So you thought that the Mueller report already had emotions running high in advance of 2020? How about a US Supreme Court ruling on gerrymandering?
The shady practice of redrawing districts so one party can get “better” representation is before the high court today.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear two cases today related to the redrawing of congressional districts. One case is out of North Carolina, where challengers claim the congressional map was redrawn to maintain a Republican majority in the state.
The second case involves a Maryland district which Democrats reportedly drew to make it difficult for a Republican to win there. The cases could have significant consequences for the practice of gerrymandering, which is the manipulation of districts to favor one party.
Last year, the high court punted the topic back to lower courts, This time it may hear arguments.
How does Iowa avoid these arguments? Because the maps are redrawn every ten years by a non-partisan arm of the legislature: the legislative service agency. The Iowa legislature can ONLY vote the maps completely up or completely down. If the legislature doesn't agree, the courts get to draw the map. Ain't NOBODY who wants that.
The legislative service agency's biggest responsibility is to make the districts equal in population. That's NOT to say that there's NO politics involved. When the agency releases the map, both political parties run the numbers to see if the map gives them a fair chance in the next election.
But having a fair chance in the next election is a LOT different than gerrymandering a map to give one party an advantage. Another side effect of this process: in an indirect way, it imposes term limits on the legislative. Many times, legislators are thrown into the same district. Many retire, move, or go down to defeat.
During my time in the legislature, I was part of one redistricting process. We voted down the first map and accepted the second. Again, the overriding principle of the partisans in the legislature (me included) was to get a fair map - it's assumed there's no map that will advantage one party or another.
It's a good process.