There were many alternative health care proposals circulating before the passage of Obama’s Health Care Bill. The Republicans said none of their ideas were included and the Democrats said that some of the Republican ideas were included. If only there was an easy way to tell who’s right. Turns out there is. Many journalists are turning to Natural Language Processing (NLP) to aid in understanding political issues. Mostly these techniques are used to learn about individual bills, but another use could be used to compare documents to each other. And in particular to compare the final ObamaCare Bill to every other health care proposal that had been in discussion leading up to ObamaCare. Three real proposals come to mind. The Wyden-Bennett bill, the Massachusetts plan, and the short GOP plan. To round out our mock analysis I also included Obama’s stated goals from the outset and 2 fictitious bills, one from a fake Democratic Senator and one from a fake Republican one.

Each of these plans discuss a variety of proposals and the degree to which their take on these proposals matches what was included in the final version of ObamaCare is illustrated by that proposal’s tag cloud, the more prominent the tag the more it agrees with the same issue in ObamaCare. For example, ObamaCare and the Massachusetts health care plan share many common features, most prominently the Universal Coverage clause. Additionally since this was passed while that state had a Republican governor we’re counting it as a Republican plan.

Click for larger image

The easiest way to get datagraphics into the newsroom might be through NLP techniques and tag-cloud graphics like the proposed chart here. Word-oriented data graphics might be more approachable by traditional news media while also providing the deep content at-a-glance that all data graphics share. Only time will tell.

• Free tag-cloud generator. Just randomize a supplied set of words. http://www.tagcloudgenerator.com/
• Analysis of several alternate health care proposals. http://www.newsweek.com/id/234174/page/1
• Image for the Capitol building came from here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capitol_Building_Full_View.jpg

Now they are suggesting they might use a device which has never been used the for this kind of major systemic reform. We know it would be — the only thing bipartisan about it would be the opposition to it, because a number of Democrats have said, “Don’t do this. This is not the way to go.” — Senator McConnell on FoxNews

Recently the Sunlight Foundation ran an infographic examining the past 20 years of Senate Reconciliation bills. At a glance you can see which bills had bipartsian support and which didn’t, and the list is relatively small (13 bills) so deeper inspection can be had relatively easily. However, what’s not immediately obvious is an indication of what Senator McConnell alleges, namely the “magnitude” of these bills. Most bills seem on their face to be simple budgetary adjustments. The “Balanced Budget Act of 1997″ had wide bipartsian support and a relatively simple title. However the “Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001″ had hardly any bipartsian support, perhaps more tax cuts were added in reconciliation than in the original bill? If the graph could be altered to show some sort of significance factor then that would be an infographic!

This significance factor or magnitude could be quantified by providing some sort of comparison of the changes against the original bill. By way of example, there are well established computerized ways to compare documents and a significance factor could be calculated by comparing the size of these changes. Bills with bigger “change files” could show up with fatter lines in the graphic above. Of course this technique would have some problems.  It could give false positives if there were a lot of words to describe a relatively minor change and it could give false negatives if a massive portion of the original bill was removed (describing a removal is a fairly easy task, essentially “delete lines 1-1000″). But even a flawed mechanism in the hands of knowledgable people can be a useful tool as knowledgable people can quickly weed out the false positives, reinstate the false negatives and focus the viewers’ attention on the issues that matter.

Such a tool could be useful here if we were looking at hundreds of bills, but we’re only looking at 13. A responsible journalist would have prepared for an interview with Senator McConnell by digging into these 13 other bills and asked McConnell to choose which of them would take 2nd place behind health care for “significant bills passed through reconciliation”. McConnell could then use that as a spring board to describe how much more of a change health care is from that previous “high water mark” or the question could reveal how hollow McConnell’s talking point was. Instead, we, as consumers of news, get neither.

As informative as this chart is and as powerful as the treemap technique is, the information content in this graphic is about as much as a tabular listing of the various departments and the budget each of those departments is receiving. Yes, the relative sizes of the boxes allow us to quickly see which departments are receiving the most amount of money, but as a news item I’m left a little cold. There’s not enough context to this graphic to make me care beyond the “tinker with the pretty buttons” stage.

One way to increase that context would be to add an input box where I could enter my 2010 tax bill. The infographic then could shift the dollar amounts and turn it into how much of my tax dollars are being spent on various programs. Seeing how much I’m paying for interest on the national debt or National Defense may make me wonder if my money really is being spent wisely.

But while that simple technique provides some context and heightens my interest, it is just as transitory as the original. Shortly after tax season I doubt I’ll care and again I’ll get wrapped up in the headline news cycle of congressmen complaining about various parts of the budget, defecit and debt. But this is our national budget, we should look at it periodically just as we would our household budget. The NYTimes should trot out this graphic every time they run a story on a federal budget item.

