Political Veterans Testify on Redistricting Process

Byline: T.W. Budig
Source: ECM Publications
Date: January 12, 2008

State political heavyweights - former Vice President Mondale, former governors Arne Carlson, Al Quie, and others - testified at the Capitol Friday (Jan. 11) in favor of redistricting reform.

Redistricting is the process of how legislative and congressional districts are drawn.

It occurs every ten years following the release of the U.S. Census.

Politically, it's high stakes because exactly where district boundaries are drawn can favor the success of one political party over another.

Lawmakers are acutely aware of this.

Former Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe, DFL-Erskine, testifying before the Senate State and Local Government Operations and Oversight Committee on Friday recalled how even lawmakers from "safe" districts would become paranoid around redistricting time.

And that Minnesota stands to perhaps lose one congressional seat during the next round of redistricting will make it even more intense, several former officials noted.

Moe, who considers the current process of having lawmakers attempt to draw new districts a failure, was one of a series of former public officials calling for change.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale warned that advances in technology, the use of computers, has created a redistricting industry with its own vocabulary - verbs like "cracking" a district.

Battles over redistricting have "paralyzed" legislatures and set the bad precedent of having redistricting thrown into the courts, Mondale opined.

Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz argued the courts should be the last resort for settling political boundary disputes.

"It's a real blurring of the line," she opined of having the courts settle redistricting and yet maintain their status as a separate branch of government.

Lawmakers like to have control over redistricting, but they're really not in control, Blatz opined.

"Let me tell you folks, this isn't working," she said of redistricting.

The state's current districts were drawn by a special five-judge panel during the last round of redistricting.

Senators are considering several pieces of redistricting reform legislation.

Sen. Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, is proposing a constitutional amendment to create a bipartisan redistricting commission - lawmakers would appoint four members with this nucleus appointing the rest of the commission.

Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, would by statute create a redistricting commission of five retired judges, four of who are appointed by legislative leaders.

Under the Pogemiller's proposal, the Legislature could potentially modify the commission's redistricting plan.

Pogemiller's bill is the closest to the redistricting proposal favored by Mondale and Carlson, opined Professor Larry Jacobs of the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota.

While committee members and witnesses all spoke in favor of reform, opinions split over details.

For example, the wisdom of injecting political competitiveness into redistricting principles was argued.

"There is absolutely no way you can make every district competitive - nor should you," said former Secretary of State Joan Growe.

But if even ten more Minnesota districts become politically competitive, that's helpful, she argued.

Even in the 2006 election - an election seen as watershed - relatively few Senate and House incumbents lost election, Jacobs noted.

Sen. Don Betzold, DFL-Fridley, a member of the local government committee, supports the idea of taking redistricting away from the Legislature.

Betzold questions the use of competitiveness in crafting districts.

"How do you make that competitive?" he said of the City of Duluth, a DFL bastion.