Redistricting is best left to the politicians

Joe Sciacca
Boston Herald
March 7, 2010

If they ever indict Tom Finneran, count number one will be: Acting like a state rep. Count number two: Denying he acted like a state rep.

How else can one explain Finneran's irrational denial that he was involved in the legislative redistricting plan and knew what was in it? Amnesia? Alien abduction? He was really working for the CIA?

Has anybody clued the grand jury in on the fact that the drawing up of new election districts, whether it's here or in any other state, involves - order in the court please - politics?

Protecting incumbents and favoring one party are not new. Check the historical record: See Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, 1811.

Finneran, like others before him, tried as House speaker to do the political thing while appearing to be protecting the public interest.

This is why he taught his legislative redistricting chairman, Tom Petrolati, to use the proper lingo: "packing and cracking," "communities of interest," "minority-majority," and "districts should vary in size no more than 0.53 percent." This appeared to be enough, back in 2001, to confuse the press, sedate the public and convince lesser pols that Finneran was truly a genius.

Then Finneran took the dog-ate-my-homework stance in a deposition. Petrolati, in turn, pretty much claimed he blacked out, and when he came to, Finneran was gone and he had been promoted to speaker pro tempore.

Despite the not-so-great mystery over what Finneran knew and when, we're not talking Watergate here. The real issue is, should politicians be the ones mapping out electoral districts in the first place?

It's an issue that's popping up from coast to coast as judges throw out redistricting maps and then reach into their robes for an eraser and pencil to do the job themselves.

This judicial hijacking of the electoral process is, it seems, to nobody's liking. There is a movement toward setting up bipartisan or nonpartisan commissions to do redistricting to account for population shifts, ensure that minority candidates have a fair shot at winning and guarantee that all votes count.

Barry C. Burden, an associate professor in American Politics at Harvard and a redistricting expert, likes the independent commission route. Iowa and Arizona have such commissions and lots of other states are moving in that direction, including California.

"At least with a bipartisan commission, instead of one set of guys being taken care of, two sets of guys are taken care of, so that's one step better," Burden says, noting that the dominant party, such as the Democrats in Massachusetts, often calls the shots in redistricting.

But Burden acknowledges, "What is a fair plan can change depending upon what criteria is applied. My criteria would be a plan that generates some competition (in electoral races). Others might want nice-looking districts without funny long lines drawn around them. Others believe that giving incumbents stability is a good thing."

Ironically, the Legislature is more accountable than any commission. The trouble is, voters need to hold lawmakers accountable and they don't.

Others suggest putting a redistricting map before voters for approval, but that would be complicated and opposed by voter-rights lawyers who tend to trust judges more than the people.

True, state reps think the Voting Rights Act has something to do with voting the way the speaker tells them, and some of them know more about napping than mapping.

But until there is better way to do it, and so far none has emerged, it may well be that redistricting should remain the duty of lawmakers - as long as they can remember what they did after it's done.