Our Views: A fairer way for elections
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With the end of the 2008 election cycle nearing, there’s little rest for the weary: The struggle for power in the United States will go on, with representatives of the major parties exchanging the grand battle of a presidential election for a grinding and low-profile battle over redistricting.
That is the equivalent of trench warfare in politics, with both sides digging in to protect their territory or to draw lines favorable to their taking over districts held by the other side.
This little-understood battle will begin when the results of the 2010 Census are published. Legislatures in most states then will draw lines for new election districts to accommodate population shifts — with an eye toward making districts of their own bodies, and the U.S. Congress, favorable to one party or faction.
With computer technology and the ethical blind spots of partisans, districts can be drawn street-by-street to put Republican-leaning voters on one side of a line and Democratic-leaning voters on the other side — or vice-versa. Election results essentially can be foreordained before anyone casts a ballot.
It is an affront to democracy that is all too often taken as inevitable.
It is not inevitable.
A few states courageously have called off the partisans and compelled members of legislative bodies to run in districts drawn up not for political advantage but through objective criteria. Districts ought to be drawn without regard to where incumbent members live or where large blocs of partisan voters live. Instead they should be drawn based on objective standards, adhering to Voting Rights Act requirements but respecting political subdivisions and communities of interest, and keeping districts as compact as possible.
If this sounds like pie-in-the-sky, it isn’t. It can be achieved. A coalition of government reform groups called Americans for Redistricting Reform urges states to form independent commissions to draw the lines.
Another fairness standard: Redistrict only once every 10 years, when the new Census figures come in. Partisan mid-decade redistricting plans have been adopted in some states, notably in Texas during this decade. The courts have declined to stop this odious practice.
Reform groups cite the case of Arizona, which in 2000 adopted a reform plan. A commission is formed by appointments recommended by the judicial appointments boards in the state. Commission maps are not subject to review by the Legislature or veto by the governor, although they may be challenged in the courts on Voting Rights Act grounds. Among the Arizona rules: Districts should favor competitive districts between the parties and not consider places of residence for incumbents or candidates.
In Louisiana, some mechanism — perhaps that used for appointments to the Board of Ethics — could establish a similar commission with a similar mandate. Under the U.S. Constitution, legislatures must redraw the districts of U.S. House members. The independent commission could establish lines for the state legislators and other officials with district-based seats, such as the Public Service Commission.
For the U.S. House, the commission could recommend a map that would be voted up or down — but not amended for partisan purposes — in the Legislature.
Louisiana is facing what is almost inevitably the loss of a U.S. House seat after the 2010 census. When the redistricting process is next undertaken, we hope it occurs through a reform model and not today’s process of drawing lines to protect the interests of incumbent members of Congress.
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