State redistricting comes down to words
A look at what common redistricting terms mean
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is weighing four proposals for the state’s new legislative districts after the two consultants it hired submitted a report evaluating several maps based on the court’s criteria and said conservatives submitted “partisan gerrymanders.”
In its decision that ordered new maps, the court laid out its criteria, such as compactness and contiguity. Those aren’t unique to Wisconsin — they’re traditional redistricting standards across the country. Some of them are legal requirements under the state Constitution; others are “good governance” ideals.
You might have heard some of these terms already — and you’ll probably hear them more in the coming weeks. The parties have a Feb. 8 deadline to respond to the consultants’ report. The court is likely to make a decision before March 15, but a Republican appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court certainly isn’t out of the question.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talked to Marquette University research fellow John Johnson and University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden about what common redistricting concepts mean and how they apply to the case.
Here’s a guide to some of those terms, which you’ll likely keep seeing in the news as the redistricting case reaches its resolution:
What does contiguity mean?
The state Constitution says that lawmakers must be elected in districts that consist of “contiguous territory.” That means all the areas in the district must be connected to each other — you wouldn’t have to leave a district to visit another part of it.
But some municipalities have territory that isn’t connected, especially if the municipality has expanded and annexed pieces of land. A Madison-area Assembly seat is an example of that: The previous practice was that districts with those “islands” were allowable.
In December, the court ruled that “no, actually the Constitution requires literal contiguity. And so now, every district has to be made up of land that touches the rest of the district,” Johnson said.
What are political subunits?
The Constitution also says that districts should be bounded by county, town and ward lines. Interestingly, it doesn’t name cities and villages, so avoiding splitting those municipalities is “more of a good governance idea,” Johnson said.
In their report, the consultants said that the map submissions differed in “preserving the integrity of these units.” One of the maps had the fewest county and town splits, but divided up the most wards, for example.“Wards are usually v
iewed as the building blocks of districts, so that gets done first,” Burden said. Because there are only 72 counties, “some of them are going to have to be sliced in order to make districts. Especially the more populous ones, like Dane, Milwaukee and Brown are going to have multiple districts in them.”
There’s another under-the-radar requirement in Wisconsin, which is rare in other states. The “nesting” rule says there must be three Assembly districts within each Senate district — another layer of complexity for map drawers.
What does compactness mean?
Another requirement in the state Constitution is that districts must be “in as compact form as practicable.” But that doesn’t really say how to measure how compact a district is, Johnson noted.
Burden said he’s seen about 10 or 12 ways to measure compactness. Johnson said one of the most common methods is drawing the smallest circle possible around a district, then dividing the area of the district by the area of the circle. The closer that decimal is to one, the more compact the district is.
“I think the public probably has a kind of intuitive understanding that a compact district has a nice shape. It’s not irregular,” Burden said. Still, studies that ask people to rank districts based on their compactness show there isn’t really agreement on what that means.
What is population equality?
Balancing populations is the “entire reason” behind redistricting, Johnson said.
The idea goes back to federal court decisions in the 1960s, including a case that ruled state legislative districts must be roughly equal in population, based on the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. That’s where the “one person, one vote” idea comes from.
Johnson said population equality is measured by taking the range between the most populous and least populous district, and dividing that by the ideal district size. That’s called the population deviation — 5% to 10% is a “red flag,” but all the Wisconsin proposals are less than 2%. Burden noted that districts can change in population during the normal 10-year redistricting cycle, such as in rapidly growing Dane County. Sometimes, a court will approve districts with a lighter population if they expect growth, or pack rural districts if the population is likely to to decrease.
What are communities of interest?
The idea of communities of interest is “fuzzy,” Johnson said. “I don’t think there’s a shared definition of what a community of interest is.” The concept isn’t required in Wisconsin, but more an ideal of keeping communities that share social, cultural and economic interests together so they have one representative to go to.
For example, the consultants wrote “Native Americans represent a distinct, cognizable, and geographically definable community of interest” and said the plans could be adjusted to better retain the community.
Keeping a college campus in one district is another example. Some could argue a natural region like the Driftless Area is a community of interest, or a group of farmers who grow a specific type of crop in Wisconsin.
The Voting Rights Act also requires that maps don’t water down the votes of minority voters, which are often geographically segregated. Doing that protects communities of interest, but doesn’t always result in the most compact districts.
“It’s often a trade-off. Some of the ugliest-looking districts around the country, that people make fun of on the surface, were done actually for pretty good reasons,” Burden said.
Why is the court considering partisan impact?
In laying out its criteria, the court also said it would consider partisan impact and avoid selecting a map designed to advantage one party over the other.
“It is not possible to remain neutral and independent by failing to consider partisan impact entirely,” liberal Justice Jill Karofsky wrote.
“It’s important to distinguish between a neutral outcome and a neutral process,” Johnson said. “If you draw maps without paying any attention to partisan strength, and just trying to meet the other criteria ... you’re almost always going to end up with a plan that benefits Republicans.”
Burden said that reflects how Republicanand Democratic-leaning voters are distributed across the state. Republicans are more spread out, and Democrats are so concentrated in urban areas that they waste their voting strength. “I think the maps that were submitted do such a good job, actually, of fulfilling most of the criteria that the court outlined pretty well,” he said. “I think that speaks to how sophisticated this has gotten, the use of digital technology and data.”
Balancing populations is the “entire reason” behind redistricting. The idea goes back to federal court decisions in the 1960s, including a case that ruled state legislative districts must be roughly equal in population, based on the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment. That’s where the “one person, one vote” idea comes from.