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Leading political voices in Minnesota are debating a bill from Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller that would allow an independent panel to draw the state’s next political boundaries.
Four of the state’s leading political figures, including former Vice President Walter Mondale, are supporting a proposal to create a panel of five retired judges to do redistricting after the 2010 census.
But the League of Women Voters Minnesota, one of the state’s leading voter advocacy groups, is against the Pogemiller legislation that would set up the commission of judges.
In a letter sent Monday to state Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, two former governors and a former state Senate majority leader joined Mondale in approving the redistricting legislation. They are former Republican governors Al Quie and Arne Carlson and former DFL Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe.
The letter was written on Mondale’s letterhead.
“This legislation will fix a system that has failed to work for decades,” the four venerable leaders wrote in their letter to Rest, chair of the Senate State and Local Government Operations and Oversight Committee, which heard the bill on Monday.
Introduced by DFLer Pogemiller, of Minneapolis, Senate File 182 passed the committee on a voice vote. The committee re-referred the bill to the Finance Committee.
In the past, state legislators have handled the redistricting process, but Pogemiller’s plan would change that. The proposed commission’s redistricting map would need to be introduced in the Legislature and passed by state lawmakers in an unmodified form and then be signed by the governor.
The League of Women Voters Minnesota agrees with Mondale and Quie and Carlson and Moe that the redistricting process needs to be changed – they just disagree about how.
In their letter to Rest and the other senators on the committee, League of Women Voters’ co-presidents Vivian Jenkins Nelsen and Judy Stuthman said Minnesota’s redistricting process needs to be changed to establish a “more civil, non-political and workable system for Minnesota’s citizens.” But they don’t support a panel that consists of retired judges.
“League of Women Voters Minnesota would seek an independent commission more reflective of Minnesota’s population with meaningful opportunities for citizen voices to be a determinative part of the redistricting process,” the two co-presidents wrote in their letter.
Pogemiller, however, said that outside groups would be able to submit maps to the commission he’s suggesting for consideration. That would give legislative caucuses, political parties and interest groups a chance to express their opinions on the maps.
Lawmakers and groups concerned with the distribution of political power in the state are united in their desire to take the district-drawing pens out of the hands of state legislators. In 2001, the redistricting process in the Legislature broke down – the Minnesota Supreme Court drew the legislative maps instead.
“It is unfortunate, but undeniable that our existing redistricting process fosters an environment of mistrust, jealousy, and hunger for power, thus, distracting elected officials from the issues that their constituents truly care about,” according to the letter from Mondale et al.
Pogemiller’s independent commission proposal would charge the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate each with picking a retired appellate or district court judge who has never served in a political office like state legislator or local mayor, or political party chairman. The four judges would choose the fifth judge to serve on the commission.
The commission would submit the redistricting plan to the Legislature by April 30, 2011. State lawmakers could accept or reject the map for state legislative and congressional boundaries, but the legislators wouldn’t be able to modify the plan. Pogemiller’s bill sets up a process in which the commission would resubmit a new map to the Legislature if the first map is rejected.
Pogemiller told the committee an independent commission would lower the political tension over redistricting. But it wouldn’t defuse the process entirely.
“You can never totally take the politics out of redistricting because it is a small ‘p’ political activity,” Pogemiller said.
The Legislature would be able to reject the first two maps. At the latest, the third map would need to be approved in order for elections in 2012 to be held on time, Pogemiller said, adding that the Legislature will ultimately agree on a map on time because it’s in their own best interest.
“There’s no danger that there will never be a plan,” Pogemiller told the committee Monday afternoon.
There are 20 states that have redistricting commissions that draw political boundaries for either their legislatures, congressional districts or both.
Minnesota politicians are nervously awaiting the 2010 census and redistricting process because the state could lose one of its eight congressional seats because of current population trends in the U.S. and state.
“The need for reform now is further magnified by the fact that population shifts are threatening the loss of one of Minnesota’s congressional seats,” Mondale and the others said in their letter. “With so much at stake, we urge the Committee on State and Local Government Operations to pass S.F. 182, setting the stage for a fair, open and independent redistricting process.”
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