A big reform idea people love and politicians hate
By Phil Noble
It’s a given that South Carolina’s Statehouse politics is dysfunctional on a good day and thoroughly corrupt on most days.
There is a big reform idea that has surfaced that may be the single biggest thing we can do to reform this broken system – and it’s getting some traction.
The big reform idea is an independent reapportionment commission that would draw the lines for legislative districts.
OK, I can hear the yawns and the mumbles of “What kind of arcane policy wonk stuff is he talking about now?”
I get it … it sounds dull and obtuse but it’s really important. Bear with me on this one and you’ll see why it’s so important – promise.
Every ten years the federal government does a population census and this is used to re-draw the lines of the districts for members of the U.S. Congress, the state house and the state senate. People move around and so districts grow and shrink and the lines have to be re-drawn every ten years so that each district will have roughly the same number of people.
This is a big deal because how these districts are drawn determines (more or less) who gets elected and re-elected.
It works like this: the members of the legislature look at the district lines and based on past election returns and new census data they can pretty much figure out where the Democratic and Republican voters are. They then draw the districts so that they get a ‘safe district’ – safe Democratic or safe Republican.
And naturally, when the members of legislature get together and draw new districts they draw the lines that will make all their buddies, the incumbents, safe – i.e. they eliminate contested districts where they may be threatened. It’s a glorious collusion among politicians in an exercise of bi-partisan self-preservation. It has the effect of preserving the good old boy system of status quo politics.
These ultra-safe districts lead to incumbents being safe which leads to special interest corruption and a dysfunctional system i.e. what we have now.
Currently in South Carolina, upward or 80-90 percent of all districts are safe for either the Democratic or Republican incumbent. The result is that if the incumbent is safe, they really don’t have to pay much attention to the voters of their districts and they just pay attention to the lobbyist and special interest Political Action Committees or PACs in Columbia they rely on for campaign contributions.
Comparatively little money comes from people in the district back home. Many incumbents get 70-80 percent or more of all their contributions from these Statehouse political insiders – and not the people who vote for them. The incumbents then build up huge campaign war chests that in turn discourage potential candidates from running against them.
Thus, the golden rule of politics: he who pays the money makes the rules.
It’s all a vicious cycle. The result? See dysfunction and Statehouse corruption as per above and in the newspapers on a nearly daily basis.
The big reform idea that is floating around today would create an independent reapportionment commission that would take the power to draw the lines out of the hands of the legislature. This commission’s priority would not be to protect incumbents but to draw competitive districts.
So, you ask, why would any incumbent politician ever agree to this independent commission?
Well, it’s unclear as to exactly why, but it is happening. The same thing happened with term limits a few years back and today 15 states have some form of term limits. It seems that when things get really, really bad and people get really, really fed up with the abuse and corruption (like today), then real change is possible – at least in some states.
This may be what is happening now.
It seems that this reform idea is spreading all over the country, not just for reforming state legislatures but for reforming Congress as well. Arnold Schwarzenegger has just released a video about this on YouTube: Google “Why is Congress Worse than Herpes?” It’s pretty good.
There are several different ways that an independent commission can work. According to the National Council of State Legislatures: Thirteen states have a commission with primary responsibility for drawing a plan for state legislative districts. Five states have an advisory commission that may assist the legislature with drawing the district lines and five states have a backup commission that will make the decision if the legislature is unable to agree. Iowa has a different redistricting system, which has the same effect as an independent commission.
In South Carolina today, the chairmen of both the state Democratic and Republican parties are on record as favoring an independent commission. The SC League of Women Voters has been doing great work on this for years – and it’s starting to pay off. Just this month, several bills are being discussed or introduced to amend our state constitution to create this type of independent commission and let the voters, and not the politicians, ultimately decide on the district lines.
And, a recent Winthrop Poll shows that the people clearly want this as 63 percent said that they supported the idea of an independent commission, 30 percent oppose and 7 percent don’t know or refused to answer.
There is a clear mandate from the people to ‘fix it’.
Will it happen? Who knows? We are still in early days on this issue. The U.S. Census is held every ten years and the next one will be in 2020 and the redistricting happens a year or two after the census is completed.
So, there is time to get this done.
Ask your legislator where they stand on this. And, don’t accept a mealy-mouth politician’s answer. It’s like asking someone if they have been faithful to their spouse – there are only two answers: ‘yes’ and everything else.This really is a big deal.
If we can change the way legislators are elected – and get people who are responsive to us, the voters, and not the corrupt special interest that they listen to now – then maybe, just maybe, we’ll have a shot at fixing our state’s broken and corrupt politics that is holding us back.
While I breathe, I hope.
Phil Noble is from Charleston where he runs a technology firm. He is Co-founder of EnvisionSC and writes a weekly column for the S.C. Press Association. Reach him at phil@philnoble.com and get his columns at www.PhilNoble.com