Looking for a better way of redrawing political borders

Looking for a better way of redrawing political borders

Imagine there was a way of minimizing the politics involved in the decidedly political process of congressional redistricting. This almost magical solution would confine to history books the practice of gerrymandering — drawing tortured districts that slither from one part of the state to another with no other reason than to help one political party or the other.

Now there is no need to imagine.

A contest run by the League of Women Voters of Ohio and the Ohio Redistricting Competition partners showed that computers can easily do what some legislatures refuse to do — draw districts that are tighter, that respect community interests and that, whenever mathematically possible, give either major party a chance to win an election.

Gerrymandering is nothing new. It draws its name from Elbridge Gerry, the Massachusetts governor who signed a redistricting bill that created a salamander-like congressional district favoring his party. The Boston Gazette combined the name of the governor and the reptile to give the political lexicon a word that is approaching its 200th birthday.

Ohio’s congressional districts are now drawn by the General Assembly. The General Assembly districts are in the hands of an apportionment board comprising the governor, secretary of state, auditor of state, and three representatives chosen by General Assembly leaders.

There’s often some horse trading designed to protect incumbents from both parties, but the outcome is always certain to favor the party holding the most power.

Torn between two parties

The process results in some mind-boggling redistricting maps, in which communities or counties are split for no reason other than politics and areas with industries, cultures or histories in common are divided. A few districts around Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland are compact, but others stretch for hundreds of miles, end to end (the 6th District that goes from Mahoning County through all or part of 11 other counties being among those).

Finding a more responsible way of redistricting is important now, because Ohio is certain to lose one of its 18 congressional districts following the 2010 census and could lose two. Such losses will only increase the partisanship and rancor in the redistricting process.

The redistricting contest, which had the cooperation of the office of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, showed that it is possible to design a new state map that places a priority on compactness, communities of interest, competitiveness and representational fairness. The three winners in that contest were Tim Clarke, an attorney from Avon; Stuart Wright of Columbus and Mike Fortner of West Chicago, Ill., a Republican state representative and former mayor of West Chicago. They took on the challenge of drawing better maps as an intellectual challenge and a commitment to better government.

Ideally, the General Assembly would recognize the wisdom of pursuing their example and would work toward a less partisan alternative to the present practice. If not, the only chance for reform is a daunting one, a referendum pursued by individuals and organizations that believe Ohio deserves a map that looks more like those drawn by the contest participants and less like those drawn in Columbus in recent decades.