League of Women Voters proposes process to avoid gerrymandering
PORTLAND, Ore. (Portland Tribune) — After Republicans turned a slew of state legislatures from blue to red in the 2010 midterm elections, subsequently redrew Congressional districts in politically advantageous shapes and sparked a national conversation around political gerrymandering, states including Colorado, Michigan and Missouri recently passed initiatives to depoliticize the redistricting process.
Will Oregon be next in line? The Oregon League of Women Voters certainly hopes so.
The League hosted a forum Wednesday, Dec. 6 at Wilsonville Public Library and outlined an alternative to Oregon’s redistricting process. Meanwhile, Wilsonville residents who attended the meeting provided thoughts on redistricting and the League’s proposal.
As League representative Candalynn Johnson explained at the meeting, districts are redrawn after the national census is conducted at the beginning of each decade and redistricting affects representation in Congress and the state legislature.
In the vast majority of states including Oregon, the state legislature decides how district lines are drawn. According to the League, politicians drawing their own districts creates an inherent conflict of interest and leads to political gerrymandering — which is the practice of manipulating district boundaries for partisan advantage.
“When legislatures have control over where lines get drawn the risk of gerrymandering increases,” Johnson said.
Oregon is not said to be one of the most gerrymandered states in the United States. But according to an interactive map produced by the FiveThirtyEight data driven media outlet, Democrats — who controlled the State Senate and had 30 of 60 seats in the State House of Representatives when redistricting was passed in 2011 — have a comparative advantage to Republicans based on the current map.
Instead of the state legislature, the League proposed that a paid multi-partisan commission should draw district lines. In their proposal, 11 people with diverse political views would be drawn out of a pool of 60 by the secretary of state and appointed to the commission. The League hopes to garner enough support to put the initiative through the Legislature or up for a ballot measure.
Wilsonville resident Cathryn Poff has noticed…
