Coming in 2011 Redistricting

An apparently self-appointed, blue-ribbon group of Minnesota’s political elder statespeople (1) [Mondale, Moe, Carlson, Blatz, Growe, others] is recommending that the legislature no longer be the body to apportion legislative districts. They think that legislatively drawn districts protect incumbents and, by being more accommodating to the parties of the various incumbents, tend to become more polarized districts which then elect and reelect more polarized incumbents.

They are suggesting a panel of retired appeals court judges who have never been partisan political candidates.

Maybe a panel is not a bad idea, but the thinking is faulty. Three of the last four apportionment plans have not been given to us by legislative process but by federal judicial action instead. The legislature that passed the one legislatively established plan in 1991 wouldn’t have been able to it had somebody on Governor Carlson’s senior staff [or even Arne himself] read the state’s constitution and noted that there was a deadline for signing or vetoing legislation. If our legislature is too partisan it cannot be because of the way the legislature drew the districts.

Pure partisanship indeed can be a problem for redistricting by legislative process. Following the 1970 census and the elections of that year the GOP controlled both houses of the legislature and Wendell Anderson had become governor(2). Following the census and election of 1980, the DFL controlled both houses and Al Quie was governor. The 1991 reapportionment is noted above and after 2000 each party had a house of the legislature and Governor Janos [aka Ventura] did not like either one.

But pure partisanship is not the only problem. Every redistricting is a threat to every incumbent, regardless of party, until the actual lines are known. For example, the one plan that the [DFL] legislature did adopt removed two veteran East Side legislators [Sen. Gene Waldorf and Rep. Richard O’Connor] by creating the “Waldorf finger,” a wedge of District 66 [and 66A] which extended eastward in a narrow path tapering eastward so that it was about a quarter-mile wide when it reached Senator Waldorf’s home near Lake Phalen, from. It put O’Connor who lived north of the finger into a suburban district and Waldorf into a much more hostile district which then elected Ellen Anderson(3).

Problems will come about whatever system is used. Maybe a commission to draw legislative boundaries would be an improvement. However, we should not accept it as being the cure for the various problems that redistricting can bring about. And it will not address the problems that force the redistricting in the first place.

Footnotes

1. I think it was Harry Truman who as former president said that “elder statesman” was a nice way of saying “has been.”
2. Historical footnote: Judges did the redistricting in 1971-72 twice actually. The first judicial panel, apparently made up of activist judges, reduced the size of the legislature as well as redistricted it so that there would be 105 House member and 35 Senators. They also managed to put three of Saint Paul’s DFL senators into one district, partly by moving a line which ran up Edgerton to have a one-block swing to Payne Avenue to include Senator Chenoweth’s residence. The Senate appealed this to a higher court and a second redistricting was done, but it wasn’t until about March of that election year (1972) that anybody knew where the legislative boundaries were.
3. O’Connor had been somewhat an embarrassment as the legislative leader in receiving per diem payments. Waldorf was a thorn in the side for those who wanted to make the DFL unanimously “pro-choice." He had also refused any per diem and that may have made him a bit of embarrassment for different reasons.
This redistricting also fostered the careers of Betty McCollum who became the representative from the new, suburban district and, as notted, Ellen Anderson who collects a lot more per diem than Waldorf ever did.