Redrawing the Lines on Redistricting
With Connecticut’s redistricting process concluded, it is clear that it needs overhauled. The gerrymandered Congressional districts drawn in 2001 to protect incumbents were left unchanged despite the fact that those incumbents, Rep. Nancy Johnson and Rep. Jim Maloney, are no longer in Congress. With an evolving American economy, our society will depend on effective leadership to implement public policies that meet new challenges. The status quo is not good enough and the process needs big reform. Read the entire piece at CT News Junkie.com.
One proposal for closer examination should be the “Rethinking Redistricting” plan proposed by former Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita in September 2010. The plan was based on five principles: keeping communities of interest together, creating more compact and geographically uniform districts, reduce voters’ confusion about who represents them by following existing political boundaries, not use political data, including incumbent addresses, for partisan reasons, and “nesting” house districts into senate districts.
In sum, the concepts represent an entirely practical approach to the redistricting process. Rather than protecting incumbents or catering to other narrow political interests, like candidates for higher office sitting on the commission that redraws the districts, this approach would depoliticize the process and make it much more accessible for citizens.
One particularly intriguing principle is the concept of nesting, in which State House Districts would be drawn as subsections of a State Senate district, and if one were so inclined, State Senate districts would be drawn as subsections of Congressional districts.Twelve other states require nesting in some form and Connecticut should carefully consider whether it would produce more sensible maps in our state as well.
Read the entire piece at CT News Junkie.com
