New commissions approved by voters to reduce partisan gamesmanship in redistricting are instead splitting along partisan lines in some states
When voters in some states created new commissions to handle the politically thorny process of redistricting, the hope was that the bipartisan panelists could work together to draw new voting districts free of partisan gerrymandering.In New York, Ohio and Virginia, commissions meeting for the first time this year have splintered into partisan camps to craft competing redistricting maps.
Throughout most of American history, redistricting has been handled by state lawmakers and governors who have an incentive to draw lines favoring their own parties. But as public attention to gerrymandering has grown in recent decades, voters in an increasing number of states have shifted the task to special commissions.
The prospects of that increased last week, when Democrats and Republicans on the commission failed to agree and insteadState Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy blasted the Democratic maps as “wildly gerrymandered” and accused Democratic commissioners of refusing to compromise.State Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs countered that there was no reason to “bend over backwards” to try to draw as many Republican seats as possible. He added: “We’ll be fair, but to a point.
Huffman said the new map likely would produce 62 Republican seats in the Ohio House and 23 in the Senate — down just a couple in each chamber from the current GOP supermajorities. Experts estimate the state’s voters are more evenly divided, around 54% Republican to 46% Democratic. “Because of the way that districts are drawn, our elected officials have no incentive to be receptive, responsive or accessible to us or our concerns,” she said.
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