The Future of Gerrymandering Teach-Out

Restoring the Public Trust in the Redistricting Process

While political parties have engaged in gerrymandering for a long time, when reforms are undertaken to limit it, there are several practical benefits that help to change people’s level of engagement, awareness, and trust that the redistricting process is public, open, and responsive to their will.

Increased transparency. When independent citizen’s commissions are established, their work becomes subject to laws governing public meetings and documents. Information about which vendors support the work of the commissions and how they are selected, the guidelines being used to draw lines, and documentation of the proceedings of meeting as well as any other work of the commission must be made available to the public. This means that rather than a small number of politicians making choices behind closed doors, the public can understand the logic and activity around the redistricting process. The effect is that in the event that a challenge arises or if people are curious about why a decision was made, it is straightforward to consult the public record to learn about what happened.

Increased involvement by the public in the redistricting process. Independent citizen’s commissions conduct public meetings to enable people to share their feedback, concerns, and even approaches to drawing lines. In the case of California, public meetings are held across the state to enable people to give feedback directly to commissioners about their communities and concerns. In addition, people are invited to submit their feedback electronically. Commissioners noted that they read all of the feedback they receive because it is important to them to ensure that people have the concerns honored. In an example of how this works, during public meetings, the commissioners were able to draw lines using computer technology real-time and move those lines to respond to feedback to watch how their decision-making would impact communities.

Collaborative decision-making. Taking the power of line-drawing away from politicians and handing it to people who represent the broad spectrum of communities, from the perspective of location, ideology, and socio-economic status, among others, has the impact of pushing that body to make decisions that are based on the guidelines they have been given and the feedback they have received. Buy-in across members of the commission must happen because they must come to agreement. The process itself has the moderating impact of helping people see beyond their differences as they work together toward the common goal of drawing lines.

Bringing into the open the process of drawing lines is a powerful way of restoring trust in democratic institutions. When public scrutiny is invited - and feedback honored - people trust that their interests are being represented.

Source: Interview with California commissioners Pete Ngai and Jeanne Raya held January 24, 2018.