EP. 33 — DRAWING THE LINES

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Weston Wamp: I'm Weston Wamp, and this is “Swamp Stories,” presented by Issue One. 

Weston Wamp: You hear a lot about congressional dysfunction and the "sausage-making" that is the legislative process. How bills become law is messy, and it involves politicians arguing as much about politics as having productive conversations about policy. But in many ways, that’s democracy. And there’s the old adage about it being the worst form of government imaginable — except for every other. And that’s why we’re always striving to create a “more perfect union” and it’s one of the things that makes our country unique. 

Among our imperfect traditions is how we draw congressional lines and legislative districts. The process often involves partisanship on steroids by both major political parties because the stakes couldn’t be higher: the makeup of a district often has as much to do with who gets elected to state legislatures and Congress as the elections themselves. 

If you look across the country, you’ll see Republican legislators in red states and Democratic legislators in blue states trying to find an advantage for their side in our every-10-year redistricting process.

In some states, this partisan tradition has been replaced with a less political approach, but in most states it’s alive and well at one degree or another. As districts across America are being carved following the most recent Census and in advance of the 2022 elections, it’s a good time for reflection on how our system works — or doesn’t work — and how it can be improved.

This year, there’s been a lot of attention directed at the redistricting process in Texas. The state has two new congressional districts due to population increases, and with a narrow Democratic majority in Congress, every seat counts. 

“Swamp Stories” partnered with the Texas-based Sumners Foundation, which is focused on self-government and promoting the fundamental principles of democracy, to dive into the competing perspectives about how redistricting could be more fairly and thoughtfully carried out. Although Texas’ map was drawn and signed into law since we recorded this episode, it’s chock full of great insights into the process — in Texas and across the country.

This is Episode 33: Drawing the Lines

The 14th Amendment to the U.S Constitution calls for members of the U.S. House of Representatives to be apportioned based on the population of the state they represent. And the Reapportionment Act of 1929 sets the House at 435 members. So every 10 years, the Census determines which states gain or lose seats in Congress and then state legislatures begin the redistricting process — for both congressional and state legislative districts.

Eight states have handed redistricting over to commissions, and seven of them are independent commissions composed of non-politicians. Two other states have so-called “hybrid commissions”: they really are partially or wholly independent in composition, but subject to some influence by the state legislatures. 

But in the rest of the other states with more than 1 congressional district, partisan control of the state legislatures goes a long way in deciding how districts are drawn — as well as the legislative seats held by the folks drawing the lines. So you can see how this gets political real fast.

As you’ll hear on this episode, tempers can run hot when it comes to redistricting. The age-old process of so-called gerrymandering, where the redistricting process draws plainly unfair and often confusing lines that often make no geographic or other sense, is as confounding as ever. Some want to fix it, some think that it’s fine as it is. 

But before you mistake it as a straightforward partisan issue, consider that in Democratic controlled Illinois, it’s Republicans who’ve been advocating for an independent redistricting commission. Across the country, though, it’s more typically Democrats who advocate for such a solution. And it’s a smart idea, and in many places it’s accomplished its mission to take the politicians out of the process, if not the politics.  

Tempers in Texas were understandably high because the growth in the state led to the creation of two new congressional districts. And in order to squeeze in two new districts, there were inevitably going to be a lot of changes to the existing 36.

So how did it go in Texas?

Stephanie Swanson: I think there's a lot of disappointing things that have happened. It's excitable for all the wrong reasons. Conservative lawmakers really did not have a fair and open process.

Joe Barton: Well, ever since the beginning of the country over 200 years ago, when it came to drawing political subdivision lines, politics has been a part of the process. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Weston Wamp: To articulate the prevailing perspectives of the left and the right on redistricting, I reached out to two very different guests. Stephanie Swanson of the League of Women Voters of Texas, an advocate for redistricting reform, and former 12-term U.S. Congressman Joe Barton from Texas, a Republican who says both parties play the same game at the end of the day and it’s politics.

Joe Barton: I don't think there's anything evil or immoral. Republicans try to slant the lines to help themselves and Democrats try to slant the lines to help themselves. I've been on both ends of it.

