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Drawing the Lines
This week the New York State Assembly began holding hearings to discuss redistricting – the way that political boundaries are drawn for Congress and the state senate and assembly. And while these hearings signal the beginning of a debate over the way these boundaries are drawn, New Yorkers should focus on this key question. Who should be responsible for drawing the political boundary lines? In a representative democracy, how the lines are drawn is critically important. In the past, district lines were drawn to break up minority communities in an effort to block the elections of candidates who were either African Americans or Latinos. District lines have been used to enhance the reelection prospects of incumbents and to strengthen the political parties. Line drawing is so precise that majority parties have drawn lines to push likely challengers out of a district to protect the incumbent. In New York State, the people primarily responsible for drawing political boundaries are state lawmakers. In the State Senate, Republicans draw the lines since they are in the political majority in that house. In the State Assembly, Democrats do the same. And the last time the lines were drawn, Governor Pataki was a willing participant in this system since he approved the lines, lock, stock and barrel. But is it right? Should politicians draw the lines? Those who support the current system say that politicians are best equipped to develop these lines since they are experts on their communities. They have a unique knowledge of their communities and know best where the lines should be drawn. Of course politicians are expert on the politics of the communities in their areas. After all, they are able to get elected – they persuade a majority of voters to back their candidacies. No one disputes that politicians know their districts extremely well. But should they draw the lines? Despite their impressive knowledge, don’t they have an inherent conflict of interest? Isn’t it possible that politicians will band together to draw lines that are extremely advantageous to their own political fortunes? You bet they will. And we know that politicians rig the district lines. The vast majority of state legislative districts are rigged to benefit one party over the other. Of the 212 legislative districts, only 25 have close enrollments in the number of Democrats and Republicans. We all know that there are parts of New York State that contain more cows than Democrats and other parts that have more telephone poles than Republicans. But should only 25 of 212 have close enrollments? And rigging the system makes it far less likely that New Yorkers will experience truly competitive elections. In the past 24 years, only 34 incumbents were beaten in the general elections. That incumbency protection makes it much less likely that politicians will worry about voter outrage. Moreover, politicians will only be focusing on playing to their political base instead of building bipartisan coalitions, which is one of the reasons why American state and federal governments are so partisan and extremely gridlocked. It doesn’t have to be that way. Some states take the control of drawing the district lines away form politicians and hand it to independent commissions, staffed with nonpoliticians. And they expressly forbid those commissions to consider partisanship in drawing the lines. Those states believe that the district lines should be drawn in the public’s best interests, not the political best interests of incumbents or the political parties. Both candidates for governor have stated their interest in reforming the redistricting process. Eliot Spitzer has explicitly called for the use of an independent commission to draw the lines; John Faso has been vague in his proposal – but agrees that something should be done. Whoever wins will likely have a big say in reforming the redistricting process. And it seems clear that legislators see the handwriting on the wall. The hearings offer legislators the chance to begin learning about other redistricting approaches. Hopefully they will do so and begin the process of reform. That’s all for now. I’ll be keeping an eye on the Capitol and will talk to you again next week
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