

The New York Times has a very nice piece on redistricting out today arguing the 2022 US house map will not be significantly biased toward Republicans. This is thanks to Democrats benefiting from litigation against gerrymandered maps in states like Ohio and North Carolina, as well as their own gerrymandering in places like New York and New Mexico.

While I don’t disagree with the overall takeaway from the piece (that maps will be fairer in 2022 than they have been in a very long time), a proper account of the data reveals significant uncertainty over precisely how fair it will be. I also argue that analysts have been systematically ignoring “responsiveness” as a key criteria for overall fairness. Read on for my explanation.

Before I go on, note that I have made many of these points in scattered pieces for The Economist over the last month (though with data that was missing Congressional maps that have since passed). You should read our big analysis of redistricting in early February here,…