The end result is that the states that are controlled by Republicans tend to draw lines that support Republican congressmen and states controlled by Democrats tend to draw lines that promote Democratic congressmen, and as you can tell in the current House of Representatives, I think there's a four vote margin for the Democrat, so it ends up being a pretty even, balanced process.

Weston Wamp: But to Swanson, the problem with political gerrymandering is that it causes fundamentally poor representation no matter who is drawing the lines, as evidenced by a changing Texas.

Stephanie Swanson: We have maps now that really have even gone more extreme. There are more white majority districts here in the state in spite of 95% of the growth here in Texas coming from communities of color. 

That is particularly what the League is trying to prevent, is this extreme cracking where our neighborhoods are being separated so much, that it's hard for us to get good representation.

Weston Wamp: Swanson and Barton both cite examples of Texas redistricting history to explain their position.

Joe Barton: In 1990, the Democrats controlled the process in Texas and the congressman on the Democrat side in charge of it was Congressman Martin Frost in Dallas, big ally of majority leader and later speaker Jim Wright, and he took every precinct in my home county of Ellis County, in all of my hometown of Ennis, Texas, except for one precinct. And then enough to get me up into Fort Worth, and I had 86% new people.

And from here to DFW airport was about 55 miles and you crossed in and out of my district 13 times. The Supreme Court said that my district, the Sixth District of Texas, was the most gerrymandered district in the history of the country. That was in 1990. 

Weston Wamp: Fast forward to the early 2000s and Barton saw Republicans in the Texas State Legislature pair two Democrats in a district with him, and both ended up out of Congress. One retired and one chose to run in a nearby district and lost.

Joe Barton: I've been on the losing end of it and I've been on the winning end of it, and that's just part of the political process, so I'm okay with politics being a part of it.

Weston Wamp: Swanson points to efforts by a former Republican State Senator who, remembering the frustration of being on the receiving end of gerrymandering, tried to reform the system when Republicans took control of the state legislature.

Stephanie Swanson: A great example to give you is this state Senator from Texas, he's a former state Senator. His name was Jeff Wentworth. Senator Wentworth was around in the 70s, 80s, and 90s when Democrats heavily gerrymandered against Republicans here in Texas. And even when Republicans took control of the legislature in 2003, Senator Wentworth was a very big champion of redistricting reform. So Republicans controlled all three branches of the government here in Texas. And he still almost got redistricting reforms through because he had seen what the other side could do to his party.

And he experienced what it was like to be in the minority. And so he was a huge champion of redistricting reform, even though he did not get it all the way through, he came close, but it didn't quite pass the Republican controlled legislature.

Weston Wamp: Swanson and Barton also disagree about what effect gerrymandering has in terms of election outcomes, and whether the process ends up accurately reflecting the will of voters in the state.

Joe Barton: The people that are most attuned to the needs of their districts are the people that get elected: the congressmen or the state reps or state senators or whatever, and by and large, they balance out the competing political differences and come up with maps that reflect the values of the state. Folks who get elected, over time, tend to be very sensitive to the mood of the electorate, and I think they're the best qualified to draw the lines.

Stephanie Swanson: One of the reasons why we have such extreme policy formation at the legislature is because our general elections are uncompetitive. All of our resources down here are predetermined because of gerrymandering. And so because all of our districts are so safe, that pushes a real election into the primary and there in the primary, you have more extreme candidates going up and running, and it's usually the more extreme factions of the party that tend to win the primary.

Weston Wamp: Despite disagreeing on the role of politics in gerrymandering, Swanson and Barton did agree on one of the underlying principles that should guide redistricting: keeping communities of interest whole. Simply put, a community of interest is a group of people that  have common policy concerns and would benefit from being maintained in a single district. Examples of communities of interest include ethnic, racial, cultural, economic, or even linguistic groups.

Joe Barton: Well, there are certain principles that, again, federal law and state law and Supreme Court cases have established as guidelines. Districts, as much as possible, need to be compact. Each district within a state needs to represent almost the same number of people.

