One of the Few Tools Left to Stop Gerrymandering Is in Peril

By Norm Ornstein, The Atlantic

06 December 14

If the Supreme Court decides to stop letting voters take control of the redistricting process away from partisan legislators, polarization can only get worse.

henever I speak about our polarized politics, the first or second question I get is almost invariably about redistricting. Most Americans who know that our political system is not working the way it is supposed to don't know what specifically is wrong. But gerrymandering is something that clearly stands out for many. That is true even for Bill Clinton, who spoke about polarization and dysfunction at the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative and singled out gerrymandering as a prime cause.

The reality, as research has shown, is that the problem is more complicated than that. The "big sort," in journalist Bill Bishop's term, where Americans increasingly concentrate in areas where they are surrounded by like-minded people, is a major factor in the skewing, and the homogeneity, of districts. Other partisan residential patterns, including the fact that Democrats tend to live in more high-density urban areas, while Republicans tend to cluster in suburban and rural enclaves, matter. And the Senate, which represents states, not districts, is almost as polarized as the House. (Indeed, according to the National Journal voting records for the last Congress, it is more polarized—there was no overlap between the parties, meaning that the most conservative Democratic senator was to the left of the most liberal Republican senator.) Senate primaries, just like House ones, skew heavily toward each party's base, and senators respond. And the permanent campaign pushes lawmakers to stick with their team, even if some of the team's votes go against an individual member's more moderate or bipartisan grain.

But acknowledging all of that is not to say that gerrymandered districts don't have a significant impact on the sorry state of American politics. Gerrymandering has leached much of the broader heterogeneity out of congressional districts, contributing to the echo-chamber effect, where members' ideological predilections are reinforced, and not challenged, back home. A corollary is the racial segregation of districts—the fact that so many Republican districts now have barely more than trace elements of minorities, giving GOP lawmakers little incentive to reach out or be sensitive to issues that resonate with those groups. Partisan gerrymandering skews results away from the broader sentiments of voters in a state, as much research, including a new study by Duke University's Jonathan Mattingly and Christy Vaughn, demonstrates powerfully.

And, of course, gerrymandering has helped create a huge number of districts that are fundamentally safe for one party. This is sometimes done by a dominant party in a state "packing" the other party's districts to limit its chances in other districts. Other times it is done by an unholy alliance of both parties to keep all incumbents safe. Gerrymandering adds both to the homogeneity of districts and to making low-turnout primaries dominated by ideological activists the only meaningful elections.

More broadly, gerrymandering moves House and state-legislative elections away from any meaningful responsiveness to the will of the people. And the pattern of lawmakers choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their lawmakers creates more disaffection and cynicism among the public.

Almost every other democracy of significance avoids such problems by creating nonpartisan bodies to draw district boundaries.

How do we reform the redistricting process in this country? Through independent commissions that can use multiple criteria—not just equal population in districts, but factors such as competitiveness, compactness, and communities of interest—to create districts that more closely reflect broader public views. But creating independent commissions is no easy task; doing so through legislative action requires buy-in from the same lawmakers who draw the district lines—and who have the least incentive to give up their power via reform.

With the exception of Iowa, where the state legislature turned the drawing of lines over to a nonpartisan agency in 1981 after disputes and deadlocks handed the power to the Iowa Supreme Court, the one outlet for change has been using the initiative process to implement such commissions. That process worked in Arizona in 2000 and in California in 2008, and while the results are no panacea, the reforms have brought more competitiveness and more fairness to the process.

Guess what? The ability of voters to take control of the redistricting process away from partisan legislators and create a nonpartisan and independent process may disappear next year. The Supreme Court has taken up a case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, challenging the constitutionality of the commission. If the Court strikes down the Arizona commission, it will also mean the end of the California commission, and of any future efforts to bypass self-interested legislatures to reform the redistricting process.

The main issue here is the meaning of the elections clause of the U.S. Constitution, which states, "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof." In previous litigation involving Electoral College reform, as legal scholar Rick Hasen has analyzed in an article for the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, courts have defined "legislature" to include lawmaking actions taken by state voters via initiative—in a fashion that Hasen saw as settled law. But it is no longer settled. The fact that the Supreme Court decided to take this case—instead of leaving in place a federal district court decision that the Arizona state constitution allows voters, by initiative, to exercise legislative powers—opens up the issue again.

