Related to a very fun Washblog thread, Gerrymandering will be the topic on Radio Open Source on Monday.

For the record, Washington state has a bi-partisan redistricting commission that takes the job of actually drawing the lines away from the legislature. The leg of course approves the lines, but they don’t have to get their hands dirty actually drawing them.

Just having a separate commission doesn’t make a perfect system though, as the partisans on the commission can still make deals with each other not to create a competitive district in an area where there could simply be safe ones.