The Wall Street Journal Calls for ‘Treaty’ Banning Mid-Decade Gerrymandering to Prevent ‘Mutual Assured Destruction’
(AP Photo/Mark Black)
The Wall Street Journal called for a “disarmament treaty” to ban mid-decade gerrymandering efforts in a recent editorial about Texas Republicans’ attempt to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
After summarizing the state of play and noting that Illinois, where Texas Democrats have fled to deny their GOP counterparts a quorum, is among the most gerrymandered states in the country, the Journal called the practice “bad for competition” and delved into its proposal.
“What’s worrying is that if Texas and others have another go now, the new norm might be to re-gerrymander all the time. The trick is figuring out how to limit this in a way that both sides can see as fair,” argued the Journal.
“Some states have tried to hand redistricting to an ostensibly independent commission. Yet then it’s a partisan proxy battle, and commissions that are evenly split can end up deadlocked. Commissions can also tilt one way or another with a gerrymander-like result: See California, with 43 Democratic seats out of 52; or New Jersey, 9 Democrats out of 12,” continued the editorial. “But there’s an element of mutual assured destruction here, and Democrats don’t want to limit their ability to gerrymander if Republicans aren’t going to quit, and vice versa. That’s why a federal standard might be useful.”
“One option might be a law telling states they can’t redistrict mid-decade,” suggested the Journal. “Congress could also impose substantive restrictions on state map-makers, such as some kind of mathematical test for partisan fairness or district compactness. Such formulas can be gamed, though, and it’s hard to see Republicans and Democrats agreeing on the details.”
“But telling states they can only redistrict once per decade might de-escalate the gerrymander wars, and it would mainly ratify the status quo of recent years. Both parties could benefit from this kind of disarmament treaty, and voters most of all,” it concluded.
