Politics and hypocrites

by | Feb 4, 2015 | Editor's Blog, NCGA | 5 comments

Yesterday, a bi-partisan group of house members unveiled two plans to reform the redistricting process. One proposal would have legislative staff draw districts that would then be voted on by the legislature. The other would set up an independent commission appointed by the legislature, the governor and the Supreme Court and would not take effect until 2030.

The measures are supported by activists from both the left and the right. John Hood, head of the John W. Pope Foundation and former president of the John Locke Foundation, supports it. So does Chris Fitzsimon, executive director of the progressive think-tank N. C. Policy Watch. And the bills were sponsored by powerful Republican like Rep. Skip Stam and Rep. Chuck McGrady.

In addition, Senate President Pro-Tem Phil Berger, Senate redistricting Chair Bob Rucho, Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown and Senate Rules Chair Tom Apodaca, all Republicans, are long-time supporters of redistricting reform. All of them have sponsored redistricting reform legislation over the years. They must be excited about the prospect of finally getting a long-time priority passed and the opportunity to show that they can support bi-partisan legislation.

Wait, what? They’re not? What could possibly be wrong? It’s legislation that they consistently supported. It’s got support across the political spectrum and it’s being introduced by powerful members of their own party.

So what could be different? They now control the redistricting pen. Following the 2010 census they drew among the most gerrymandered maps in the country. After 100 years in the wilderness, who could blame them? They got their revenge and protected their majority against the demographic tide that’s shifting the state to the left.

Now, though, they should be thinking about the future. Instead, they’re thinking about themselves. One bill wouldn’t take effect for fifteen years, giving the GOP the chance to gerrymander themselves into power throughout the 2020s.

The Republicans are the party of competition. They want to put it into everything from bids for public contracts to public education. So why not politics? After all, the system was designed for public debate and discourse that is inherently competitive.

As the two-party system emerged in North Carolina, Democrats were wrong to use redistricting as a tool to keep Republicans out of the General Assembly and Congress. They paid a steep price in the redistricting of 2011. Now, it’s time to stop evening scores and end the gerrymandering that’s helped create the polarization in politics today.

If Republicans can win the political argument they shouldn’t need to rig the system. After all their support for redistricting in the past and their supposed belief in the power of competition, they should welcome taking heavy handed government out of the process. They should show that they are above politics and not just another bunch of hypocrites. 

5 Comments

  1. Martin Dyckman

    Alas, hypocrisy on this issue is as common as mosquitoes in July. When the Florida Senate wound up 20-20 in 1993, they went through seven ballots before agreeing to share power. In his turn, the Republican president, Ander Crenshaw, got a 40-0 vote for a nonpartisan commission. But in the House, where Democrats still ruled, they and the GOP effectively killed the plan. Both parties were counting on gaming the system. The Democrats lost the House two years later and have been a feeble minority since. Sound familiar? In 1997. Florida’s Constitution Revision Commission considered, tentatively adopted and then rejected a similar plan. Among the no votes: the same former Republican Senate president. When asked what had changed, Crenshaw–who is now a congressman– replied, “We won.”

  2. Mike L

    It would be wonderful if they could pass legislation modeling Iowa’s where they simply try to make the districts as square as possible, taking into account only population numbers. But alas it looks like the Senate won’t allow any redistricting reform to be passed

  3. Walter Rand

    Whichever party is in power has incentive to keep allowing gerrymandering. Even the individual politicians (including judges) in office have that same incentive regardless of party since they were elected via the gerrymandering in effect at the time of their elections. Perhaps that’s why gerrymandering for NC legislative districts is outlawed by the NC Constitution. The legislature and the courts ignore our own constitution which commands that counties cannot be divided in the creation of state legislative districts. Some have the gall to pretend that the Voting Rights Act requires the division of counties. It does not. It doesn’t even come close to that.
    The reforms offered for gerrymandering fall short of the law we already have which outlaws gerrymandering for state legislative districts. The reforms are designed to lessen the egregiousness of gerrymandering while keeping the practice of gerrymandering intact. Rather than debate over lukewarm reforms we should be pushing the legislature and courts to follow the anti-gerrymandering law (no county can lawfully be divided to create a state legislative district) that is already in existence. After all, if the government ignores the laws already in effect what good would it be to pass new laws to be ignored?

    • mapping

      The United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, requires the state to meet the “1 man 1 vote” standard when drawing map lines, with a 10% variation. It is literally impossible to meet this standard while purely applying the ‘no county division’ rule in the state constitution. The N.C. courts still apply the county division rule-but only after the 1 man, 1 vote rule is applied.

      • Walter Rand

        No, it isn’t impossible. It isn’t even difficult to keep the one-man, one-vote standard. You don’t have to make each individual county it’s own district. Doing that would cause the problem you indicate. You bundle contiguous counties together and apportion the number of seats to be elected according to the number of people in each district. You keep the one-man, one-vote standard. You don’t even have to have a 10% variation. You can do it with a 3% variation.

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