Moving toward reasonable voting districts
Nathaniel Persily is a serious man whose academic specialty at Stanford University in California is, in a word, democracy. He researches issues such as voting rights, the political parties, campaign finance laws and redistricting. He is a glutton for knowledge, and given those topics and the way they inflame debate in American politics these days, some would say for punishment.
But his draft plan for a new legislative district map for North Carolina – previous maps were ruled unconstitutional because of racial gerrymandering – shows him to be a skilled practitioner of his craft. He previously helped draw districts for New York, Maryland, George and Connecticut, all of them court-ordered.
That’s what happened here, and though Republican lawmakers wanted another shot at redrawing maps they had so miserably designed with their own expert, three federal judges in North Carolina (Catherine Eagles, Thomas Schroeder and James Wynn) turned them down. Enter Persily, a law professor at Stanford. He’s now finished a draft and has asked lawmakers to respond to him by Friday.
Persily’s revisions include a little “double bunking,” wherein incumbent lawmakers from different districts are placed in the same district. Cynthia Ball and Grier Martin, both Democrats from Wake County, would both be in House District 49 under Persily’s plan, with an open seat in District 34 in northwest Raleigh. There’s a similar situation in Guilford County.
This was to be expected. The districts, clearly drawn with the main intention of protecting Republican majorities in the lower and upper chambers of the General Assembly (in fact, protecting veto-proof majorities) were such a mess that bringing some order to them was bound to include changes involving incumbents. Persily tried, however, to follow the judges’ admonition that he should protect incumbents where it was possible to do so.
But those instructions didn’t prohibit him from doing what he had to do to eliminate racial gerrymandering and coming up with districts for which the main measure would be fairness. And the interests of democracy.
Lawmakers from both parties, but particularly Republicans who fear losing the edge they so recklessly gave themselves, will doubtless raise objections to Persily’s proposals, which may undergo some adjustments in the coming days.
But his districts, at least initially, appear to make geographic and democratic sense, more reasonable in design and composition and thus more likely to pass muster in federal courts.
Republican lawmakers, who try at every opportunity, and sometimes try to make their own opportunities with misguided law, to skew election rules in their favor, insulted the intelligence of voters in blatant attempts to guarantee their dominance at the polls, whether that meant voter suppression rules (Voter ID, cutting early voting days) or their greedy district lines. Endless hours have been spent in court in defense of their foolishness against public-spirited citizens and organizations seeking fairness.
It appears Nathaniel Persily has intended to deliver as close to that as he can. The only safe prediction is that Republicans will complain, if it reduces their ridiculously unfair advantage even a little.
This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 11:27 AM with the headline "Moving toward reasonable voting districts."