Before legislators begin the battle to fill the state’s $1.6 billion budget deficit, they will convene a special session to redraw district lines — a process that is fraught with potential abuse, many experts say.
“Instead of voters choosing their elected officials, it’s the elected officials choosing their voters,” said Bob Mann, political communication professor. ”It’s an obvious conflict of interest.”
Every 10 years, the U.S. Census reveals population shifts between and inside states. Because seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the state Legislature are determined by population, those shifts mean some states and districts will lose representation.
The Legislature will redistrict the state’s congressional delegation, which is losing one House seat, its own districts and numerous boards and judgeships.
Redistricting is the process of redrawing the boundaries for those districts. While those boundaries are nominally changed to reflect population shifts, they are sometimes changed to benefit legislators — a political tactic called gerrymandering.
Louisiana has a history of gerrymandering, according to Public Affairs Research Council reports.
The process takes three basic forms: racial gerrymandering, in which district lines split minority-heavy areas, disenfranchising members of that race; partisan gerrymandering, in which district lines split areas with heavy party affiliations, disenfranchising members of that party; and incumbent gerrymandering, in which current legislators draw districts to solidify political power or lock out challengers.
Partisan and incumbent gerrymandering aren’t technically illegal, but racial gerrymandering was banned by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Any redistricting plans a state submits must first go to the Department of Justice, which checks the maps to make sure they meet the act’s requirements. Sixty-eight percent of redistricting plans proposed by state legislatures fail DOJ scrutiny, according to PARC.
Two of Louisiana’s proposed congressional districts have been overturned: first in 1980, when a concentrated black district was halved, and again in 1990, when several disparate black areas were strung together to create a “black district.”
In 2000, the state House districts were overturned because there were fewer minority districts than the previous map.
But, while the Department of Justice theoretically prevents racial gerrymandering, no mechanism exists to prevent the political variety. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that partisan gerrymandering is not appropriate for judicial consideration.
Robert Travis Scott, PARC’s president, says that’s a problem.
Because legislators inherently have a stake in the redistricting process, Scott argues they have a conflict of interest in drawing those districts.
There are several possible ways to remove those interests, Scott said.
Twenty-eight states, including Louisiana, rely entirely on legislators to draw their districts.
The rest have other mechanisms that check legislative power.
Eight states, including Texas, have advisory councils that approve the budget passed by the legislature. Thirteen, including California, have independent commissions draw their maps.
Iowa is unique in that its districts are drawn by nonpartisan legislative staff.
When, or if, legislators try to make a change, the system needs to be tailored specifically for the state, Scott said.
“I don’t think Iowa’s system would work here. I don’t think California’s system would work here,” he said. “Louisiana needs to come up with its own system.”
Mann said some form of nonpartisan council makes sense, pointing to the national Medicare commission, which is made up of health experts.
But Mann, who was Sen. John Breaux’s press secretary when Breaux chaired the commission, said the senator still encountered some problems.
“Not only did everyone know a lot about Medicare, they also all had an axe to grind,” he said.
Mann said Breaux sometimes dreamed of a panel containing “12 really smart people who don’t know a thing about Medicare.”
Whatever the solution, Scott said the time is ripe for legislators to make a change because term limits mean they theoretically don’t have a stake in the next redistricting process.
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]