STAFF EDIT: Gerry-meandering

With Election Day drawing ever nearer, lawsuits have been filed in more than half of the states about the problem of redistricting to best suit a party’s chances in the voting booths.

Judges across the country are now faced with the decision of deciding whether or not the new maps take partisan gerrymandering, a practice in which elected representatives reform the districts to cater to their particular party, too far. Courts are also concerned that the reformation of the districts discriminates against minority voters, as many of them center around a certain race or ethnicity to clinch the vote of that demographic while disregarding other ethnic groups.

In some states, such as Nevada, Minnesota, Colorado and New Mexico, the courts are also taking charge of mapping out the districts themselves, when legislatures have been unable to reach an agreement as to the new shape of the territories.

The first foreseeable problem with allowing the courts to control district formation is that those courts are going to lean in a certain direction. Republican-oriented judges are going to push for the districts to favor the GOP candidates, while Democratic judges will do the same for their party. The whole process offers up a dangerous recipe for inconsistency and bias in the voting process. Additionally, the court’s job is to ensure the fairness of laws, not create or execute them. They have no place in redistricting and they should have no place in the voting process itself.

A solution does present itself to the problem of partisan redistricting in the form of independent commissions. States such as California, Arizona and Washington are using these commissions to draw up district maps, with rules limiting the board members to non-elected officials only. These states also ban the members from running for office in the districts they draw for at least several years after they create them. Independent commissions should become more of a common practice nationwide, as they do much to limit the corruptness and bias that inevitably comes along with gerrymandering before election year.

As long as legislatures and courts still have the ability to draw district lines, corruption will always insert itself into the process. According to The New York Times, Texas Republican Representative Kenny Marchant wrote to redistricting officials asking for his district’s lines to be redrawn to include the school where his “grandbabies go.” Needless to say, this is no way for a real government to run itself.