New Hampshire Democrats,
The state constitution assigns to the Legislature itself, subject to gubernatorial veto, responsibility for reapportioning House and Senate districts every 10 years in accord with the latest figures from the U.S. Census, with an eye to achieving equal representation so far as possible. This system, however, provides a powerful temptation for the party in power when the lines are redrawn to manipulate them for partisan advantage, a practice known as gerrymandering (one so old in American history that it takes its name from one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Elbridge Gerry).
What Democrats in Concord are proposing is not to scrap the system, but to establish what amounts to an advisory commission to inform the Legislature’s work. If their current proposal follows the contours of a failed 2017 effort, a commission with appointees from both political parties would meet in advance of redistricting deadlines and make its recommendations to the full Legislature, which would continue to have the final word, along with the governor.
As the Concord Monitor reported recently, Democrats in New Hampshire have long complained that the Senate districts drawn last time around by the Republican-controlled Legislature were created to provide inherent advantages for some Republican members. Should Democrats maintain or extend their control of the Legislature in the 2020 elections, they would be in a position to redraw the map to their own liking. That’s why proposing to establish the commission now is good politics as well as good policy — it demonstrates good-faith willingness to discard a potential future advantage.
Although the practice of gerrymandering is old and has been engaged in by Republicans and Democrats alike, its iterations have become increasingly common and sophisticated across the nation during the past 20 years. Many observers believe that the hyperpartisan deadlock in Congress is partly attributable to gerrymandering that has reduced the number of competitive seats. So far, the U.S. Supreme Court has punted when asked whether gerrymandering is constitutionally permissible.
But the situation has produced a backlash. A number of states have made efforts to prevent partisan abuse in redrawing legislative and congressional districts. Arizona, through a 2000 ballot initiative, entrusted drawing congressional boundaries to an entirely independent commission, as did California in 2010. (A New York Times analysis in 2015 suggested that the districts drawn by those commissions yielded more competitive races in those two states than previously.) And redistricting reform was approved this fall by voters in Michigan, Colorado and Missouri.
In opposing a redistricting commission, New Hampshire Republicans cite election results that have seen control of state government flip from one party to the other in recent years. That does not, in itself, demonstrate that the electoral map is fair; it may only prove that built-in advantages in districts can be overcome when voters are highly motivated, as they were this fall.
Moreover, the principle of “one person, one vote” equality, established by U.S. Supreme Court rulings in the 1960s, is not the only one implicated in redrawing legislative boundaries. Ties of geography, common interest and history ought to be weighed also when communities are grouped together in the redistricting process. The goal ought to be a level playing field, not one that alternately tilts depending on the party in power.