Feb 7, 2005 -- NY Times: States See Growing Campaign to Change Redistricting Laws

By Adam Nagourney

February 3, 2005 - The politically charged methods that states use to draw Congressional districts are under attack by citizens groups, state legislators and the governor of California, all of whom are concerned that increasingly sophisticated map-drawing has created a class of entrenched incumbents, stifled electoral competition and caused governmental gridlock.

Largely uncoordinated campaigns stretching from California to Massachusetts are pushing to end, or at least minimize, a time-honored staple of American politics: lawmakers drawing Congressional and legislative district maps in geographically convoluted ways to ensure the re-election of an incumbent or the dominance of a party.

Last month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a state that has historically been at the forefront of political reform movements, proposed putting retired judges in charge of redistricting, taking it out of the hands of the Legislature. Common Cause, one of the nonpartisan groups championing changes in the system, said campaigns to overhaul redistricting were under way in at least eight states, including California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

The increased attention to the issue is in part due to the effectiveness of efforts in 2003 in Texas, where Republicans, with the backing of the White House, forced through a midterm redistricting that effectively cost four Texas Democrats their seats. The complaints are also spurred by the way computers and the enormous amount of available voting data have turned redistricting into a surgically precise procedure and opened up to anyone with a laptop what was once dominated by legislative tacticians with decades of knowledge.

"You cannot believe the number of people and organizations across the country that are focusing on this redistricting issue," said Bruce E. Cain, an expert on redistricting and director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. "It seems like it's poised to become, for the reform community, the equivalent of McCain-Feingold," the bill that overhauled the campaign finance system.

In Arizona, a nonpartisan commission approved by voters in 2000 has completed its first redistricting, which is viewed by advocates as the most impartial since Iowa created a system 20 years ago to propose maps without taking into account partisan considerations like voter history and incumbents' addresses. The Arizona overhaul was strongly endorsed by Senator John McCain, and his aides said he was considering throwing his support behind Mr. Schwarzenegger's effort and embracing it as a cause in a presidential campaign, should he run in 2008.

"It's a motherhood-and-apple-pie issue," said a Maryland state delegate, John R. Leopold, a Republican who this year found Democrats embracing his redistricting overhaul legislation after it languished for two years. "We have a situation in this state and this nation where the legislatures are creating our own voters. This is dangerous for our country."

Nathaniel Persily, an election law expert at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, said: "Something has changed. Voter preferences are becoming more and more predictable. There is a problem when the turnover in the United States House of Representatives is lower than it was in the Soviet Politburo."

The obstacles to changing reapportionment remain huge, because state legislators, who in most cases have to approve any changes, are understandably loath to adopt a system that could put them out of work. That is why much of the effort to overhaul the system is focusing on states that allow for citizen initiatives that circumvent legislatures.

The proposals have drawn a wary reaction from Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington. One senior Republican Party strategist, who did not want to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue, warned that while Mr. Schwarzenegger's proposal could help Republicans in California, it could have unwanted consequences if states where Republicans now have an edge follow California's lead.

Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, and the Democratic National Committee chairman, Terry McAuliffe, declined to comment.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company