RULES OF THE GAME
Redistricting Reform: The Invisible Campaign
Jan. 2, 2007
By Eliza Newlin Carney
NationalJournal.com
© National Journal Group Inc.

Among the political reform issues that drive voters, abuses of the redistricting process barely register.

Indeed, redistricting reform is arguably an invisible movement. While a surprising percentage of voters cited political corruption as important in the recent election, virtually none complained about the way politicians gerrymander congressional districts.

Yet a small but hardy band of state legislators, political scientists and reform advocates has set out to prove that fair and equitable districts are the key to fixing American elections.

"For my money, it is the most significant thing we can do to get American politics where it needs to be," said former Rep. David Skaggs, D-Colo., executive director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government.

The Council has teamed up with three other good government groups -- the Campaign Legal Center, the League of Women Voters and the Committee for Economic Development -- to launch a national redistricting reform movement.

The idea is "to create a national buzz on redistricting reform and why it's still needed," said Campaign Legal Center executive director J. Gerald Hebert. He and his allies on the issue are pulling together a steering committee to kindle redistricting reforms at the state level.

It's an uphill battle. For one thing, gerrymandered congressional districts strikes many as a less-than-burning issue, particularly in the wake of an election that shifted political power on Capitol Hill.

"A lot of people would look at the 2006 election and say: 'Well, see, [the system] worked,'" acknowledged Michael McDonald, who teaches politics and government at George Mason University.

But if the political tides swept many Democrats into office, McDonald added, several now occupy Republican-leaning districts that may flip back in the next election. And far more seats would have changed hands, he noted, had districts not been so cleverly redrawn following the 2000 census.

"We just had this really strong wave toward the Democrats that overwhelmed the levee that had been buttressing the Republicans," McDonald said. But he added, "We're still not going to see a lot of competitive races in 2008."

The problem now, critics say, is that state legislators blatantly manipulate voter information to draw districts that wipe out competition and keep incumbents in power. The most notorious example is the mid-decade Texas redistricting orchestrated by former Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, which increased the GOP congressional majority by five seats in 2004.

Thanks to DeLay's resignation earlier this year amid corruption charges, DeLay's seat is now held by Democrat Nick Lampson. And Texas Democrat Ciro Rodriguez recently ousted Republican incumbent Henry Bonilla, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling that the redrawn boundaries of Bonilla's 23rd District violated the Voting Rights Act.

Even so, say advocates of redistricting reform, electoral competition remains minimal in Texas and around the country. "Politicians shouldn't choose voters in a Democracy," declared Hebert. "Voters should choose their elected representatives, which is not how it is now."

Unfortunately for those advocates, some state-based efforts to overhaul the system have already failed. Redistricting reform proposals got on the ballot in California and Ohio in 2005, but both were defeated.

Moreover, the Supreme Court has yet to find a single redistricting map unconstitutional. Most recently, in the LULAC v. Perry case that challenged DeLay's infamous Texas map, the high court rejected the claim that the state's plan was an unconstitutional gerrymander.

But the issue's champions remain undaunted. They argue that the failure of the California ballot initiative was largely a rebuke to GOP Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. In Ohio, the plan failed because it would have led to mid-decade redistricting and was perceived as partisan, reformers say.

Even the Supreme Court's recent LULAC ruling "is actually a boost for us," Hebert maintained, because it made clear that "we're not going to get relief in the courts. It's going to have to come from Congress, or more likely from the states."

On Capitol Hill, Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., has authored a bill -- the Federal Fairness and Independence in Redistricting Act -- that would require each state to put redistricting in the hands of an independent commission.