/usr/web/www.marshallindependent.com/wp-content/themes/coreV2/single.php
×

A letter to redistricting panel

The Minnesota Legislature is now in the process of using the 2020 U.S. Census to draw new boundaries for eight U.S. House districts, 67 state Senate seats and 134 state House posts. Since Republicans have a majority in the Minnesota Senate while Democrats control the House, it is widely expected the chambers will agree to disagree, with the decision defaulting to a special judicial panel appointed by the Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

That panel has sought public comment through a series of hearings held throughout the state. I recently submitted these remarks, which are edited slightly for newspaper format.

To the Members of the Minnesota Special Redistricting Panel:

Thank you for the opportunity to comment about Minnesota’s pending legislative and congressional redistricting. I have followed, and occasionally participated, in redistricting matters in three states over the last 45 years, and have taught political science at Southwest Minnesota State University since 1996.

I am also a long-time Republican activist but my opinions here reflect my own long-held views on this subject, and in some cases depart from my party’s publicly stated positions. They are chiefly concerned with the line-drawing process for Greater Minnesota.

District boundaries are supposed to honor “communities of interest” where possible. In Greater Minnesota that can be defined in numerous ways, including:

1. Keeping together regional news, employment and commercial markets; for example, circulation areas for daily newspapers.

2. Minnesota House districts (with an ideal population of 42,586) should be centered on regional centers such as Marshall and Worthington whenever feasible.

3. Major transportation links should be kept connected when possible. The new plans should avoid breaking up major transportation corridors, as the current U.S. House map does with

U.S. 71. It places two portions of that route in the 7th District while placing two intervening corridor counties in the 8th District, thereby creating a separation of 75 miles.

4. Please don’t divide counties unnecessarily. This creates more administrative burdens for county election officials and invites confusion between neighbors in rural areas.

5. Your panel should follow its own guidelines by keeping population variances between state House districts within two percent. The 2012 panel went so far in minimizing population differences that it created unnecessary county fragments across Greater Minnesota, including Dodge, Freeborn and Nobles here in the south.

6. Avoid diving cities into separate districts, as the 2012 maps did with Granite Falls and Hutchinson for the Minnesota House, and Windom and New Prague for U.S. House districts.

If faced with a choice of keeping whole a city or a county, please make unified cities the higher priority. This will minimize confusion among residents and local news outlets. Also, local identities and citizen participation may well be reinforced when residents know that their neighbors and nearby communities share the same district.

None of these steps will be end-alls or be-alls, but taken together will provide safeguards against excessive partisan or incumbent self-interest.

Finally, evaluate partisan arguments with a jaundiced eye. While they are argued from self-interest, such gambits are often short-sighted. Since 2012 many start-of-decade assumptions about Minnesota districts have been shattered.

Numerous DFL legislators have now become secure in suburban seats initially expected to be Republican strongholds, even as many seats across Greater Minnesota have moved in the opposite direction.

In particular, please resist any encouragement to create “pizza slice” districts in the Twin Cities metro area and our state’s larger regional centers. This tactic draws bipartisan inspiration from Illinois, where Democrats have slivered Chicago into seven corridors running dozens of miles inland from Lake Michigan, and Tennessee, whose Republican majority is expected to divide historically-unified Nashville into lengthy wedges radiating in three or four directions. These are invitations to promote partisan mischief and should be ignored in favor of the standards offered above.

Thank you for your careful consideration of these arguments, and for serving our state by taking on this exacting, difficult mission.

— David Sturrock is co-chairman of the Lyon County Republican Party

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

COMMENTS

[vivafbcomment]

Starting at $4.38/week.

Subscribe Today