A detriment to democracy

If legislative power were based on vote totals, Lynn Stewart would be king of the Capitol and Barbara Buckley would be a back-bencher.

Assemblyman Stewart, a Henderson Republican, piled up more than 43,000 votes on Election Day, tops among the lower house's 42 races. He won re-election to District 22, a massive jurisdiction that stretches from the corner of Fort Apache Road and Tropicana Avenue in the southwest valley to Henderson's eastern city limits.

Speaker Buckley, a Las Vegas Democrat, was returned to Carson City on just under 7,600 votes. Her District 8, one of the Assembly's smallest, is mostly contained between Jones and Valley View boulevards and Russell and Spring Mountain roads.

But vote totals count for nothing after Nov. 4. Buckley will control the Legislature's agenda in 2009, and Stewart and his party's dwindling minority will try to avoid being steamrolled in the process.

Their races were typical for the Assembly, one of the most unrepresentative elected bodies in Nevada. Its boundaries were so badly gerrymandered in the 2001 reapportionment that Democrats are guaranteed victory in two dozen seats, while Republican-held districts, on average, now have twice as many voters as those represented by Democrats.

In their 28 Assembly victories this year, Democrats got about 9,900 votes each. The 14 winning Republicans received more than 18,900 votes apiece.

"I spend three to four hours a day answering e-mails, returning phone calls and addressing constituent problems," said Stewart, a retired teacher. "I don't have a staff and I don't have an office here. I use my den, which doubles as my grandkids' play room. I don't know how a person with a full-time job could represent this district. It's very demanding."

In narrowly winning Las Vegas' District 13 with almost 39,000 votes, Republican Chad Christensen was checked on about the same number of ballots as Democrats Buckley, Tick Segerblom, Joe Hogan, Ruben Kihuen, Mo Denis and Paul Aizley combined. Christensen's district, the Assembly's largest in terms of registered voters, is three times as fat as the biggest Democratic district.

The Democrats' one-seat gain in the Assembly was big news on Election Day because it gave their party a two-thirds majority, the margin needed to pass tax increases and override any gubernatorial veto. But given Democrats' massive gains in voter registrations -- they now outnumber Republicans by about 100,000 statewide -- and the huge turnout driven by Barack Obama's presidential campaign, it was just as newsworthy that they couldn't knock off more Assembly Republicans.

Nearly every Assembly race is inherently noncompetitive. Only six races this year were decided by 5 percentage points or less. That's a travesty when you consider that statewide, Democratic Assembly candidates out-polled Republican candidates by only 2.2 percentage points. Instead, 33 contests were decided by at least 20 points, with Democrats winning 24.

Having predetermined outcomes in so many important races is a detriment to democracy. Gerrymandered districts serve as impenetrable bunkers for incumbents of both parties, allowing them to play to their parties' extreme elements. Skewed boundaries and constituencies discourage viable, qualified challengers from ever seeking elected office.

Assembly Republicans have only themselves to blame for their current predicament. They inexplicably went along with the 2001 redistricting, accepting what they thought were guaranteed majorities in the state Senate and Nevada's congressional delegation in a deal that gave up their voice in the Assembly. In the aftermath of the 2008 election, the GOP is 0-for-3, and the lower house of the Legislature is a safe haven for the interests of government services, a place where public education reforms and pro-business bills have no chance of passing.

Some degree of gerrymandering is expected whenever lawmakers have the power to decide who they represent. What compounds the troubles of Nevada's Assembly Republicans, however, is the unconstitutional population disparities between their districts and those held by Democrats. Not only are incumbent Democrats insulated by comfortable voter-registration margins, their power is highly concentrated by having relatively tiny constituencies. Residents of populous Republican districts, meanwhile, have seen their voices watered down worse than an airport cocktail.

"When we reapportion in 2011, we're going to have to make sure the district-to-district numbers are at least constitutional and fair," said Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno.

Don't count on it. Democrats will pull out all the stops between now and the 2010 elections to make sure they're in position to draw themselves a guaranteed majority in both the Assembly and the state Senate -- and put the GOP at as big a disadvantage as possible.

Unless, somehow, conservative groups can put before voters an initiative like California's Proposition 11, which would leave the process of redistricting to an impartial board or commission. If the proposition wins passage (absentee and provisional ballots are still being counted), California would become the 13th state to tackle the incumbent-protection racket by revoking lawmakers' power to draw their own districts.

Guess how Lynn Stewart would vote on that?

Glenn Cook is an editorial writer for the Review-Journal. E-mail him at gcook@reviewjournal.com.