Our view: Stop letting politicians choose their voters

Partisan gerrymandering has long been a problem that allows politicians to pick their voters, rather than the other way around. In recent years, the practice has gotten even worse, as computer programs of increasing sophistication have maximized its effect and created absurd-looking districts such as the one to the right.

Courts have been reluctant to jump in and put an end to this anti-democratic behavior, in part because judges have feared that any involvement in the process of drawing political lines would taint the judiciary.

But now, after hearing cases of Republican-led gerrymandering in Wisconsin and Democratic-led gerrymandering in Maryland, the Supreme Court is as close as ever to getting involved. The justices’ consideration of such a dramatic move is driven by the utter indefensibility of the political maps drawn in some states, and also by some deft reasoning by the likely swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Kennedy suggests that political gerrymandering should be seen in First Amendment terms. That argument holds that people have a right to associate, or not associate, as they chose, and that gerrymandering amounts to lawmakers in one party punishing members of the other party by putting them into districts where they will have little influence on the affairs of government.

The political maps in at least a dozen states are abominations of the most basic precepts of democratic governance.

The Wisconsin legislature is so horrendously gerrymandered that in 2012 Democrats took 52% of the vote but only won about 39% of the legislative seats. Maryland, a state that generally votes about 40% Republican, has only one Republican congressman out of eight. And in Texas one look at the congressional map around Austin and the Dallas-Fort Worth area shows the extremes to which Democratic voters are being punished.

There is more than enough evidence to see the degradation to representative government done by the majority in power.

Ideally, political maps would be drawn by bipartisan or non-partisan commissions, as they are in a handful of states. Districts should respect geographic borders and be consistent with voting rights laws.

Judges themselves should steer clear of the map-drawing business, but they can appoint experts known as special masters to do the dirty work. After striking down the current congressional map, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently appointed a special master who rapidly produced a map of compact districts that followed county and city lines where possible and generally reflects the attitudes of Pennsylvanians.

It really isn’t that hard to stop political gerrymandering.

Let the U.S. Supreme Court lead the way.