Court case could make gerrymandering the rule

THE U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could impact how legislative districts are drawn in Oklahoma and elsewhere. The case, in which plaintiffs argue Wisconsin legislative districts were illegally gerrymandered to elect Republicans, could have wide-ranging and unintended consequences.

Ironically, one possible outcome is that the courts could order the drawing of contorted districts similar to plans previously struck down as gerrymanders.

In a nutshell, the plaintiffs argue illegal gerrymandering has occurred if the share of legislative seats won by one party exceeds that party’s share of the statewide vote, citing an “efficiency gap” model. Thus, they see illegal districts in Wisconsin because Democrats received 51.4 percent of the statewide vote in 2012, but won just 39 of 99 state Assembly seats.

A split lower court accepted that argument, and the issue now goes to the Supreme Court on appeal.

One obvious problem with the model suggested by plaintiffs is that it ignores geographic reality. Nationally, it is undisputed that Democratic votes are often clustered in small geographic areas, typically urban centers. That means state legislative districts that are compact and do not divide communities of interest —the guidelines courts have imposed in the past —often produce seats where one party’s voters dominate.

Also, compliance with the legal requirement to draw minority-majority districts dominated by black or Hispanic voters also creates strong one-party districts.

A brief filed by the Republican National Committee notes, “Some voters who support one party are naturally ‘packed’ as a result of residential patterns not connected to legislative choices.”

Thus, “Adopting any constitutional standard that depends on the ‘efficiency gap’ will result in requiring the same bizarrely shaped districts that this Court has rejected in racial gerrymandering cases.”

Florida is a highly competitive state in presidential elections, but an overwhelming share of Democratic voters live in a geographically small part of the state. Thus, when Florida lawmakers divide the state into 120 state legislative districts, “drawing contiguous and compact legislative seats in the Miami-Dade and Broward County areas necessarily results in districts that are overwhelmingly supportive of the Democrat Party’s candidate,” the RNC notes. “This is not ‘political gerrymandering’ but is simply the result of the residential clustering of voters supporting the Democratic Party’s candidates.”

A similar brief filed by several states, including Oklahoma, argues that the lower court’s ruling “downplays the impact of geographic clustering, where Democratic-leaning voters tend to concentrate in high-density urban areas.”

That brief notes uncontested or uncompetitive elections and simple voter turnout can further magnify the effect of geographic clustering.

No one doubts political parties will use redistricting to maximize the chance of electoral victories. But the mere fact that one party enjoys electoral success isn’t necessarily a sign of illegal gerrymandering, particularly when district maps adhere to all other guidelines previously imposed by the courts.

If the lower court’s ruling in the Wisconsin case is upheld, it will not only encourage more litigation over redistricting, but may well make true gerrymanders the rule and not the exception.