Reform of the Legislature #2: Reapportionment

This post is a continuation of my thoughts on the Wheeler Conference on legislative reform.

Ever since the last redistristricting process ended in 2003, Republicans have accused the Democrats (who controlled the process thanks to our "non-partisan" Supreme Court) of gerrymandering districts to maximize Democrat seats in the legislature. Craig Wilson, a respected political science professor at MSU-B, concurred with this analysis and suggested the redistricting commission take a different approach to the reapportionment process. Matt, over at LITW, says the facts don't back up the Republican assertions and the commission simply drew a competitive legislative map.

So which one is it? I've studied the statistics and the breakdowns and here is my analysis. But first, some must-know facts about the process.

The "ideal" house district using 2000 census data was 9,022 Montanans, and 18,044 for a senate district. The commission used a 5% deviation rate, meaning a district could be up to 5% higher or lower in population than the ideal rate. This allows for a 902 person difference from the smallest legislative district to the largest.

Using our P-base polling data and the new 2004 legislative districts as a reference, I identified 42 house districts that were Republican leaning districts, 39 Democrat leaning house districts and 19 swing house districts. This is the point that Matt made about a fairly "competitive" map. However, when you analyze where the commission used deviation, it is Republican districts that lost out in a big way. 34 Republican leaning districts were packed with more voters, thus diluting the influence of voters in those districts. Compare this with only 11 Democrat leaning districts that were above the ideal district size. 28 Democrat leaning districts were under the ideal size while only 8 were for Republican leaning districts.

In other words, the Democrat-controlled commission minimized Republican voters and maximized Democrat voters. Additionally, when you look at the rural districts vs. urban districts, rural Montana also had its vote diluted. Rural districts had a much higher number of residents packed into their borders when compared with districts in the cities.

One other factor that doesn't take much analysis is a simple peek at the boundaries of each legislative district, especially in the cities. With only a few exceptions, the geography of the districts have little to nothing to do with traditional communities, historical neighborhoods or other political boundaries like county lines, school districts, etc... In an effort to craft more Democratic leaning and swing districts, the commission created some of the most painfully awkward boundaries imaginable. In many cases, the result of the commission's work was long, finger-like districts that took portions out of heavily Democratic areas and grouped them with very different areas. Here are some of the most obvious examples: Missoula, Billings, Great Falls, Helena.

So it appears Craig Wilson is on to something. Matt is right that elections are competitive, but that is obviously due to an artificial advantage. Besides, the commission is not tasked with creating "competitive" districts as part of its constitutional duties. They are supposed to be drawing a map that allows for the best representation of the people through population data, protects everyone's right to vote including minorities, and the construction of compact and contiguous districts.

Here are a few suggestions on this subject that were discussed at the meeting: make the commission a four member body in order to promote compromise, require only 1% deviation from the ideal legislative district (which is possible given current technology), and/or outlaw the use of political affiliation and election records to draw up legislative districts (like Iowa).

Republicans do have a reason to be a bit angered by the result of the districting process. This has caused some long-term animosity between the parties since many legislators feel like the deck is stacked against them at the cost of Montana residents' right to vote (i.e. one person, one vote). If relationships are to be improved in the future, perhaps Montana could look at ways to reform the redistricting process in order to make sure everyone's vote is valued as equal as possible.

Comments

[Forty Seven]

This is some of the most concise analysis of the redistricting issue that I've seen. If Montana *would* elect a Republican legislature, and instead elects a split legislature, the simple fact of the fifty fifty split does not make it fair.