Redistricting is the talk this week. Well, also last week. And next week too. Oh yeah, and there will be lots of talk next January when filing for the new thirteen congressional, fifty state Senate and one hundred twenty state House seats kicks off. And if the 2000 redistricting is any predictor, we’ll be talking redistricting for quite a while.
Recently here at JLF John Hood talked about republican gerrymandering. Mitch Kokai talked about redistricting rules.
The House and Senate Redistricting Committee held a public hearing a few weeks ago and dozens of citizens talked about the congressional map. Apparently, legislators listened and are re-drawing that map based in large part on citizen comments and discussions. The new maps were to be released sometime today.
The discussion continues today in locations across the state today as citizens are invited to talk about their concerns/support/criticisms/praise for the state house and state senate maps. One of the first speakers at the hearing today congratulated map drawers on getting both the left (Democracy NC) and the right (John Locke Foundation) united in criticizing the plan, (previewed on a Locker Room post that talked about cats and dogs living in peace)
Anyone with an interest can also weigh in and talk to members of the General Assembly about the maps with letters, emails and forms.
Lots of media folks and pundits are talking about the maps too. WRAL talks about Senate double bunking and then talks about House Ds in the crosshairs. John Rustin at the Free Enterprise Foundation provides maps and talks about the data.
Dr. Michael Bitzer, poli-sc prof at Catawba College talks about a partisan voter index (PVI), based on prior election results. According to his calculations, the new House map has 72 seats that would likely elect a Republican or at least lean that way with 36 seats most likely or leaning democratic. Bitzer’s PVI on the Senate map would most likely result in 29 Republican seats and 16 democratic seats. That leaves only five of the 50 seats in the Senate competitive and 12 of the 120 House seats competitive – just 10% of the General Assembly. See Hood’s column again for why this is a problem.
The U.S. constitution talks about guaranteeing “One man, one vote” and that’s really what redistricting is all about. So of course it’s been a hot topic here at the Locke Foundation where Hood has talked about incumbency and the voting rights act and then talked reform. CJ has talked about redistricting in an exclusive series on the topic. I talked about it on the radio. Summer intern Kristen Szafranski talked about a contentious committee meeting. Mitch Kokai talks about Republican strategy on CJTV.
The legislative redistricting committees will meet later this week to talk and talk amongst themselves on what the maps should look like. The full General Assembly is expected back to Raleigh next week to begin a week of talking about the maps with a final vote expected by the end of the month. The Governor won’t be talking much about the maps since she does not have veto power over redistricting. Once the redistricting plans pass the General Assembly, they become law and no one will want to talk about them anymore, right?
Unless of course the courts decide to talk about redistricting too.
