The Washington Post describes yet another proposal to take power over elections away from the states and let Washington D.C. determine requirements for elections. This proposal is nicely packaged as a way to make the upcoming redistricting process more transparent. The author struts out this false dilemma: “Failure to provide for transparency and public participation should be recognized for what it is: an obviously self-serving act, placing the interests of politicians above the public interest.” As if stripping power from elected officials and giving to someone else isn’t also “self serving.” Just a different “self” perhaps. Always beware when the “public interest” justifies alterations to long established electoral systems.
In the case of redistricting, the electoral process in the individual states always provides a remedy. If the public, in sufficient numbers, deems the elected officials insufficiently transparent or inadequately responsive, then all they need do is vote out the offending officials. Stripping the elected legislatures of power to do redistricting and dumping it into a new body or a new oversight board is a bad idea.
In my experience working with state legislatures all around the nation, I’ve found that they are so close to the people, that citizens can already get as involved in the process as they want to be. Care about redistricting? Then roll up your sleeves and get busy. Call up the chairs of the relevant committees and let them know you are interested. Attend hearings. Call staff. Send letters. Offer plans. Write editorials. Mobilize citizens. Watch, listen and act. That’s what we do in America. It is a cheap answer to citizen apathy to assume that a commission, or citizen panel will cure an absence of participation by citizens. I’ve found that state legislators are extremely responsive to citizen involvement, especially involvement demonstrating even a minimal level of ability. So the answer isn’t to change who does redistricting; the answer is for citizens to exercise their rights to be involved in the process.
If you read our op-ed closely, and even the sentence you quote, you will see that we only call for transparency and public participation. We do not call for adopting commissions. The states that promote the most transparency and public participation happen to be commission states like Arizona and California, which require a generous number of public hearings under open meeting laws, before before and after draft maps are produced. As a consultant who has drawn redistricting plans for legislatures, I know that often the legislative leaders spring a final redistricting plan upon their members in the last hour of a legislative session, with no chance for public input. However, I agree that legislatures can adopt more robust transparency and public participation rules. The 38 Members of Congress who have signed on to Rep. Tanner’s bipartisan transparency and public participation bill are some of the notable elected officials who agree.
In fact, we are not just about words. In the coming months, we will be releasing free on-line mapping tools that will enable the public to become more actively involved in redistricting. You can see a hint of where we are going with our software development in the principles for transparency and public participation that are referenced and linked to in our op-ed.
So, read the opinion editorial again and look at the principles statement. We have much more in common than you might think from reading your blog post.
EDITOR NOTE: Fair enough. The author of the piece does not call for the adoption of the Tanner proposal. But it would seem the simple solution to this problem, to the extent a problem exists, is to have a longer time period for public comment. Of course this is something that can be done through putting pressure on legislators by citizens and the media. There is no need to delegate a legislative function to “commissions.” It is also good that citizens learn more about how redistricting works by having the chance to use software. But in the end, redistricting decisions belong with state legislators, not with Congress in any form, and not with commissions.
I think you are conflating two bills sponsored by Tanner. One calls for commissions, the other calls for transparency and public participation. It is only the latter that we are advocating adoption of.
In my state of Washington, the Democrat-controlled legislature and Democrat Governor do not listen to the voters and they establish all sorts of commissions to study this and study that because it serves a two-fold purpose. First, it gives jobs to their cronies, and secondly, their cronies will agree with their intent so they know the recommendations of the commissions will comport with their ideology and then they can use the cover of the commission to pass laws they intended to pass all along.