REDISTRICTING THE STATE OF IDAHO
by the Chuckle Club Editorial Board
The third time is the charm, but the redistricting of Idaho turned out to be not so charming. Finally, it appears we have a new legislative map as constitutionally required once the decennial federal census has been completed. The road to this point has been rocky given that the process is highly political. In an effort to remove the politics from the process, we changed the Idaho Constitution (in the 1990’s) to set up a citizens redistricting committee with three Democrats and three Republicans. But why wasn’t the Constitution Party or the Libertarian Party given a seat at the table? Do they not exist?
And why do we have a 50/50 split between R’s and D’s on the commission? This is not the ratio of R’s and D’s in the legislature or in the state. The political battles on this committee are intensified with such a make-up. There is a lot of political leverage that can be gained by gerrymandering district boundaries. Hence all the political wrangling and the three maps that were ultimately offered as “fait accomplice”.
If it were a good idea to have 3 R’s and 3 D’s on this committee, we would have 6 justices on the Supreme Court, but that has proven to be a bad idea. Does it not make more sense to have the makeup of this committee reflect the makeup of the Legislature, as determined by the voters of Idaho? Today this would give us about 80% of the commission members as Republicans and the remainder as Democrats.
Something needs to give! We wasted time and money since the first committee, seated in June, yet was not able to get a redistricting map done in the allotted 90 days. When the commission failed to meet the deadline, two Executive branch officeholders, the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, took charge of the process and demanded a new commission be seated. Outrageous, considering that this is a legislative issue! Who was representing the interests of the legislature in the middle of the summer? No one!
The first commission actually did offer a map that was approved, albeit a little late. In following the established redistricting criteria, this first map favored conservatives. Hence the need to have the first commission disbanded and a second commission seated; at least according to the Secretary of State and the Attorney General, neither of whom are conservatives.
Unfortunately, but certainly as planned, the second redistricting commission was not so friendly to conservatives. Reportedly, the Republican members of the commission never even looked at the map they approved. Somehow they trusted the Democrat draftsmen of the redrawn map. Clearly the map was a nightmare that resulted in legal challenges by multiple plaintiffs. Fortunately and appropriately the Supreme Court threw the map out, but they left us with little guidance as to how to draw a legally sufficient map.
Well, not to our surprise, the time expired for the second commission too. The Speaker of the House and the Republican Party Chairman wanted to appoint new commissioners to a third commission, but the two prior commissioners refused to leave. Why were they encouraged to stay by the Secretary of State and the Attorney General? This was a flip-flop of the most obvious (shall we say dubious?) sort as the supposed “removal” criteria applied by the Secretary of State and the Attorney General to the first commission members was not applied to the second commission members.
The resulting suit, filed in the Supreme Supreme Court by the Speaker and the Republican Party chairman to remove these two recalcitrant commissioners was dismissed due to a “filing defect”. Hmmm, sounds like one more reason for the legislature to have its own legal counsel, rather than relying on the Attorney General’s office as is usually the case. Can you say… “Conflict of Interest”?
With the Speaker and the Republican Party Chairman planning their next move, the second commission quickly approved another map more in line with the designated mapping criteria. It has been a week since this third map was approved, and so far no organized opposition has been mounted against it. So it looks as if we will be living with this map for the next 10 years.
Conservatives did better with this third map, as would be expected when the process follows the established guidelines. The old map, first used in the 2002 election, ended up favoring the Democrats and liberal Republicans when Dean Haagenson of Coeur d’Alene, a liberal Republican himself and a member of the 2000 redistricting commission, sided with the Democrats.
The lessons learned in this drama are three fold. First, the legislature needs to tighten up the statutes on the redistricting commission. Without exception, any appointee to that commission should be able to be removed at any time, with or without reason, since they are a “political appointee”. Such an appointee serves at the will of the one who appointed them. Second, the commission should more accurately reflect the makeup of the legislature and that of Idaho Electors (That’s voters for you non-Constitutional minded). And third, it is obvious that – yet again – the legislature is the weakest of the three branches of the Idaho government. (So much for the “We the People” part)
When the legislature is out of session, there needs to be someone minding the store in Boise. Who will defend the interests of the legislature, the very voice of the People, when the Secretary of State and the Attorney General take charge of what is legally and ethically a legislative issue? It is high time for the Legislature to have its own attorney. Heck, it might even need two of them as it is the “law-making” branch of government.