You have to have the community of interest test. Race is a factor. It's not the only factor, but it is a factor and if you have a minority district, you cannot change it so that the minority population is diluted. That's called retrogression.

Stephanie Swanson: Here in Austin where I live, congressional district 10 is a great example. You'd have constituents on the west side of Austin being mixed in with rural areas between Houston and Austin. And then that district went all the way over to the suburbs on the west side of Houston. 

And so it's stories like that where they have gone down block by block and choosing their voters and really cracked up our neighborhoods pretty extremely. That's where the League is taking a very strong interest. That's not good representation for anyone, Democrat or Republican alike. And so one of our priorities of course, is to keep communities of interest whole as much as possible.

But of course, when partisan gerrymandering comes into play, that's exactly what the legislatures do, they do the opposite, right? They go block by block and choose their voters and crack up our neighborhoods down to the block level.

Weston Wamp: Swanson points out that the ability to ensure these communities of interest stay together has been undermined by the Supreme Court in recent years. A tool that was previously part of the Voting Rights Act, called preclearance, ensured that states had to prove upfront that their voting laws do not infringe upon other groups’ freedom to vote.  

Stephanie Swanson: I think if we had had the preclearance provision of the Voting Rights Act still in place here in Texas, it would've done our state a lot of good. Our maps would've been a lot more fair and reflective of what the demographics look like here in Texas after the 2020 census.

Weston Wamp: This provision would be put back in place by a piece of bipartisan legislation currently in Congress called the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which Issue One as an organization supports. However, the legislation has not cleared the Senate yet. 

And multiple lawsuits have already been filed in response to the finalized Texas maps. So stay tuned. 

But while the issue is often partisan in the states, there’s been bipartisan bills to reform the process in Congress, including one sponsored years ago by my dad, former Republican Representative Zach Wamp. In 2005, he partnered with Tennessee Democrat John Tanner to propose legislation that would provide for bipartisan commissions every 10 years to sort out redistricting.

Commissions of different kinds have shown that another way forward is possible. In Virginia, voters last year voted to create a bipartisan redistricting commission divided evenly between politicians and non-politicians. They hoped they were ending gerrymandering, but that commission came to a stalemate and Democrats on the commission walked away from negotiations leading to the fallback provision this year which will lead to the Virginia Supreme Court to draw new lines.

Was this a failure? According to One Virginia, who’s an advocate of the commission, no. 

While it was disappointing to see that the politicians that made up this hybrid commission couldn’t find consensus, quote, “the real failure would have been to approach redistricting in Virginia the same way we always have while hoping for a different result.” The role of the Virginia Supreme Court was included as a backstop to break a potential stalemate. Without this provision, the Virginia General Assembly would simply be free to once again write their own rules.

And as One Virginia points out, recent history indicates that courts across the country have been pretty good at drawing fair and representative maps. 

Like we said at the top of the show, democracy can be messy. There is no perfect solution. Bipartisan or independent commissions don’t have to end in a stalemate, and it’s encouraging that states are experimenting with new approaches. Issue One believes that independent commissions — totally free of participation by politicians — represent the best tool for drawing fair congressional and legislative districts.

As Issue One’s CEO Nick Penniman has said, “you cannot take the politics out of redistricting, but you can and should take the politicians out.” At the end of the day, it's about finding a better way to stop politicians from picking their voters. 

On the next episode of “Swamp Stories,” we’re going to take a look at an issue that has gotten a lot of attention across the political spectrum in America. Why can members of Congress, who control the purse strings of our multi-trillion dollar federal government, trade stocks just like you and I can? 

Weston Wamp: Thanks for listening to Swamp Stories, presented by Issue One, the country's leading political reform organization that unites Republicans, Democrats, and independents to fix our broken political system. Please subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends. Even better, rate and review it on iTunes to help us reach more listeners. You can find out more at swampstories.org. I'm your host Weston Wamp. A special thank you to executive producer, Ethan Rome, senior producer Evan Ottenfeld, producer Sydney Richards, and editor Parker from ParkerPodcasting.com. Swamp Stories was recorded in Tennessee, edited in Texas and can be found wherever you listen to podcasts.

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