It’s time for SC to develop new way to draw voting districts

Politicians are from time to time criticized for acting more in pursuit of self-interest than the public interest. Clearly, there is one area of legislative activity which is inarguably a thoroughly self-interested act. It occurs when state legislative and Congressional districts are redrawn to conform to population changes reflected in the decennial census.

Reapportionment, or redistricting, is a thoroughly political process in which each legislator tries to gain the best advantage for himself or herself while putting any actual or potential rivals at a political disadvantage. It is a case of legislators choosing their constituents rather than the other way around.

The party in control of the process pulls out all of the stops to protect and expand its majority. It seeks to ensure that the opposition party remains in the minority by allocating to it as few seats as possible through the manipulation of geography and demographics.

In its absence of the public interest as a guiding spirit and its legislator-centered focus, it represents the worst of legislative politics. The losers are the voters, who deserve a system that allocates seats with their interests in mind based on a fair apportionment of seats that more closely (and fairly) represents the way in which they allocated their votes at the polls.

There are two principal criticisms of this process with respect to both state legislative redistricting and Congressional redistricting. First, the process often leads to a decline in the number of competitive seats in an elective body, the result of gerrymandering to create as safe a seat as possible for an incumbent. Second, the process very often leads to ideological polarization, due to the fact that those districts drawn to reflect the views and ideology of the incumbent often reflect views of their most extreme supporters.

This is an apt description of the redistricting process in South Carolina. However, a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last June (Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission [AIRC]) gives some insight into how we might begin changing this situation. And, although the next census will not be taken until 2020, and the next redistricting will not be done until 2021-2022, now is the time for the S.C. General Assembly to begin studying the Arizona method and laying the groundwork to have a better system in place before it is needed again.

The first thing the General Assembly will need to do is amend the S.C. Constitution to confer upon an independent commission the exclusive authority to redraw election districts for the state and Congressional elections. One essential aspect of this move will be to prohibit the commission from considering the impact of its action on election outcomes. Amending the Constitution is a process that takes a while, so now is certainly not too early to begin thinking along those lines.

In a brief filed by the political scientists Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann in support of the AIRC, they point out that “the basic problem with legislative control over redistricting is obvious: Legislators’ personal and partisan interests are inherently in conflict with the ideals of electoral fairness and representative parity….”

Representative democracy suffers under the redistricting process now used by the S.C. General Assembly, and it is not likely to change unless the public becomes insistent that this issue is a litmus test for voters when they go to the polls.

The writer lives in Conway.

This story was originally published August 25, 2015 at 3:53 PM with the headline "It’s time for SC to develop new way to draw voting districts."