The following editorial appeared in the August 2011 print edition of Carolina Journal:
The new legislative and congressional district maps drawn by Republicans provide the best argument for an independent map-drawing process since the Democrats concocted a set of equally egregious maps a decade ago.
In both cases, the party in power rigged the maps to maximize its partisan advantage. The courts threw out the 2001 legislative maps, resulting in a state Supreme Court decision that set neutral rules for the legislative districts that eventually resulted. Those same rules do not apply to congressional districts, sad to say, so partisan considerations will continue to distort the boundaries of the state’s delegation to Washington.
Sen. Bob Rucho and Rep. David Lewis, the Republican chairs of their respective body’s redistricting committees, are convinced the maps that passed will withstand the inevitable court challenges. But even if they do, they’re hardly compact, and certainly aren’t competitive.
Based on party registration and ideological preferences, North Carolina’s congressional delegation should be divided fairly evenly, with Democrats holding a slight edge unless one party or the other benefited from a partisan “wave” in a particular election year.
Before the 2010 election, however, Democrats held an 8-5 edge in the congressional delegation. Based on the maps drawn by today’s GOP-led General Assembly, it’s quite possible that Republicans could take 10 of the state’s congressional districts while Democrats could not lose any of the remaining three. That’s an outrage.
Without term limits or other institutional restrictions on tenure, office-holders can gain a false sense of entitlement and lose touch with the interests of their constituents.
To be sure, the federal Voting Rights Act constrains the mapmakers’ flexibility. Under the law, North Carolina must have at least one majority black congressional district and a second with a plurality of black voting-age residents. Forty of the state’s 100 counties must ensure that black voters’ rights are not diluted, compromising the compactness of legislative districts.
Hence the 1st Congressional District, which looks like a bug splattered on a windshield, and the 12th, which resembles a paint blob. The General Assembly’s 10th House District snakes through four counties Down East, so that the adjacent 12th can contain a majority of black voters. And so on.
Two bills before the General Assembly would take elected officials out of the map-drawing business. House Bill 824 would place legislative staff in charge of setting district lines; final maps would have to gain the legislature’s approval. House Bill 783 would create an independent redistricting commission, made up of members appointed by elected leaders from each party and all branches of state government.
Either arrangement would require the group drawing the lines to follow rules that should make elections more competitive. Districts would have to be compact, keep counties (and cities) whole when possible, ensure equal population, and ignore incumbency.
Under our system of single-member representation, voters are supposed to choose their representatives, not the other way around. Either proposal would bring the promise of representative government closer to reality.