To the (campaign) victor go the spoils

Part of the “spoils of victory” for decennial state legislative elections is the ability to redraw state legislative district lines.

In essence, every 10 years (during census-year elections), the party that wins control of the Indiana State House and Senate (respectively) has the constitutional power to gerrymander districts in any way they see fit, as long as the districts follow the principle of “one-man-one-vote” and are roughly equal in population.

However, we see this highly politicized process as having many ingredients which are the exact opposite of fair democracy.

By having the ability to use past election results in a partisan manner, Democrats and Republicans alike (depending upon who controls the state legislature) have concentrated upon developing as many “safe seats” as possible — in which only one party has any real chance of victory.

For example, following the 2000 United States Census, Republicans redrew the State Senate districts and Democrats redrew the State House districts.

Consequently, prior to the election of 2010, Republicans maintained a 33-17 majority in the Senate and Democrats maintained a majority in the House, 52-48.

Such a striking difference in the partisan composures of both legislative houses is unacceptable — House and Senate districts are composed of the same totality of voters, therefore the composure of each house should be roughly similar.

Calls have been issued from all corners — and from other states who have already altered their laws — to adopt the way that Indiana redistricts.

Last year, then Senate President Pro Tem David Long suggested that the state of Indiana should appoint a nonpartisan committee to be charged with redrawing legislative boundaries, to ensure that Representatives and Senators do not gerrymander their districts to all-but-ensure their reelection and to discourage competition from the other party.

We as the IDS Editorial Board encourage the Indiana General Assembly to investigate new, post-partisan methods for legislative redistricting, such as Todd Rokita’s. Several other ideas would certainly arise in the General Assembly, and we do not desire to make a value judgment as to the best alternative; we just know that the process needs to change.

Both parties have credible platforms and members of both parties have good ideas — it’s important that we allow each legislative race to be competitive.

The livelihood of our democracy depends on it.