Washington Post
Drawing the
Line On Redistricting By Steven Hill and Rob Richie
July
1, 2003 Gerrymandering has become a "Friday the 13th" horror movie.
Just when we thought it was over, it returns, like the implacable,
hockey-masked villain, refusing to die. Its latest resurrection is
in Texas, where the state legislature is meeting in special session
as part of a brazen bid to protect the Republican majority in the
U.S. House of Representatives. It was bad enough that in 2001 both
Republicans and Democrats elevated incumbent protection in
redistricting to new levels. California's House Democrats paid
$20,000 apiece to a redistricting consultant -- the brother of an
incumbent -- to have "designer districts" drawn for them.
Republicans went along with this cozy arrangement in exchange for
their own safe seats. The result was an unbroken parade of landslide
wins. In Pennsylvania and Michigan, Republicans gained seats by
forcing several Democrats to run against each other, cannibalizing
their own. Maryland Democrats finally took out Connie Morella by
putting her in a district where Al Gore had won two-thirds of the
vote. Power grabs and incumbent protection plans occurred in state
after state, at both congressional and state legislative levels. The
real losers were voters, left with overwhelmingly choiceless
elections. The inevitable churning that comes with redistricting
usually increases competition, at least for one or two elections.
But more than 37 percent of state legislative incumbents were
uncontested -- nearly as many as before redistricting. Voters booted
out the incumbent party in half of gubernatorial races, but not a
single legislative chamber came under new control except in the
relatively few states where courts or commissions drew the lines.
The U.S. House of Representatives was no better: Only four
challengers defeated incumbents, the fewest in history, while fewer
than one in 10 races were won by competitive margins of less than 10
percent. Women and members of racial minority groups made little to
no gain in representation, in stark contrast to dramatic increases
in the post-redistricting elections of 1992. Using sophisticated
computers, polling and databases to draw the legislative lines with
unprecedented precision, party leaders and incumbents essentially
did away with elections. For the rest of this decade, the only
choice most voters will have in House races is to ratify the nominee
-- usually the incumbent -- of the party that was handed their
district. Now along come such Republican leaders as Tom DeLay and
Karl Rove in relentless search of a secure House majority. Only two
years after redistricting was completed, Republican-controlled
Colorado redrew congressional district lines, and Rove and DeLay are
pushing Texas to follow suit. Call it re-redistricting. In
Colorado, Republicans solidified their hold on congressional seats
by adopting a new plan merely two days after its introduction. The
Republican winner of the nation's closest congressional race in 2002
was given a brand-new safe seat that conveniently removed his 2002
opponent. The Democratic attorney general has taken the remarkable
step of suing his own state. In Texas, things already have reached
truly wacky dimensions, involving the potentially illegal use of
federal agents to apprehend 51 Democratic legislators who had gone
AWOL to prevent having a quorum that could enact the redistricting.
Now Gov. Rick Perry has convened a special session to deal with the
question. Expect a partisan brawl. It's time to reform our
winner-take-all elections. Congress has full authority to regulate
redistricting and could at least curb the worst abuses of voter
choice. States should require clear criteria to govern
redistricting. But the only lasting solution is to replace
winner-take-all elections with full-representation electoral systems
in multi-seat districts, which makes voters rather than district
lines the key to defining representation. With turnout plummeting
and most of us living in thoroughly noncompetitive districts, we
could cancel most legislative elections and few would notice. But
then perhaps our leaders think we have more important things to
worry about than voting. It's in their interest to act as if we do.
Steven Hill is a senior analyst
at the Center for Voting and Democracy and author of "Fixing
Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics." Rob
Richie is executive director of the center.
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