Posted October 31, 2006 by CLC Staff

Redistricting a Representative Legislature

Political handicappers are predicting a major upheaval in the upcoming Congressional midterms but not on the same scale as 1994 or 1974.  Why is that?  The post-2000 round of gerrymandering created so many seats that are politically non-competitive (i.e., safe seats) that Republicans may hold onto their control of the House or least keep any new Democratic majority marginally close.  On the eve of the election, several reform groups today called for an overhaul of the redistricting process that would put the interests of voters before those of either Republicans or Democrats.

The Campaign Legal Center, the Center for Excellence in Government and the League of Women Voters released a report calling for a national redistricting reform movement and offering guidance for state-level redistricting reform efforts.  “Building A National Redistricting Reform Movement” draws on the deliberations and conclusions of a diverse group of individuals from nonpartisan organizations at a conference held earlier this year in Salt Lake City . 

The report builds on broad principles for reforming congressional and legislative redistricting set out in the 2005 report, “The Shape of Representative Democracy.”  It also looks at lessons learned from unsuccessful redistricting reform attempts in 2005 and suggests strategies to pursue and pitfalls to avoid in future reform efforts.

The sponsors of the report timed its release just a week before the mid-term election to underscore the distorting effects of the gerrymandering of so many congressional districts after the 2000 census.  It is a reminder of how drawing district lines to insure safe districts – often done on a bipartisan basis to serve incumbents in both parties – is likely to insulate the U. S. House of Representatives from fundamental democratic accountability and responsiveness.

The new report carefully examines the ballot initiatives defeated last year in California and Ohio. Both drew strong, well-funded opposition and suffered from being tied to other complex proposals and from being seen as partisan power-grabs. 

The report recognizes that national redistricting reform will be a daunting task and urges careful attention to content, timing, resources, research and message development, and coalition building and public outreach. The next step in the groups’ efforts will be to bring together a broad coalition to build public support for redistricting reform efforts.