Redistricting, Gerrymandering, and Power

Karen Oelschlaeger

By Karen Oelschlaeger

“Let’s be candid: this is all about power.”

Those were the words of Bob Orr, Executive Director of North Carolinians for Constitutional Law and former North Carolina gubernatorial candidate and Supreme Court Judge. Orr was one of three speakers to address the fifty to sixty people who attended the recent screening of the documentary film Gerrymandering at UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center.

Other speakers included Kathleen Balogh, former president of the League
of Women Voters of North Carolina, and Brent Laurenz of the North
Carolina Center for Voter Education. All three organizations are part of
the North Carolina Coalition for Redistricting Reform, a non-partisan
coalition of ten organizations lobbying in favor of a redistricting
model that removes district line-drawing power from the legislature and
rests that power with an independent body.

The film is a surprisingly engaging, compelling and bipartisan look at
the redistricting process used in the United States, and the frequent
abuse of the process known as gerrymandering. The United States is the
only developed country in which legislators are responsible for setting
the boundaries of their own districts, while both the UK and Canada
authorize non-partisan organizations to draw district lines.

In the film, David Winston, a GOP redistricting consultant, illuminates
the flaws in our current redistricting process. He explains that, “as a
mapmaker, I can have more of an impact on an election than a
campaign…more of an impact than a candidate…more of an impact on an
election than the voters.”

The film included powerful quotes from many political leaders and
highlighted the organizing efforts behind Proposition 11 in California.
Proposition 11, the Voters First Act, sought to shift the control of the
redistricting process, which happens every ten years, from the
legislature to an independent 14-member commission.

Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who advocated for
Proposition 11 in his state along with many organizations including the
League of Women Voters, Common Cause, the NAACP, ACLU and AARP, explains
that within the redistricting process of gerrymandering, “the
legislators get to pick their voters, rather than the voters picking
their politicians.” Even President Barack Obama is quoted in the film
empathizing with those who choose not to vote on Election Day: given the
political practice of gerrymandering, “people aren’t being illogical
when they stay at home, because the outcome is a foregone conclusion.”

The NC legislature has passed a law that would appoint a nonpartisan
commission to draw district lines following the 2020 census, but that’s a
long way off. Meanwhile, the only hope for those who oppose, or are
negatively affected by, partisan gerrymandering lies in the series of
lawsuits that have been, or will soon be, lodged in Federal and state
courts challenging the 2011 redistricting introduced this summer.