End gerrymandering to ease partisan gridlock in Washington

LOS ANGELES – Albany Law School Professor Stephen E. Gottlieb has devoted himself to studying the political science behind why democracies fail.

Among the reasons: Neglecting rights, gerrymandering of legislative districts and a widening disparity of economic resources between the rich and the poor.

“When the disparity of economic resources gets too large, then you have problems,” he said.

Uh, oh.

Gottlieb outlined his research last weekend at the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. He and his fellow panelists had a few things to say about gerrymandering, or the process of drawing political boundaries to favor an incumbent or political party.

You can see a pretty good example in the Nevada Legislature, where some districts are stacked with thousands more Democrats over Republicans, or vice versa. Sometimes, that’s simply the nature of geography (the rural parts of Nevada are home to far more Republicans than Democrats). But in other cases, it’s an intentional preservation of incumbency.

Gottlieb said the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to deal with partisan gerrymandering. And we’ve seen the inevitable results: A bitterly divided Congress incapable of taking up bipartisan, consensus legislation.

Not only do Republicans or Democrats ensconced in gerrymandered districts have no motive to work with their political opposites, in some cases, it can be politically perilous to do so.

If the courts continue to allow gerrymandering, Americans will never be able to elect a Congress that represents popular will, Gottlieb said.

Fellow panelist Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine and an acknowledged expert on constitutional law, pointed to a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2004 in which the majority decided there was no legitimate legal standard for passing judgment on partisan gerrymandered maps. As a result, the court said, it’s a political question, beyond the reach of the judicial branch to adjudicate.

But Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in a concurring opinion that while no standard may have existed in 2004, perhaps one would in the future. And a new case arising out of Wisconsin headed for the court’s docket this year might be that case.

According to Chemerinsky, the case could compel judges to look at the percentage of votes received by a political party statewide, and compare that to the number of seats held by that party. A large disparity could show an unconstitutional gerrymandering has occurred, he said.

Outside the courtroom, the numbers can have a real impact on how lawmakers legislate.

For example, Rep. Dina Titus represents a safe Democratic district (Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 84,000 voters). Meanwhile, Reps. Jackie Rosen and Ruben Kihuen represent districts much closer in registration (there are only 10,000 more Democrats than Republicans in Rosen’s CD-3 and 41,000 in Kihuen’s CD-4).

Is it any wonder that only Titus has signed on to a Medicare-for-all bill introduced by Michigan Democrat John Conyers? Rosen and Kihuen have said they instead want to continue to fix problems with the existing Affordable Care Act.

On the other hand, reported Sarah D. Wire, a Los Angeles Times reporter covering California’s 55-member congressional delegation, there are some California Republicans who represent close districts who don’t feel they can vocally support President Donald Trump, lest they pay for it at the polls.

The upshot? More evenly divided districts produce lawmakers who are more attentive to the wishes of their voters. And that may help salve the partisan rancor that paralyzes Congress.

Contact Steve Sebelius at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5276. Follow @SteveSebelius on Twitter.