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Drawing The Line On Redistricting

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 6, 2008

Now that the Iowa caucuses are over, the Hawkeye State will, at least for another four years, not have to hear the criticism of its outsized, make-or-break influence in presidential elections.

There is one thing that Iowa does, however, that every state should copy: redistricting. In fact, it may be the nation's best model.

In the 1970s, the Iowa General Assembly decided to turn redistricting responsibilities over to legislative staff. The Legislative Services Bureau, which draws both legislative and congressional maps, is required by statutory authority to disregard political affiliations and incumbency when designing new districts. The only demographic information it may use is population.

The bureau must draw districts with the following considerations, in order of highest priority to lowest: population equality, contiguousness, respect of county and city unity, and compactness. Once the districts are drawn, the Iowa Legislature must vote up or down on the plan. If the legislature doesn't approve the first draft, the bureau gets two more cracks at it.

Districts That Make Sense

The result is districts that make geographical sense instead of those shaped like Florida's, which look like rejects from a Rorschach test. In Iowa they would never allow the insanity of a city the size of Temple Terrace to be represented by three different members of Congress.

Take Rep. Kathy Castor's District 11, where I live. It touches parts of three counties, jumping from Hillsborough County across Tampa Bay to bring in minority neighborhoods south of St. Petersburg and then taking in part of Manatee County.

All five of Iowa's congressional districts have competitive races every two years. Contrast that with Florida, which in 2004 saw 10 of its 25 U.S. representatives re-elected without any opposition from a major-party candidate.

In 2005, former education commissioner and U.S. Senate candidate Betty Castor formed the Committee for Fair Elections to take the politics out of redistricting in Florida. The goal was to put three initiatives on the 2006 ballot - one creating the commission, one defining terms and one implementing it. While the initiatives gathered enough signatures to qualify, two of them succumbed to court challenges.

Regardless, a new effort should be made before the next decennial redistricting takes place.

Don't Forget About Independents

But it won't be easy. Unlike Iowa, Florida is subject to the Voting Rights Act, which requires that demographic information factor into redistricting. So any changes will likely bring court challenges by minorities who want to maintain the status quo.

The weird thing is this current mess is a bipartisan effort. Republicans, who waited so long to achieve power, aren't going to support any effort to diminish it. And while odd-shaped creations like District 11 also create safe Republican seats, many Democrats don't seem to mind.

Lost in all this partisan gerrymandering are the millions of independent Florida voters. They can't vote in primaries, so they should at least have the option of competitive races.

We can't take all of the politics out of an inherently political undertaking like redistricting, but nonpartisanship in the redistricting process, more compact and sensible boundaries, and more competitive races are worthy goals for the world's leading democracy.

Joseph H. Brown is a Tribune editorial writer.

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