A Fake Democracy?
Why no one has much chance of toppling Congress's incumbents
Other states have adopted independent or bipartisan redistricting commissions, though most are beholden to state legislatures, producing bipartisan gerrymanders to protect all incumbents. In Arizona, where voters passed a ballot initiative in 2000 to create more-competitive districts, the redistricting commission had to balance so many competing criteria--like keeping "communities of interests" together and conforming to the Voting Rights Act, which forbids diluting minority votes--that it succeeded in creating just one competitive district out of eight.
Voters in California and Ohio, meanwhile, rejected ballot initiatives last year to take redistricting out of partisan hands, largely because both were seen as partisan schemes. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 20 states considered redistricting reform in 2005, but none actually passed it. Tanner's federal reform bill, which would bar mid-decade redistricting and establish nonpartisan commissions, has attracted 50 Democratic cosponsors but just two Republicans. Reynolds of the NRCC sees such reform as a product of Democrats' sour grapes over losing at the ballot box: "They don't want Republicans to be able to draw lines like Democrats have for 40 years." Which means district lines in states like Pennsylvania may not change substantially until Democrats can take control of the state legislature, seeking revenge--and starting the cycle all over again.
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