HOW CONGRESS COULD FIX REDISTRICTING WITHOUT THE SUPREME COURT

[Judi Lynn]

By Matt Laslo
THE DAILY DOSE
NOV 13 2017

While all eyes in the political world are on the Supreme Court as it considers a Wisconsin case that tests the role of partisan politics in drawing congressional district lines, there’s a flurry of action on the issue unfolding just across the street at the U.S. Capitol.

A handful of Democrats, even ones from states where their party has benefited from partisan gerrymandering, are pushing an array of proposals — from having independent commissions handle it to stacking several members in larger districts — that would allow Congress to drastically change how the nation’s House members are elected.

To understand the problem of gerrymandering that these proposals hope to tackle, you have to look no further than the two states that neighbor the nation’s capital. In Maryland, then–Gov. Martin O’Malley and Democrats in the legislature reworked the state’s congressional maps in 2011 to boot long-serving Republican Roscoe Bartlett out of office. It worked. In 2012, he lost to Democrat John Delaney.

Now travel with me across the Potomac. Virginia is represented by two Democratic U.S. senators and a Democratic governor, and voters there supported the last two Democratic U.S. presidential candidates. But until last week, Republicans were controlling the state legislature — and so also drawing the maps. Democrats now hold only a slender majority there. And in the U.S. House, the Democratic-leaning state is represented by only four Democrats and seven Republicans. That doesn’t pass the smell test for many Democrats, who argue the whole system needs to be overhauled.

More:
http://www.ozy.com/politics-and-power/how-congress-could-fix-redistricting-without-the-supreme-court/81769