Sunday, March 15, 2015
Arizona voters took a positive step 15 years ago to minimize the role partisan politics plays in drawing up congressional districts. Now that effort is under an attack in a case that has reached the Supreme Court of the United States.
If the court overturns Arizona’s law, it would have a direct effect on six other states with similar redistricting laws and an indirect effect on other states attempting to eliminate the most egregious examples of gerrymandering, including Ohio.
Every 10 years, states use the latest census information to draw congressional districts that are supposed to fairly represent the people of the state and to comply with the principle of one man, one vote. And every 10 years — or even more often in states where the partisanship is running on steroids — some legislatures take the opportunity to draw congressional districts that give the ruling party a distinct advantage.
It’s the modern equivalent of “to the victor belong the spoils,” and its supporters include John Boehner, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, whose office was actively involved in the last redrawing of Ohio’s congressional districts. When Ohio’s legislature was inching toward redistricting reform late last year, Boehner, a Republican from the Dayton area, urged them to delay action, citing the pending Arizona case before the Supreme Court. Besides, Boehner said: “For 40 years, the Democrat Party had the pencil in their hands, and for the last 20 years, we’ve had the pencil. When you’ve got the pencil in your hand, you’re going to use it to the best of your advantage.”
Lopsided congressional delegation
Their use of that advantage has given Republicans a Congressional delegation that includes Boehner and 11 other Republicans and only four Democrats. That’s a 75-25 percent advantage for one party in a toss-up state in national elections. Ohio is not red. It is not blue. It is purple.
In the last 50 years, five Democrats and five Republicans have been elected to represent the state in the U.S. Senate. Our current senators are Sherrod Brown, a liberal Democrat, and Rob Portman, a conservative Republican. In presidential elections over a half-century, Ohio has voted for four Republicans (Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43) and four Democrats (Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Obama).
But Ohio’s gerrymandered congressional districts do not reflect any such consensus. Instead, they are enclaves of partisanship, where incumbents of either party are virtually assured re-election along party lines.
As reporter Jessie Balmert writes in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the 6th District, which stretches through 18 counties from southern Mahoning southwest along the river to Scioto, was the most competitive district in the state in the 2014 Republican rout. Republican Rep. Billl Johnson got 58 percent of the votes and had a 20 percent margin of victory.
Across Ohio, the other 11 Republicans and the four Democrats enjoyed even more lopsided victories. Bob Gibbs in the 7th District didn’t even have a Democratic opponent. Marcia Fudge, D-11th, got 79.5 percent of the vote. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, got 68.5 percent of the vote.
The evils of gerrymandering are many, but perhaps the most insidious is the effect it has on voter turnout. Only 40 percent of Ohio’s voters went to the polls in November, and while the reasons for that are many, one obvious one is that a lot of voters don’t bother to go when the result is preordained.
By contrast, in Arizona, impartial redistricting has resulted in competitive races, and even upsets. That’s what caused the Republican legislature to mount its legal attack. The legislators say the U.S. Constitution gives only the state legislature the power to redistrict and that the referendum approved by voters in 2000 cut them out of the process.
The voters approved a board of two Republicans, two Democrats and an independent agreed to by those four. That commission drew four seats that were considered safe for Republicans, two for Democrats and three that were toss-ups. But when those three toss-up districts all elected Democrats in 2012, the Republican legislature went to court seeking to overturn the referendum.
Constitutional mandate?
Supporters of the commission argued that referenda have historically been considered part of the legislative process, making adoption of the commission constitutional. Arizona legislators argued that the Constitution clearly puts election decisions in the hands of a representative legislature and is not subject to the direct democracy of a ballot initiative.
There are indications that the Supreme Court is divided along familiar party lines, which could set back reform and give new life to the worst of the old gerrymandering schemes.
There has been an effort in Columbus to even the state’s electoral battleground — over Boehner’s objections. But all work has been put on hold until the Supreme Court speaks in the Arizona case — probably in June. Then there will have to be a scramble to put together a proposal for the November ballot. That will give those who are philosophically opposed to reform an opportunity to argue that there’s not enough time.
The Supreme Court’s decision won’t directly affect Ohio reform efforts because the legislature is involved, but voters in all 50 states can hope that this is a case that inspires the justices to rise above partisanship.