Redistricting, What's Up With That?

Cities need fair representation (4.00 / 6)

I don't expect much from this legislature, but I'd like to see cities and smaller urban centers throughout the state get their fair share in the process.

The degree to which the North Country is overlooked is often noted, and due largely to its low population despite the amount of tourism revenue it brings in.  Less discussed, though, is how tilted senate districts in the south are toward suburbs, particularly Republican-leaning ones, at the expense of the state's largest cities.

Manchester, a city that could support two senate districts on its own, is divided into three districts, all of which encompass strongly Republican-leaning suburbs.  This diminishes the greater number of Democrats in the Queen City, and more important the uniquely urban concerns that exist in other cities throughout the state but are most pronounced in the largest.

Generally, people in cities as well as rural areas are more connected with their communities and better understand the mutual reliance of neighbors upon one another than do suburbanites who can spend much of their lives in the artificial bubble of McMansions and office parks.  It's easy to see why the Free Staters and Rand-worshippers in Concord would not want to enfranchise voters who understand that "strength united is stronger."

Fortunately, suburbs in New Hampshire are generally spread out among many small towns into which they are incorporated, and are not as extensive or as isolated as they in many other areas of the country.  Still, senate districts in the Merrimack Valley tilt heavily toward the most suburban towns in the state at the expense of both the cities and more traditionally rural towns on the outskirts of the region.  Bedford and Merrimack easily diminish the voters in distant Greenfield, just as the voters in Hooksett and Bow diminish those in Manchester.

Splitting the densest, most urban areas of Manchester (and the entire state) among three senate districts means that there is almost never a strong voice for urban interests in the state.  The interests of cities and rural areas may not seem mutual, but I think they in fact are.  In both cases, preservation of open space and promotion of traditional development patterns are paramount concerns.  Both areas benefit from tourism, both are prime contributors to the room and meals tax, both would benefit from a move away from a tax structure that incentivizes greenfield development, both would benefit from imporvements in transit and bike infrastructure, both contain walkable nodes, and so on.  Suburban interests are often at odds with these interests, so aside from the ethical considerations of giving urban residents their due representation, I hope rural voters and representatives will understand the benefits of creating a stronger urban voice in the senate.

---

by: FrankLloydMike @ Tue Aug 02, 2011 at 14:56:53 PM UTC

Thanks, this is excellent. (4.00 / 1)

I had not thought about the mutual interests of cities and small rural towns, but you make excellent points here.  In my area of very northern Rockingham County, Northwood, where I live, is much less suburban than the other three towns in the current district, Deerfield and Nottingham being more affluent and more bedroom communities, and Candia being the most suburban.  Northwood is the poorest, has the largest special ed population, the businesses on Rt. 4, more police activity because of Rt. 4, and that makes our interests more like a NH city than the surrounding towns.  

---

by: Lucy Edwards @ Tue Aug 02, 2011 at 17:06:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

a reprint from my blog of september 2010 (0.00 / 0)

(this was in the context of my opposing term limits...full post at http://www.tullyspage.blogspot...

"...Two parties have a stranglehold on the electoral process: in almost all 50 states, Republicans and Democrats merely need to be nominated by their party leaders, or pay a fee, to get themselves on the ballot. Independents and Third Parties, however, are effectively shut out from the process as they are required to collect thousands of signatures, meet tight filing deadlines, and then have their petitions challenged by major parties who would prefer to see them knocked out of the process (usually). Once on the ballot, money often drowns out the independent voice; and voter's fears of 'wasting their vote' drives them, even reluctantly, to the major party candidates (a phenomenon that could be reversed through instant run-off voting, and which is currently used to elect the President of Ireland and the national legislature of Australia)

But perhaps the single biggest frustration to voters exercising their choice to remove an incumbent is the gerrymandering of districts.

The "time-honored political process" (if otherwise dishonorable) of drawing district lines to effectively guarantee re-election is as old as our Republic. The problem is "built in" to the system: Legislators acting in their own self-interest vote on the new district lines that determine their odds of re-election. In spite of all the partisan bickering that characterizes national politics, Republicans and Democrats join hands in horse-trading "Safe" district lines with each other to preserve their incumbencies.

THIS is where the need for electoral reform is the greatest.

District seats should be compact geometric shapes to the greatest degree possible, given the population and geography of a state. In the early 1980s, I worked in the Cartography Department of the Nassau County (NY) Board of Elections. At that time, state legislative districts were being redrawn based on the 1980 Census. A number of individuals (myself included), using only calculators and census tract data, developed a number of redistricting scenarios that created a series of geographically rational State Assembly Districts - almost all of which were electorally "competitive," meaning that the winner was not a foregone conclusion.

All of these plans were rejected by the NY legislature which chose to draw districts that preserved incumbents and which guaranteed each party their incumbencies. One district joined non-adjacent neighborhoods by drawing district lines up one side of a highway and down the opposite side; another district connected non-contiguous communities by following the banks of a creek through a mudflat.

That picture at the top of this post? That's not pop-art. That's a map of actual Districts as adopted by the Georgia legislature after the 2000 census. Try to follow the boundaries of the 'yellow' district.

I am convinced that the process of Redistricting must be removed from the very people who have a vested interest in the outcome. Independent commissions or Judicial boards with no vested interests, operating with guidelines that prefer, where possible, districts with internal angles of less than 180 degrees and/or which follow legal/municipal lines, would be one of the most needed and significant changes to our electoral system.

Allowing political parties to design districts to preserve or enhance their power is a recipe for the creation of life-long incumbents. If we want voters to have a real say in electoral outcomes, then creating competitive, cohesive districts would be a far better option than term limits, which simply permits the party in power to anoint a successor candidate.

---

by: Tully Fitzsimmons @ Tue Aug 02, 2011 at 21:12:29 PM UTC

People who aren't into power themselves, don't readily see (0.00 / 0)

that a politician's self-interest may be exactly that -- a desire to hold on to power, to be able to decide who's deserving and who's to be deprived. People of good will are tempted to assume that public servants act in the public interest. Even the representation of "special local interests" seems acceptable, based on the assumption that everyone deserves and will get their turn.  The notion that power relies on deprivation simply doesn't occur to people of good will.

---

by: hannah @ Wed Aug 03, 2011 at 12:55:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Ah...I guess we Economists wouldnt be people of 'good will.' (0.00 / 0)

We see *everyone8 as acting in their self-interest (which is NOT the same as 'selfishness' - thats a common misunderstanding).  To me, it's a no-brainer...not because they're evil or bad, but because we all seek to protect ourselves. It's nature.

---

by: Tully Fitzsimmons @ Wed Aug 03, 2011 at 15:51:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Some cities are hosting public hearings (4.00 / 1)

Some communities will have public hearings on redistricting, though the legislative committee has indicated it will likely NOT host public participation sessions as in the past.

Granite State Progress is following this issue primarily as a tansparency issue at the moment and largely relying on our ally America Votes - which has been following the redistricting process in-depth - for policy analysis. AV put out a great update release yesterday about hearings:
http://www.americavotes.org/NH...

The team there followed the legislative hearings and I'll ask them for a run down on those conversations for us all. This is an extremely important yet cloaked subject, so I'm very glad to see collective knowledge convening in this diary.

little camera girl

Zandra Rice Hawkins (Granite State Progress)

---

by: Zandra Rice Hawkins @ Tue Aug 02, 2011 at 23:19:12 PM UTC