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White fadeRedistricting Liveblog Comment Responses

I was pleased to see comments on the liveblogging posts yesterday. Every blogger loves comments, so keep them coming.

Yesterday “Legislative Witness” wrote,

the process needs to be changed, removed from politicians’ hands who have personal interests in choosing their voters, and instead, put into the hands of an Independent Redistricting Committee. This bill has been proposed the past few years by Rep. Roz McGee who tells us that folks at the Hinckley Institute of Politics believe this is the most or 2nd most important issue in Utah politics. The Institute also believes the process should be done by an Independent Redistricting Commission.

It is important and I will be writing about it again.

Rob Latham favors Instant Runoff Voting and writes,

speaking of sham processes, independent redistricting commissions are such a process because they haven’t delivered the increased competitiveness promised.

The example of Iowa’s extremely competitive races at every level from local to congressional prove that a bipartisan commission with prioritized, objective critieria for drawing districts can reliably deliver competitive districts that respect communities. Weaker reforms like bipartisan committees without prioritized, objective criteria can draw lines even worse than a partisan process.

The Iowa statute is the gold standard. You can look it up. (Search for “ch 42″ — the Iowa redistricting statute.)

Anyone who is interested in working for Instant Runoff Voting in Democratic Party convention elections, please contact me. Several folks have talked about organizing the change and I have started contacting some members of the Utah Democratic Party Rules Committee. Let’s not let the Republicans get ahead of us on reform. I need volunteers to make it happen, though. Call Brian at (801) 484-3026 or email brian at utahbrian dot com.

Also I’d like to invite Mr. Latham to join the Utah Democratic Party any time he wants to make a real difference. The Democratic Party is the natural home of libertarians and a very welcoming place.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 5:43 pm and is filed under politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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3 Responses to “Redistricting Liveblog Comment Responses”

  1. Rob Latham Says:
    December 6th, 2006 at 12:35 pm

    Another problem with making single member districts competitive — with or without an independent redistricting commission — is that representativeness gets sacrificed for competitiveness.

    It’s obvious to me that Utah Democrats are beating the “competitiveness” drum because they know that it’s one way for them to achieve over-representation — rather than under-representation — in a winner-take-all, single member district electoral system.

    But I and most other electoral reformers don’t want to leave the outcome of elections to swing voters, which is what would happen if competitiveness is elevated above representativeness.

    Furthermore,

    Iowa has long been held up as the poster child for the effectiveness of redistricting commissions, yet in 2004 all congressional incumbents easily won reelection, and the average margin of victory was a landslide of 18 percent. In the state Legislature, 61 percent of seats in the House were won by landslide margins, 85 percent by noncompetitive margins of 10 points or more. Only four seats out of 100 were won by less than a five-point margin, and the average margin of victory was a whopping 47 percent. Also, in lower house, the Democrats won a majority of the vote but the Republicans won a majority of seats. Thirty-two seats were uncontested, with another six contested by just one major party.

    Thank you for your invitation to join the Democratic Party, but I decline. I’m a Libertarian for many reasons, not the least of which is the bipartisan bigotry of those who claim that one cannot make a “real difference” outside of the two incumbent political parties.

    That said, I know that there are libertarians working within both incumbent political parties to promote libertarian policies. And I’m willing to work with anyone, regardless of partisan affiliation, on policies where we share common goals.

    To that end, linking to the quote above from Californians for Electoral Reform (an organization I have been involved with as a board member) suggests to me that it may be time to explore the creation of a similar electoral reform organization in Utah. I’ll be in touch to follow up.

    Rob Latham

    P.S.: I request your help to fix the HTML code on this post of it doesn’t take as intended. ;-)

  2. brian Says:
    December 6th, 2006 at 7:06 pm

    Thanks for responding. Multi-member districts are a positive reform. I believe Arizona has them. But they’re even harder to get than a quality redistricting law because they require a change in the constitution.

    Utah Democrats are beating the “competitiveness” drum because they know that it’s one way for them to achieve over-representation — rather than under-representation

    I’ve spoken with several Democratic elected representatives who are willing to support a nonpolitical redistricting process even if it draws them out of their own districts. Their motives are entirely idealistic and not simply partisan.

    Looks like the HTML turned out fine, Rob. Another success for WordPress.

  3. PoliticNow.com Says:
    April 20th, 2007 at 11:44 am

    Nice site Brian go to http://www.politicnow.com to be the politician.
    Thanks

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