Nonpartisan redistricting? Reform efforts meet reality – By Story Hinckley (CS Monitor) / Oct 12 2021
Redistricting was supposed to look different this year.
In the 10 years since the nation’s congressional and state legislative maps were last redrawn, a record-breaking number of states passed ballot measures intended to make the process more bipartisan and transparent. The citizen-led efforts were cheered by reform advocates as a win for American democracy, a sign that voters from both parties wanted to end partisan gerrymandering, or the drawing of lines for political advantage.
But with map-drawing now underway, the rubber of those reforms is meeting a very bumpy road.
WHY WE WROTE THIS
New commissions, some made up of average citizens, are struggling to overcome partisanship as they redraw congressional and state legislative lines. Some say reformers need to rethink the whole process.
In Virginia, the first attempt to draw a “fair” legislative map collapsed in acrimony last week and now appears headed for the state Supreme Court. The state’s new bipartisan redistricting commission – which was created in 2020 with support from two-thirds of Virginia voters – has been dogged by partisanship from the outset, with Democrats and Republicans working with separate consultants to produce separate maps and so far failing to merge them.
