[EL] Citizen Redistricting Commissions

[Justin Levitt]

There's a summary of the institutions that draw congressional lines here 
<http://redistricting.lls.edu/who.php> (individual detail available by 
clicking on each state), and state legislative lines here 
<http://redistricting.lls.edu/who-state.php> (again, individual detail 
available by clicking on each state).

It'll be tougher to point to "results" of the institutional choices 
across state lines, both because many of the non-legislative bodies 
haven't been around for that many cycles, and also because the different 
bodies aren't necessarily designed to achieve the same thing, which 
makes the appropriate question difficult to frame.

For example, Arizona has a citizen commission that is asked to consider 
the competitiveness of districts, as a last priority after considering 
federal law, compactness, communities of interest, geographic features, 
and political boundaries. California has a citizen commission that is 
designed somewhat differently, has a different mix of priority criteria, 
and is (intentionally) not asked to consider drawing districts that are 
deliberately competitive, but is told that it may not draw districts 
_for the purpose of_ favoring or discriminating against a party.  Each 
exists in its own state with its own political demography and history of 
recent elections.  Gauging the extent to which these two institutions 
arrived at competitive districts in the 2011 redistricting cycle doesn't 
necessarily tell you much about whether a citizen commission in the 
abstract is likely to "result" in more competitive district (or whether 
a citizen commission specifically told to prioritize competitive 
districts first and foremost -- which I don't favor -- would "result" in 
more competitive districts than another institution given the same 
instructions).

The same is true for many other potential measures of the redistricting 
process -- whether communities of interest are better preserved, whether 
parties are more equitably represented, whether districts are more 
compact (by whatever measure), whether municipalities are less often 
split, whether citizens have a more ready forum to present their 
grievances, and so on.  It may be possible to compare redistricting 
processes and outcomes within a state under a legislative structure 
(though even here, different legislative conditions might have produced 
different plans) and then a subsequent non-legislative structure in the 
same state. But given the diversity of non-legislative structures, the 
diversity of criteria they are asked to apply (with different 
priorities), the diversity of political demography, and the decennial 
nature of the process (yielding few data points) it's tough to find 
analyses that reliably demonstrate that a given redistricting structure 
in its Platonic form definitively yields X or Y result.

Justin

-- 
Justin Levitt
Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA  90015
213-736-7417
justin.levitt at lls.edu
ssrn.com/author=698321

On 9/3/2014 3:59 PM, Fredric Woocher wrote:
>
> Could anyone point me to a good source on data regarding which states 
> use citizen commissions or other non-legislative bodies to perform the 
> decennial redistricting of their Congressional or state legislative 
> districts, and any analyses of the results of such efforts?
>
> Off-list responses would be fine.  Thanks,
>
> Fredric D. Woocher
>
> Strumwasser & Woocher LLP
>
> 10940 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 2000
>
> Los Angeles, CA 90024
>
> fwoocher at strumwooch.com <mailto:fwoocher at strumwooch.com>
>
> (310) 576-1233
>
>   
>
>
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