Kudos to are due to Senator Blevins and Representative Kowalko and all of the co-sponsors of this bill to create an The Redistricting Commission for the State of Delaware — an independent commission to supervise the reapportionment of the GA after the next census. Really, this approach to reapportionment is all kinds of steps in the right direction.
This bill takes the work of redistricting out of the political hands of the Legislature and asks this commission to redraw the maps. The GA approves the maps by majority vote, with the Governor approving. In the event there is no agreement on the reapportionment by September 30 of the year the new census data is available from the US Government, there is a provision to hand the task off to the Chancellor of the State of Delaware and a Superior Court Judge, whose work product is binding when complete.
The Commission has eleven members — 10 appointed by GA leadership and the non-voting Chair of the Commission is selected and voted on by the appointed Commission. Each county and the City of Wilmington have to be represented. They are required to operate openly — they have the maintain a website, conduct all meetings in public, and be subject to FOIA. In addition, they may not be elected officials, party officials, may not be a lobbiest, may not run for office in the election following reapportionment and may not be recently retired from the legislature.
There’s more detail at the link above, but this is an excellent development to try to get some of (but it won’t get all) of map development for political gain out of the process. NJ has a similar plan — except their commission does its work and certifies a new map with the Secretary of State. Neither the Governor or GA can veto it. Also, any judicial challenges to the NJ Commission maps or process can only be brought to the Supreme Court. Iowa has a famously even-handed process, which has elements of these models, but also restrict the commission from using any demographic data (except for the census population numbers) in the drawing of the maps. They cannot know anything about the addresses of incumbents, party affiliation data, history of voting or similar data to get to their work.
This is the kind of effort that can make partisans in power absolutely crazy. In NJ, the effort made a few districts actually competitive for a change and real competition is a good thing for voters. (IN NJ, his effort also spread the Blue; in Iowa they stay pretty resolutely Purple, and their true wingnuts don’t usually survive long.) Protecting long-held seats is often a long-simmering disaster — for voters and for the governing bodies that need to get real work done. Fresher faces and thinkers get a better shot at seats because there is no longer an overwhelming structural advantage. I don’t know, really, if Delaware’s state and house districts can be said to be gerrymandered, but I do know that there are Districts where dismantling some of the incumbent’s advantages would be a Good Thing.
So what do you think about this? What would you add or change? And, more importantly, do you think it will become law?