How special ‘accountability’ seats could defuse redistricting By Lee Mortimer Charges of “racial gerrymandering” have kept North Carolina embroiled in redistricting lawsuits for the past 20 years. For most of that time, Democrats drew the districts and Republicans took them to court. Now Democrats are challenging district maps drawn by a Republican-controlled General Assembly. Two days of hearings before three Wake County Superior Court judges last week brought forth lots of arcane testimony understood mainly by attorneys and consultants. Whether the outcome will be more than another expensive lawsuit for taxpayers remains to be seen. The dispute centers on whether Republican map-makers violated the Voting Rights Act by “packing” black voters into districts that were already electing black candidates. Republicans say they complied with the law by enhancing minority election prospects. The removal of reliable Democratic voters from adjoining districts enabled Republicans to capture more seats held by white Democrats. Republicans don’t deny gerrymandering but say it was motivated by politics, not race. The true measure of a gerrymander is not the bizarre shape of districts but how much it gives the party in power undeserved seats. By that yardstick, Republican gerrymandering is far more egregious than what Democrats did. It’s also evidence of how the Voting Rights Act can be misused for partisan purposes. In last November’s election, Republican candidates received 49 percent of the statewide congressional vote but 69 percent of the seats (nine of 13). Republicans averaged 52 percent of the statewide vote for state House and Senate but received 65 percent of assembly seats (110 of 170). That’s a 13 percent discrepancy between votes and undeserved legislative seats and a 20 percent discrepancy in congressional seats. By contrast, during five elections from 2002 through 2010 when Democrats drew the maps, the discrepancy in undeserved Democratic seats averaged 5 percent in legislative elections and 2 percent in congressional elections. Nationally, Democratic candidates for Congress in 2012 received more votes than Republicans, but the GOP maintains an undeserved majority of 234 to 201 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The lawsuit currently focuses on six districts: two for Congress and two each for the state House and Senate. Even if the legislature is ordered to move some black voters into other districts, it’s unclear how much that would roll back undeserved Republican gains across 183 legislative and congressional districts. And nothing will be resolved until a lengthy appeals process has run its course. Meanwhile, our elections have become structurally noncompetitive. Of 170 General Assembly elections in 2012, 150 contests (88 percent) were won by more than 10 percentage points, usually much more – 20, 30, 40 points. In 74 assembly contests (45 percent), the winner did not even have a major-party opponent. Fewer than 1 in 8 voters live in districts where their votes can make a difference in who represents them. But a simple solution that’s fair to both sides could remove most motivation to gerrymander and revitalize a failing electoral system. In the state House, 120 members could be elected from 108 districts with 12 “accountability seats” decided regionally or statewide. The overall distribution of 120 seats would be determined by each party’s share of the statewide vote. If a party’s share of district seats were below its percentage of the statewide vote, the accountability seats would make up the difference. For example, if a party won 46 percent of district seats (50 of 108 seats) and 51 percent of the statewide vote, the party’s 11 top-ranked accountability candidates would get seats (50 + 11 = 61 seats). A Senate version might have 45 districts and five accountability seats. Similar systems are widely used by other democracies, including Germany, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and the Scottish and Welsh regional legislatures. Both parties would have a strong incentive to contest every district to increase their statewide vote and thus their share of seats. By making control of the legislature dependent on votes in the election rather than how district lines are drawn, we could end redistricting lawsuits once and for all. Lee Mortimer of Durham, an election reform advocate, served on a General Assembly Election Laws Review Commission in 1996.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:14:39 +0000
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