TERMINATE THE GERRYMANDER
By Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
 
Sunday, February 20, 2005
 

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/02/20/power_to_the_people/

 
     The deepest and unhealthiest divide in American
politics is not the one that separates Republicans
from Democrats or conservatives from liberals. It is
the gulf between Insiders and Outsiders -- between
the incumbents who treat public office as private
property and the increasingly neutered electorate in
whose name tthey claim to act. You may have learned
in ninth-grade civics class that lawmakers are the
people's servants, temporarily entrusted with power
that the people can take back at any time. But ninth
grade is light-years away from the reality of
Congress and the statehouses today, where many
legislators regard their positions as lifetime
entitlements that voters must not be allowed to
tamper with.
 
     The incumbent-protection racket takes many
forms, from high ballot-access hurdles to onerous
campaign-finance rules. But nothing does more to
turn elections into shams than gerrymandering --
mapping congressional and legislative districts so
that they become wholly-owned subsidiaries of one
political party.
 
     Gerrymanders are sometimes used to suppress
partisan minorities. At other times, both parties
collude, as California lawmakers did in 2001. That
was the year, the Los Angeles Times recalled last
week, that “Democrats and Republicans struck an
agreement ensuring that whichever party represented
a district at the time would get or keep a
registration advantage. The sweetheart deal worked
better than the drafters had expected. In 2002, only
three legislative seats changed parties. Last
November, not one of the 153 congressional and
legislative seats on the ballot switched from 'R' to
'D' or vice versa.”
 
     That, says Alan Heslop, an expert on
redistricting at Claremont McKenna College, was
“surely the most complete and effective bipartisan
gerrymander in American history."
 
     The US Supreme Court declined last year to
strike down a biased congressional redistricting
plan in Pennsylvania, refusing to involve itself in
a purely partisan dispute. But though he joined the
5-4 majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy was blunt
about the stakes. “It is unfortunate," he wrote,
"that our legislators have reached the point of
declaring that, when it comes to apportionment, ‘We
are in the business of rigging elections.’ "
 
     Arnold Schwarzenegger agrees. Unlike the
Supreme Court, the charismatic California governor
intends to do something about it. He has launched a
full-scale attack on redistricting abuse in his
state, demanding that the power to draw election
maps be taken from the legislature and turned over
to a committee of retired judges. Legislators hate
the idea, but they know that Schwarzenegger can go
over their heads. People’s Advocate, the
organization that spearheaded the effort to recall
former Governor Gray Davis in 2003, has already
begun collecting the 600,000 names on petitions it
would take to bypass the legislature and submit a
redistricting initiative directly to the voters.
 
     Democrats were quick to blast Schwarzenegger,
of course. The governor's bid to get the current
districts replaced with honest ones in time for next
year's election, fumed Assembly Speaker Fabian
Nunez, "has the smell" of "a political power grab by
the party that's not in power." But Republicans are
no happier -- 16 of California's 20 Republican
congressmen oppose Schwarzenegger's plan. The beauty
of redistricting reform is that theree is nothing
partisan about it. It doesn't empower Rs at the
expense of Ds, or Ds at the expense of Rs. It
empowers voters at the expense of politicians.
 
     Political trends often start in California, but
this time the Golden State joins a crusade already
in progress. Several states, including Iowa, Idaho,
Arizona, and Alaska, have done away with partisan
gerrymandering. Campaigns to follow suit are heating
up in half a dozen others.
 
     Including Massachusestts. More than 190 years
after the term "gerrymander" was coined here in
1812, the watchdog group Common Cause is proposing
an amendment to the state constitution that would do
away with gerrymandering forever. The measure would
make redistricting the job of an independent
commission, which would not be allowed to take party
registration or voting history into account. When
Common Cause tested its proposal as a nonbinding
ballot question in 15 state representative districts
last fall, it passed handily in each one. 
 
     "Massachusetts elections are among the most
uncompetitive anywhere," says Pam Wilmot, executive
director of Common Cause Massachusetts.
"Redistricting has always taken place behind closed
doors, with zero public input."  As a result,
freewheeling elections are as rare in Massachusetts
as they are in California. No member of the Bay
State's congressional delegation has been defeated
since 1996, for example. No member of the state
Senate has lost a race since 1994. 
 
     An end to gerrymandering would be an
extraordinary shot in the arm for American
democracy, once again making legislative races
exciting and responsive. This is the very best kind
of government reform -- the kind that can unite
conservatives and liberals, Republicans and
Democrats. No, honest redistricting won't turn
real-liffe politics into a ninth grade civics class.
But it will make it a lot more interesting and
democratic than the farce we're stuck with now. 
 
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)

		
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