The Arizona case is not just a dry question of the meaning of a clause in the Constitution. It was brought under partisan auspices. The commission's post-2010 redistricting effort ticked off Republicans, who say it was biased in favor of Democrats. The commission has five members; two each are chosen by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, with the fifth member chosen by the other four. On the most recent map, one Republican member abstained, and one voted no. The lawsuit was not the first attempt by Republicans to tilt the commission in its favor. In 2011, the Legislature voted to remove the commission's chair and tried to remove the two Democrats; the effort to oust the chair was rebuffed by the Arizona Supreme Court. This lawsuit followed.

There is a second issue in the lawsuit: whether the Arizona Legislature has standing to bring such a suit. Of course, the case could be rendered moot if the Supreme Court denies standing. But the greater likelihood is that the Court will grant standing and move on to the broader issue.

If the Supreme Court throws out these redistricting commissions, we can kiss good-bye any efforts to effectively change the redistricting process, to reduce the pernicious effects of gerrymandering. It would take away one of the few weapons available to those who want to find ways to create more-representative and less-polarized representation in our democracy, and to reduce the cynicism about a system now tilted against the American electorate, broadly defined. We are struggling to find avenues to ameliorate the worst effects of our tribalized politics. What a shame if the Supreme Court shuts off one of the major avenues.

If We Don't Start Fighting Now, We Will Get What We Deserve

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

05 December 14

his does not go out to those of you who are actively fighting every day against the corporate oligarchy that is running America. This is to those of you who know we are being fleeced and are waiting for others to do something.

The Tea Party, as much as we believe it is a cancer on our politics, is an example of what we need to do to take our country back. Sure, the corporate elite bought them out and used their anger with the system to their advantage. That does not mean that organizing an alternative within the Democratic Party can’t be done. Of course it has been tried before, but I don’t believe we have ever had the unifying issue that the Tea Party had.

Let’s face it, a black man as President of the United States unified those crackpots into a political force. A political force that the Koch brothers and others steered in the direction they wanted it to go. Even a co-opted Tea Party has more political power today than progressives, who are far too often spectators. We complain that the system is corrupt and controlled by the one percent. Many of us talk about it but offer no solutions. Then we complain in November every four years that the choices are between bad and worse.

As long as we watch the process from the sidelines that will continue to be the case. Our political system needs reform, but to make the kind of reforms we need, progressives need to be in power. To take power we need participate in the system.

President Obama has been a disappointment, but his election was a sign that there are enough of us, fed up with the powers that be, to win elections. Obama chose Wall street and the big banks once he took office, but they didn’t elect him. Romney was their man. No doubt they knew Obama wouldn’t be bad for them either.

Obama fired up young people like never before and tapped into the American people’s desire for change. That desire is still out there. We didn’t get the change we believed in.

We can’t wait until next January and leave our future up to the caucus goers in Iowa or the voters in New Hampshire to decide who will represent the left side of the political spectrum like we do every election cycle. If we do, we will get Hillary and Goldman Sachs as our candidate. Oh and I guess whoever the Greens run … probably a great candidate the system will swallow up and hide from the majority of Americans.

In our system, we have to take the ballot line the process gives a chance to win. If we sit at home and watch, the corporate oligarchy will present us with two candidates they are happy with. They will prefer the Republican who fleeces the treasury for them, but as long as the Democrat is someone like Hillary, Joe Biden, or Martin O’Malley they won’t lose either way.

So with the 2014 disaster behind us it’s time to start fighting. The one percent has become a punchline on late night TV. So what unites the people that we need to join us to wrestle power away from the ruling class?

I believe a majority of Americans don’t vote because they believe the system is rigged. I believe the message that will resonate with the American people is the one that carried Elizabeth Warren into the United States Senate. I believe that message could carry her to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue if progressives begin to fight right now.

Elizabeth Warren may not run, but we must rise up and tell the American people that the system is rigged and we won’t take it anymore. We must not settled for polished products of the system like Hillary, Joe, or their new flavor, Martin.

Don’t wait for the candidate – start building an organization in your community now that will run candidates in the Democratic primaries, and organize for the presidential candidate that will move us closest to a truly democratic system. Choose your own name for now and if a movement surfaces we will all recognize it, then join together to change the system. This article won’t lead a movement, but I do believe that every spark helps build the fire.

Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.