Indeed it could prove useful as an index page into budget related stories. I’ve created a mock-up of what I’m envisioning. Click on the image below to be taken to an interactive version. The idea here is that as you mouse over various budget items you’ll be presented with the latest news article about that budget item. Frequently we’ve heard exchanges where one congressman complains about excessive spending in one area while another congressman points out that the amount of excess in that area is a drop in the bucket compared so the spending in another area. Reporting on those news stories while simultaneously referencing this graphic would be an inspired use of the treemap technique.

However, identifying problem districts is one thing, reshaping them into more reasonable forms is another. The entrenched politics of gerrymandered districts may require a leader to step forward in order for change to occur. Such leaders may emerge from Congress itself. While the geographical boundaries of all the congressional districts are almost trivially easy to find online, it is much harder to find information regarding when these districts took the shape they currently have. Consequently it is difficult to determine if the district was gerrymandered for the representative currently holding the seat or if it was gerrymandered for a representative who no longer holds that seat. Either way any representative in a gerrymandered district should be ashamed of this regardless of why the district was gerrymandered. Public pressure could be brought to bear on the representatives in those states that will go through a redistricting process as a result of the 2010 census. Weaker politicians may be too squeamish to embrace this change, but powerful ones should be powerful and popular enough to survive even a redistricting.

Thus the question becomes are there any powerful congressmen from apparently gerrymandered districts? The short answer is “yes”, we found four powerful congressmen from geographically fractured districts. We examined the districts of the 55 most powerful congressmen in order to see if any of those districts were also in the top 55 geographically fractured districts. For “fractured” we used the scores at RedistrictingTheNation.com and if 3 of the 4 scores were in the top 55 that was good enough for us. The power scores came from Congress.org, specifically their page here.

George Miller CA-7 rank 14/435
	Shape Rating
Power Rating

The most powerful congressman from a geographically fractured district is George Miller from California’s 7th district. A score card showing his detail is shown at right.  As we’ve mentioned before, it is somewhat disingenuous to cite someone as being an outlier merely because they’re in the top 50. Someone always has to be in the top 50. What is more important is to note how far outside of the normal range these people are. RedistrictingTheNation.com used a sparkline graphic to illustrate just this point for their shape scores. You can see at a glance the shape scores for all the congressional districts follow a bell-shaped curve, with the red-line showing where the score for this particular district lies. We’ve followed that same style for the power rating. To be consistent with the shape scores where highly fractured is on the left, high power is on the left. Representative Miller has a high power score, and his power is well above the average (as is everyone else’s on this list).




If you click on the graphic for the district you’ll be sent to the detail page on RedistrictingTheNation’s website where you can judge for yourself whether the district is gerrrymandered or geographically fractured for other reasons. A note, while California is both mountainous and coastal, the twisty part of the boundary doesn’t necessarily line up with these geographical features. Representative Miller is the most powerful congressman from a fractured district, but his district is the least fractured of the four we found. In decreasing order of congressional power the rest are below.

Frank Pallone NJ-6 rank 16/435
	Shape Rating
Power Rating

Representative Frank Pallone from New Jersey’s 6th district is next on the list. New Jersey is a coastal state, but the twisty parts of Representative Pallone’s district face inward. You can see from the shape scores below that his is the most geographically fractured of our four. Not by a little, but by a lot.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz FL-20 Rank 24/435
	Shape Rating
Power Rating

Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz from Florida’s 20th district is next. Again Florida is a coastal state but most of the fracturing of Florida’s 20th is inland. The U-shaped hole on the top is suburban Fort Lauderdale, the long peninsula at the bottom picks up some suburbs of Miami. An obvious redistricting would be to compact Representative Wasserman-Schultz’s district to the Fort Lauderdale area.

Jane Harman CA-36 Rank 27/435
	Shape Rating
Power Rating

Representative Jane Harman from California’s 36th district is next on the list. The shape of this district doesn’t look so bad but the smooth part on the left is the coastline! This district seems to pick and choose neighborhoods near Long Beach to the exclusion of neighborhoods near Inglewood and Santa Monica. Additionally Wikipedia mentions that she’s the 2nd wealthiest member of Congress, so if anyone can withstand a redistricting it should be Ms Harman.

A Postscript

Initially the comparison of congressional power with geographically fractured districts revealed 5 powerful congressmen from fractured districts. However earlier this week the most powerful of the 5 passed away following complications from gall bladder surgery.

