In an era of unseemly political partisanship, any respite from the rancor is most welcome. With that in mind, we urge our neighbors to the south to join Washington in employing a thoughtful method for legislative redistricting. A movement is afoot in Oregon that would allow a panel of retired judges to determine redesigned legislative and congressional districts.
Washington long ago had the good sense to try to remove politics — as much as possible — from this once-a-decade headache. Since 1983, the state has used a bipartisan panel to decide upon the boundaries for voting districts, and the system has received rave reviews.
This is much different from many states, where the process takes place in the state legislature, often falling prey to political biases and political posturing. In Texas, for example, disagreements over a 2003 redistricting plan eventually landed the case in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Believing that reasonable people can arrive at reasonable agreements, we prefer to leave the Supreme Court to handle more important matters.
Therefore, Washington’s plan uses four voting members — two Republicans and two Democrats — selected by caucus leaders. There also is a nonvoting committee chair to oversee the proceedings. And while arguments over the drawing of lines on a map might seem rather childish and immature, they can have a profound effect on the governance of the populace.
Every 10 years, following the constitutionally mandated census, states must reconsider the drawing of districts to reflect changes in how the population is distributed. This might be of particular importance in the coming years, as Washington is expecting to add a 10th Congressional District.
In less civilized states, this can lead to the drawing of districts designed to protect incumbents by ensuring their districts are heavily weighted with like-minded voters. It also typically leads to gerrymandering designed to protect whichever party happens to be in power at the moment. In the Texas case of the last decade, one infamous result was a congressional district that stretched 350 miles in length while being 25 miles across at its widest point. Think of a district that stretches from Longview to Ashland, Ore., hugging Interstate 5 the entire way.
As Barack Obama said in 2006: “Too often, our representatives are selecting their voters, as opposed to the voters selecting the representatives.” Which brings us back to the Oregon proposal and a petition to land the issue on the statewide ballot. Under the Oregon plan, a panel of retired judges would be appointed by the chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court to develop the redistricting plan. In this regard, Oregon might have done Washington one better. We like the idea of nonpartisan judges overseeing the apportionment.
In recent years, there have been several examples of Washington and Oregon borrowing ideas from each other, with one state adopting policies that have worked well in the other. Washington adopted a statewide smoking ban; Oregon followed suit. Washington enacted strict automobile emission standards, following in California’s footsteps; Oregon did the same. Oregon instituted assisted suicide for the terminally ill; Washington voters said they liked that policy.
It’s almost enough to restore our faith in the power of ideas to trump provincialism. Almost enough to make us believe the states eventually will get together on that whole I-5 bridge thing.
Good ideas are not the sole province of one populace or another, and one sign of a healthy state is its ability to adopt strategies that work elsewhere.
So we applaud Oregon and Oregonians in their effort to reduce partisanship in the redistricting process. Now, about that lack of self-serve gas …
