Op-Ed: We Need to Solve the Gerrymandering Mess

By Steve Levy

The redistricting process in America is a mess.

Red states and blue states are jockeying to redraw their district lines in the middle of the ten-year census cycle — something unique in American history.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court just issued a landmark decision, outlawing the use of race in redrawing the lines, while remaining acquiescent to the concept of allowing lawmakers to blatantly utilize political partisanship as a tool in redistricting.

The entire system must be upended and handed over to an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can redraw the maps to create the most politically balanced districts.

When it comes to the Supreme Court ending the practice of crafting a district to enhance representation for a marginalized minority, I’m of two minds.

There is one part of me that says it’s about time.

At some point, we must stop obsessing over race and concede that things are much different today than they were in the Jim Crow era. That’s why I was totally supportive of the 2013 Supreme Court decision that ended the now-outdated Section 5 requirements that mandated certain southern states to obtain pre-approval from federal authorities before they can enact any election-related legislation.

This was an outdated relic that dated back to the 1960s. But times change. In fact, by 2013, many southern states had far more liberal election laws than did liberal northern states such as New York or Delaware.

But when it comes to totally eviscerating the examination of the potential of racial bias in redistricting, I’m not sure I’m totally there yet. That’s primarily because housing discrimination continues to pocket minorities in segregated areas.

That allowed the white majority to freeze out African-American or Hispanic representation on many of their local boards because they could divide up these highly concentrated minority areas into four or five pieces, thereby diluting the minority vote. 

Take, for instance, the town of Islip in Suffolk County, from where I hail. Despite the fact that Blacks in Central Islip and Hispanics in Brentwood represented the overwhelming majority of the population in those areas, at-large townwide elections prevented any Blacks or Hispanics from being elected to the town council, until the court required that a minority district be created.

I want to see a day when that type of housing discrimination will no longer exist and that type of judicial intervention would be moot, but I’m not sure we’re there yet.

Interestingly, the court has now held that race cannot be considered in the redrawing of these maps, but partisanship can be. It’s not that they gave an affirmative approval to the use of partnership, but rather, said that there’s nothing in the Constitution that prevents it.

I would suggest that there is such a prohibition and that is the equal protection and due process clauses of the Constitution.

Millions of people throughout the nation, from one party or the other, constituting a minority within a specific voting region, are marginalized by drawing districts that prevent the minority party from having any representation in these areas. 

Take, for instance, New England, where Donald Trump received anywhere from 35 to 45% of the vote, yet the Democrats in these states have so gerrymandered the congressional districts that there is not a single GOP congressperson - not one - from any of these six states: 21 Democrats to Zero (0) Republicans.

It is indeed my hope that the need to consider race in drawing these lines will be obsolete soon. That will happen when our housing patterns become less segregated. 

But one thing that is certain in my mind: partisanship doesn’t now, nor has it ever, been a rightful part of the redistricting process.

If the Supreme Court won’t ban it, our elected class should.

Do what I suggested in my article over a year ago — leave the redrawing of congressional (and state legislature) districts to AI.

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Steve Levy is President of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County Executive, as a NYS Assemblyman, and host of the “On the Right Side Podcast.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter  @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com