John Murtha PA-12 13/435 deceased
	Shape Rating
Power Rating

John Murtha came from Pennsylvania’s 12th district. The fractured nature of PA-12 is plainly obvious. Indeed its shape was the inspiration for the examples in the explanatory table at the end of the previous article. Murtha held this district since 1974, despite the fact that each Census since then Pennsylvania has lost 2 congressional seats. Losing 6 seats since the 1980 census had to result in significant redistricting. Now the seat is up for a special election. Clearly someone less powerful will get the seat. If trends continue Pennsylvania will lose another 1 or 2 seats as a result of the 2010 census. Powerful congressmen who can weather a redistricting and want to do right by the people may well be good champions of this cause, however the power of the people up against a weak congressman may also serve as a good champion of this cause. We may never know whether Murtha would have been in favor of reshaping his district, but with a newcomer taking his seat it is clear that the people of PA-12 will have relatively little to lose and fairness to gain in the reshaping of Pennsylvania’s 12th district.

Illinois' 4th District

A district is gerrymandered if its geographic boundaries are re-drawn to accomplish some political goal. Each state has its own method of deciding on the boundaries of district lines and some states may not make their deliberations public. Thus the first task of determining which (if any) districts are gerrymandered is to look at the shape of the district. But examining all 435 congressional districts in the US is a daunting task. And redistricting isn’t restricted to national politics. State and local governments frequently have legislative bodies similar to the US House whereby legislators represent a region in a state, or a neighborhood in a large city. The task of examining these national and local districts is even more daunting. Fortunately computers, math and visualization can be pressed into service to aid in the search.

Maryland's 1st District

A website called RedistrictingTheNation.com is a superb resource for people wanting to know more about individual districts. Many of the images in this article come from their website. They track each district by 4 mathematical scores designed to identify oddly shaped areas. The details of these scores aren’t important (but detail is provided at the end of this article). What is important to note is that while none are perfect, they all are good enough to highlight potential problem areas. All gerrymandered districts have poor scores, but some egregious examples only score moderately poor. And some of the worst offenders are false positives, appearing to be gerrymandered merely because they follow a river, coastline, mountain range or state boundary.

Arizona's 2nd District

Furthermore some may have been gerrymandered for legitimate political reasons. Arizona district 2 is this shape mainly to address possible conflict of interest issues between neighboring Indian tribes. The point is that the algorithms work best when viewed as a hint that something may be amiss. If the algorithms indicate an issue then further study is warranted.

While RedistrictingTheNation has some excellent quantitative analysis on each district, those analyses are primarily numerical and focused only on the district at hand. Another excellent site that tracks broader governmental issues is GovTrack.us. When you pull up a state’s page on GovTrack you can see at a glance all the congressional districts for that state. This provides some context to the districts. For example, one thing that’s a little easier to determine from GovTrack is the party affiliation of neighboring districts. Illinois’ 4th district is democratic. It is bordered above, below and in the middle by IL-05, IL-03 and IL-07 respectively all of which are democratic too. Wikipedia conjectures that IL-04 follows ethnic boundaries even if the surrounding districts are all of the same political party.

Zoom of Illinois from GovTrack.us

The concern over gerrymandering has a growing movement. There’s an online game and a movie in the works. The visual appeal of oddly shaped congressional districts is so powerful it’s hard to imagine this story being told without infographics of the type seen on RedistrictingTheNation.com or GovTrack.us. This bodes well for my New-Years wish list, gerrymandering may be the first main stream news story told with a significant contribution from infographics. However, info graphics alone lack a personal touch. We’ll try to provide that next week.

* Detail On How RedistrictingTheNation Computes Its Scores

Method	Detail	Score
Convex Hull The district is red. The convex hull is the area enclosed by the green outline. (Imagine wrapping string around the shape.) The score is calculated by dividing the area of the district by the area of the convex hull. The score ranges from 0 (very twisty, possibly gerrymandered) to 1 (the district is convex).
Reock The smallest circle that can enclose the district is shown in green. The score is calculated by dividing the area of the district by the area of the circle. The score ranges from 0 (very twisty, possibly gerrymandered) to 1 (if the district is a circle). RedistrictingTheNation.com multiplies all scores by 100 to get a 0 to 100 range.
Polsby-Popper Make a circle where the circumference is the same as the perimeter of the district. Then compare the area of the district with the area of the resulting circle. Scores again range from 0 (gerrymandered) to 1.
Modified Schwartzberg Make a circle where the circle has the same area as the area of the district. Compare the perimeter of the circle with the perimeter of the district. The normal Schwartzberg score has the circle in the denominator, but RedistrictingTheNation modified this to keep it consistent with scores ranging from 0 to 1.