About

In this episode we talk all about the art of redistricting, gerrymandering, what it is and why it matters. Segment 1: What is Redistricting? Simply put, redistricting is the process by which new congressional and state legislative districts are drawn. The reason redistricting is necessary is that population growth does not occur equally across states or districts, and so following the completion of the United States Census every ten years, the districts must be “redrawn” to ensure that districts have nearly equal populations. For the 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives, this means that every ten years, some states lose one or more congressional districts while others gain them. For the last round of redistricting, following the 2010 Census, ten states (IL, IA, LA, MA, MI, MO, NJ, NY, OH and PA) lost at least one district, while eight states (AZ, FL, GA, NV, SC, TX, UT, and WA) gained seats, with Texas gaining four. Looking at projections on who will gain and lose seats after 2020, a lot of the same midwestern states are losing seats, with Texas again a big gainer of 3 seats and other Sun Belt states set to gain as well. For state legislative districts, since each state has a fixed number of districts that does not change, district boundaries are simply redrawn according to where relative population growth occurred within the state. Segment 2: Sounds Important…So Who Draws the Lines? Obviously, even in instances where a state is not gaining or losing seats, the district boundaries will still need to change to reflect the current population of the state. In general, each state has guidelines related to the contiguity and compactness or the districts, and some states consider “communities of interest” and existing political boundaries. The exact process for drawing the lines varies by state, but the most important question is: Who’s in charge? In 37 of the 50 states, the state legislature draws Congressional lines, meaning that is the predominant method by which Congressional districts are drawn. In an additional 4 states (AZ, CA, ID and WA), an independent commission draws the lines, and in Hawaii and New Jersey a politician commission fills that role. For state legislative lines, the state legislature is responsible in 37 states, while independent commissions handle the job in 6 states and politician commissions are responsible in 7 states, including our home state of Colorado. Here in Colorado, the 11-person reapportionment commission consists of one person appointed by each party’s leader in both the house and the senate, plus three members appointed by the governor and four members appointed by the Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court (currently, Roy Romer appointee Nancy Rice). Which party holds a majority on these commissions is often determined by who holds the governorship. Practically, this makes control of the state legislature and governor’s mansion critically important to the redistricting process. With full control, a political party is able to draw districts that significantly cement and enhance their power within a state using a process called partisan gerrymandering. As New York Times Magazine staff writer Emily Bazelon notes in a recent article on redistricting, partisan gerrymandering in 17 Republican controlled states (including some states that are traditional red states, like OH, MI, PA and WI) allowed Republicans in 2012 to win 72% of the seats despite winning only 53% of the vote. Similarly, in the 6 states where Democrats had full control, their candidates won only 56% of the vote but won 71% of the seats. Segment 3: That Doesn’t Sound Fair…What about Redistricting Law? Believe it or not, the problem of districts being unfairly apportioned used to be a lot worse. As late as the early 1960’s there was a state assembly district in Vermont that had just 36 people, while the largest district in the state had 35,000. And a rural California state senate district had 14,000 voters compared to Los Angeles’s only state senate district which had more than 6 million voters. Beginning in the early 1960’s the Supreme Court intervened to end these disparities, claiming jurisdiction over questions of legislative apportionment in Baker v. Carr (1962), and establishing the doctrine of “one person, one vote” for both state legislative and congressional districts. Practically, what this means is that districts have to be roughly equal in population, so that a vote in one district is worth as much as a vote in another. Federal law, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, also attempts to limit gerrymandering that is racially discriminatory, stating that: “No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by state or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.” In the context of redistricting, that means that plans can’t be intended to dilute minority votes, and they also can’t cause “retrogression” in minority political opportunity, whether intended or not. Prior to 2013, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required certain states and jurisdictions to seek preclearance from the Justice Department when redrawing lines, as described here. However, in the case of Shelby v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court struck down the coverage formula that was used to require preclearance, based on the fact that it did not rely upon current data. So while Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was not struck down, most of the jurisdictions that have had to seek preclearance for new redistricting plans in the past no longer have to do so. In an upcoming decision that will have far-reaching implications for how redistricting is done, the Supreme Court will consider in Gill v. Whitford (which centers on Wisconsin’s 2011 redistricting plan) whether partisan gerrymandering (as opposed to racial gerrymandering) violates the constitution. As Bazelon notes in her article, the plaintiffs aren’t asking the Supreme Court to stop gerrymandering entirely – they are simply asking the Court to say that it’s possible for it to go too far. They are also offering a second argument that comes from the 1st Amendment, that partisan gerrymandering “subjects a group of voters or their party to disfavored treatment by reason of their views.”