The Realities of Redistricting

The Washington Post
December 23, 2003 Tuesday
Final Edition

SECTION: Editorial; A20

LENGTH: 491 words

HEADLINE: The Realities of Redistricting

BODY:
William Raspberry ["A Supreme Conundrum," op-ed, Dec. 15] did a good job of summing up the redistricting controversy concerning partisan gerrymandering. The decision in Vieth v. Jubelirer will be the Supreme Court's first major redistricting decision in nearly 20 years. The facts and promise of "commission redistricting," however, merit clarification.

Iowa does not use a commission. Instead, nonpartisan staff members draft as many as three versions of state and congressional lines. The first two can be rejected by the legislature, while the third can be modified by the legislature for partisan purposes. If not for the Democratic governor's threatened veto of a 2001 GOP legislative plan, the nonpartisan staff drafts would not now be in place.

New Jersey uses separate commissions for Congress and the legislature. While its nonpartisan legislative commission chairs have supported Democratic and GOP plans during the past three redistricting rounds, the 2001 legislative plan helped switch both chambers to the Democratic side after the 2001 and 2003 elections. New Jersey's first experience with a congressional commission in 2001 resulted in a plan favorable to reelecting incumbents of both parties.

Redistricting is a zero-sum game. There will always be partisan winners and losers, no matter who draws the lines.

JEFFREY M. WICE

Bethesda

The writer served as redistricting counsel to the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 redistricting cycle.

*The Dec. 15 editorial "Rescuing U.S. Democracy," focusing on Vieth v. Jubelirer, said that "redistricting is so out of control that [Supreme] Court action is warranted."

In 2002 I supported Jerry Lewis for the Maryland Senate. As a civic leader, lawyer, educator and businessman, he had the background to instill confidence in his candidacy. But not long before the primary, Maryland's redistricting changed the voting map, and many candidates became ineligible in the districts in which they had been campaigning. Suddenly, viable candidates were marginalized.

The redistricting was challenged, but the state Court of Appeals did not rule on the challenge until late August. With the Maryland primary scheduled for Sept. 10, there was hardly enough time after the court's ruling for challengers to organize a campaign to unseat incumbents. Thus, preservation of the status quo appears to have been the result of Maryland's most recent redistricting.

In Mr. Lewis's case, he had spent campaign funds in communities that ultimately could not vote for him. His volunteers had gone door-to-door to attract voters who turned out not to be in his district. The redistricting ultimately took him out of the Senate race. It forced him into the delegate contest, where his supporters thought he had better prospects of prevailing. He did not.

As The Post correctly concluded: "Redistricting that renders voters superfluous should not be acceptable."

DON REEVES

Kensington