Thanks for printing the article by Jerry Cornfield from the Washington State Standard (“Washington Republicans wrestle with realities of a redrawn political map,” The Columbian, May 8). The challenge to the map drawn by the 2021 Redistricting Commission was based on a violation of Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act. Well-established legal principles were applied based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Alabama redistricting case to result in this order.
The uncertainty and movement of voters from one district to another caused by this lawsuit illustrate the need to change our state’s redistricting process. This disruption is not good governance. A better process would likely have created a more representative map in the first place and avoided this new change of districts for so many voters.
Voters will have to demand that the Legislature amend the state Constitution to reform the partisan Redistricting Commission. All members of a nonpartisan commission would be ordinary citizens who represent Democratic, Republican, and other points of view but who are not affiliated with the two major political parties. A People First Commission puts people’s interests above partisan trade-offs.
