Mondale urges lawmakers to let someone else redraw political maps

Byline: John Croman
Source: KARE 11 News
Date: January 12, 2008

Watch video here.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale Friday urged state lawmakers to remove themselves from the process of drawing the political maps. He's supporting the idea of turning the job over to a special commission.

"Experts at gaming the system can now design voter-proof plans within minutes that will protect incumbents or sharply advantage the controlling party," Mondale testified at a hearing at the Capitol.

Although Minnesota hasn't been fraught with fraud, Mondale warned it's easier than ever for incumbents to design so-called "safe" districts that shield them from competition.

"One expert called it the great election grab," he said, "Today there are very few competitive congressional districts to be found anywhere in all of America."

The 2010 federal census will surely create partisan battles across the nation, as state legislators look to redraw the boundaries of their own districts and Congressional borders as well.

Even if you put aside the conflict of interest issue, Minnesota lawmakers have a track record of not reaching accords on redistricting, leaving that chore to the courts.

"It hasn't worked!" former Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe told reporters Friday, "The legislature is vested with the responsibility of redistricting and the legislature has not been able to get it done."

Mondale added, "This has been almost an exercise in futility as well as a questionable principal."

Mondale and Moe came to the Capitol to make the case for creating an impartial commission of retired judges to handle redistricting. Nine other states have such commissions, but the goal would be to make Minnesota's version the model.

"We're special, we're different, and we're better and we all know that," Mondale joked.

"We can lead the nation in solving this problem."

Joining Mondale and Moe was a virtual who's who of Minnesota political figures, including former Governors Al Quie and Arne Carlson, former Secretary of State Joan Growe and former Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz.

"Partisan battles are waged for power, not impartiality," Quie told lawmakers, "But impartial judges the only way you're going to ensure justice for all."

Carlson added, "The human temptation of saying I'll protect my incumbency versus the public good is too much."

At least three bills are pending in Saint Paul would do that, including one that would add it to the constitution. The judges would have to be persons who never held a seat in the legislature, which would disqualify Justice Blatz.

Traditionally the goal of redistricting was to respond to population shifts, to make sure no geographic area was underrepresented.

Laws were enacted specifically to guard against so-called "gerrymandering," which is the process of drawing districts to dilute the power of particular parties or interest groups.

Now the emphasis is on trying to create more competitive districts, because vote analysis technology has made it easier for the parties in power to stack the deck in their favor.

"Politicians have become increasingly able to pick their own voters," Mondale remarked, "Words like packing and cracking and kidnapping describe how they do it."

He said "packing" is drawing the lines to that an entire group is concentrated in one isolated district, where as "cracking" is taking a set of voters loyal to the opposition sprinkling them across districts where they'll be outnumbered.

According to Mondale "Kidnapping" refers to deliberately annexing an incumbent's neighborhood into another district, where he or she face a tougher reelection battle.

Roger Moe easily admitted that parties focus their resources on the competitive districts, or those with swing voters that could go either way.

"We knew the seats that were not in play, we couldn't win," Moe recalled of his days as Majority Leader, "We knew the seats that we were going to win, and then we focused on those in the middle."

Carlson said another advantage of forcing candidates to work for the votes, is that they're forced to appeal to a broader cross section of voters and not just a perceived core interest groups.

"And what do the media say about candidates? They're going for their base! They're going for their base!" Carlson quipped, "You didn't hear that 30 years ago!"

If the next national head count goes as expected, Minnesota could lose a seat in Congress, making the stakes even higher for those looking to hold onto their power.

Of course even the sponsors admit you can't take politics completely out of political map making. Lawmakers would still be the ones who appoint the commissioners, and create the rules they'd work under in drawing new lines.

Will they take into account demographics, such as age, income and ethnicity? And if they're truly aiming for competitiveness, will they get to take into account recent voting trends? How about whether the races in a certain district are perennially lop-sided?

Those are all questions the Legislature will have to sort out as the bills move through the process. If the constitutional version passes, voters could decide the issue at the ballot next fall.