Published: September 14, 2009 11:35 pm      

Redistricting needs change

THE ISSUE:The redrawing of congressional and legislative districts.

OUR VIEW:Take politics out of the process.

Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita is right. It’s time to shake up the way this state draws its congressional and legislative districts.

Rokita pitched a plan last week that would make it illegal for lawmakers to consider political data when coming up with district boundaries.

Some have suggested that lawmakers should be taken out of the process, but legislative leaders say it’s too late for that this time around. They say the only way to take redistricting out of the hands of lawmakers would be to amend the state constitution and the process to do that would take at least until 2012. The Legislature faces a deadline of 2011 to come up with new maps reflecting next year’s Census.

The fact is, though, that lawmakers can improve the process without taking themselves out of the picture.

As it now stands, many districts are drawn to be safe seats. The old joke is that one party so outnumbers the other in such districts that even a yellow dog could win out over a qualified candidate from the minority party.

That’s not the way our elected representatives should be chosen.

Competitive elections would result in the election of representatives who would be more responsive to the concerns of individual voters and less obligated to the vested interests in Indianapolis and Washington.

During a speech unveiling his plan, Rokita showed a film clip of Indiana residents viewing the shapes of legislative districts and guessing what they looked like. The responses included a dog, dragons, alligators and a squirrel.

He noted that since the current district maps were drawn in 2001 candidates in two of every five legislative races have run without major party opposition.

Rokita believes districts should follow existing county, city and township lines as closely as possible. He also favors having each of the state’s 50 Senate districts include two of the 100 House districts.

Such a plan simply makes sense. The problem is that the only way it will pass is to win legislative support, and the early returns there aren’t all that promising. Legislative leaders from Rokita’s own party have already come out saying that Rokita has overstepped his bounds by inserting himself into a debate that should be the province of the Legislature.

Frankly, that’s just wrong. The people who own these maps are the taxpayers, and the interests the map-makers should be looking out for are those of voters.

Rokita appears to be doing that. We hope both lawmakers and voters will take notice.

– Pharos-Tribune, Logansport, and Kokomo Tribune