Will congressional districts ever be drawn fairly?

Gerrymandering conjures up images of power brokers sitting around a table, drawing lines on an oversize map to divvy up the vote and keep their political party in office.

A quick look at Pennsylvania’s district map — with districts that romp over county and municipal lines and twist and turn to pack or split groups of voters — suggests some politics was at work in the drawing. So it’s not surprising that there are three lawsuits challenging the map, as well as numerous reports that it reflects political maneuvering.

What would it take to strip the politics out of the process?

Judging from California’s experience, it would mean finding people so wonky and willing to put politics aside that they got picked from a pool of 30,000 applicants, survived a lengthy vetting process, wrote essays about redistricting, then won a lottery to become the drawers of districts.

California is one of several states — including Arizona, Idaho, Montana and Washington — that puts the responsibility of redrawing district boundaries in the hands of an independent commission, appointed fairly with strong standards of transparency and rules prohibiting the participation of anyone who would benefit politically from the district lines.

After California passed a ballot measure in 2008 authorizing the commission, 14 people were selected from a pool of more than 30,000 applicants to redraw districts in 2011. Overseen by the state auditor general, the process was lengthy and strict. As rounds advanced, applicants were checked for conflicts of interest, given an essay test and presented before the state Legislature. Of 36 names placed in a lottery tumble ball at the end, eight were chosen.

Those eight selected the final six from the other eligible candidates.

Christina Shupe, director of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, said the state “went through a significant amount of effort to determine how to make the process independent so that itwasn’t gamed.”

She continued, “We had over 60 public hearings, 30 public input hearings across state and 30 public line drawing meetings across the state. We would throw maps up on the big screen in an auditorium where people could come in and see how the lines would be drawn in real time.”

Critics of the current process in Pennsylvania, in which the party that controls the Legislature redraws district lines every 10 years, say it deprives voters of having a real choice in who represents them. Carol Kuniholm, chair of Fair Districts PA, a nonpartisan citizens group working to stop gerrymandering, called it a “mockery of democracy” in that it allows the party in power to draw districts with specific outcomes in mind.

Pennsylvania’s electoral maps are crafted with what critics say is one of the most extreme levels of partisan bias in the country. After the Republican-majority Legislature redrew district lines in 2011, the party netted more than four extra seats in 2012, three in 2014 and three in 2016, a recent study by the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice found.

An independent commission would minimize this bias, Ms. Kuniholm said.

“It’s by far the best solution,” Ms. Kuniholm said. “We point to that fact that the U.S. is the only major democracy in the world that allows legislators any say at all in drawing lines. We’ve got to remove the process completely from the people who have a deep personal motivation in having those lines drawn in a particular way.”

For reform advocates, there could be a fix soon, as the state awaits a ruling in a federal case in Philadelphia testing the legality of gerrymandering. Another trial started Monday in state court — brought by the League of Women Voters — alleging that the 2011 Republican-drawn map is unconstitutional.

A favorable ruling for reformers in either case could clear the way for the authorization of an independent commission, or at least demand a redrawing of congressional maps before the 2018 elections.

But to Ms. Kuniholm, the better solution would be the Legislature passing bills that would amend the state constitution to institute an independent commission. She said the House version of a gerrymandering bill has 99 co-sponsors, including 30 Republicans.

“We feel strongly that the legislative reform is by far the most important,” Ms. Kuniholm said. “We’d love to see new congressional districts, but we’d by far like to see a long term solution to this.”