Tully: Reforming a rigged political system
Every 10 years, state lawmakers draw legislative maps with partisan concerns and self-interest in mind. If you’re looking for an example of how the political system is rigged, here it is.
I was in Denver on Saturday night, catching up with my brother at Coors Field and watching our beloved Chicago Cubs move closer to clinching a spot in the playoffs. At one point, as I sat among so many fellow Cubs fans, I pondered this question: Is there anything that would be more welcomed, yet has been so elusive, as the Cubs winning the World Series?
I had a similar thought Tuesday morning as I read an Associated Press story about the Anderson City Council joining five other Indiana cities that have passed resolutions calling for a much-needed yet politically challenging change to the way Indiana government operates.
The change: Eliminate the gerrymandering process in which state lawmakers draw the district maps for Statehouse and congressional seats. As you likely know, this insider process results in one party or the other (depending on which one is in control) crafting maps aimed at giving them an advantage. It also leads to a plethora of noncompetitive districts — those in which a mouse with the right party label is essentially guaranteed to win.
The proposal: Well, this could be done many ways, but the goal is to have a nonpartisan group of Indiana residents charged with drawing legislative maps. Rather than being driven by politics and partisan concerns, the goal would be to craft fair districts — as compact as possible and aimed at not dividing communities into different districts. This would replace gerrymandered districts that twist and turn like pretzels so that the right voters are put in the right districts.
The Cubs haven’t won the World Series since 1908. Gerrymandering has been around even longer. Here’s hoping both things are about to change. One change would make a world of sports fans ecstatic; the other would help make our government function a lot better.
I’ll let you decide which is more important.
“Today, politicians design their own destinies,” said Tom Sugar, perhaps the state’s most outspoken advocate for redistricting reform. “Many voters feel like the outcome of elections are pre-determined, and that leaves us facing a situation where the only elections that matter are the primaries, which have low turnouts and are driven by the ideological extremes of both parties.”
The result is that far too many lawmakers know their fortunes are tied exclusively to the most partisan voters. And while there is nothing wrong with being a partisan voter, the lack of general election competition results in legislatures that Sugar accurately argues “do not look or sound or feel like Indiana.” It is so bad that a majority of races for the Indiana House went unopposed in 2014.
The bottom line: Most lawmakers had to spend not one minute worrying about the views of the broader electorate, providing them with little incentive to seek bipartisan solutions to big issues once back at the Statehouse.
“We need to take from politicians their greatest perk: The ability to guarantee their re-election,” Sugar said. “If we do, we would start to see more moderate and mainstream legislation.”
As much sense as this makes, ripping power out of the hands of politicians has proven to be just about as hard as reversing a baseball curse that has endured for decades. Iowa was able to implement a fair map-drawing system more than three decades ago, however, and several states are now at least considering the idea. Indiana would be wise to look seriously at the change, and voters who typically yawn when this idea is mentioned need to see the value in a fair election system.
“We are not trying to replace a rigged system with another rigged system,” Sugar said. “What we want is a system that is more competitive and that produces a legislature that is in keeping with who we are.”
Sugar, I should note, is a Democrat who long worked for former Sen. Evan Bayh, and the current maps in Indiana were drawn by Republicans. That means Republicans have benefited greatly from the current gerrymandering process. But two things are important to remember.
First, Democrats have abused this system just as bad when they’ve been in charge; both parties are to blame and both parties have benefited from this system. Second, even though their majorities would decline under a nonpartisan system, Sugar pointed me to a model based on the Iowa process that shows Republicans in our right-leaning state would continue to control the legislature — just not with the ridiculously disproportionate 80 percent of the seats they now control in the Senate.
The result would be a more balanced legislature that better reflects Indiana, and more races in which candidates must fight for voters in the political middle.
In the end, the current system is one that most people seem to agree is rigged and senseless but it is allowed to continue because few complain much about it. Perhaps that is because the idea that state lawmakers would be willing to put aside partisan concerns and their own self-interest seems far-fetched.
Hey, so does a Cubs World Series victory. But as of today, they have the best record in the majors. At least we can dream.
You can reach me at matthew.tully@indystar.com or on Twitter: @matthewtully.