Redistricting often means gerrymandering in the US, Kentucky

Redistricting.  It’s become a dirty word across the coun­try as leg­is­la­tures in numer­ous states work to enact process­es to assure the con­tin­u­ance of con­trol by one par­ty or the other.

Statewide redis­trict­ing is sup­posed to take place every ten years fol­low­ing the decen­ni­al cen­sus when pop­u­la­tion shifts require the redraw­ing of dis­trict lines to reflect (alleged­ly) those pop­u­la­tion dynamics.

Kentucky’s dis­tricts were redrawn in 2022, and the result is a dis­as­ter — with a map so obvi­ous­ly ger­ry­man­dered that it was imme­di­ate­ly sub­ject­ed to court review.  Unfortunately, the state’s high­est court has yet to rule on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the present map, and it remains a doc­u­ment that is reflec­tive not of the pop­u­la­tion con­cen­tra­tions with­in the state (with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of dis­trict three which is essen­tial­ly Louisville) but of polit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions.  District six which, encom­pass­es Clark County, was changed in 2022 with the east­ern por­tion of Fayette includ­ed — and this was noth­ing less than an effort to dilute the Democrat influ­ence in Fayette County.

For Kentucky, a redis­trict­ing map pre­pared by the Kentucky League of Women Voters was obvi­ous­ly a fair­er dis­po­si­tion of dis­tricts than the one pre­pared by the Republican major­i­ty of the Kentucky leg­is­la­ture, but it was com­plete­ly ignored.

The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law has offered sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions for mak­ing redis­trict­ing fair­er and more equi­table by hav­ing the process con­trolled by non-par­ti­san com­mis­sions rather than leg­is­la­tors.  Among those sug­ges­tions are:

• Including mem­bers who are nei­ther Democrats nor Republicans.  Independents are the fastest-grow­ing polit­i­cal move­ment in the coun­try, includ­ing Kentucky, and may com­pose as much as 30% of the electorate.
• Impose strong con­flict of inter­est rules.
• Have clear, pri­or­i­tized rules guid­ing map draw­ing, includ­ing a ban on favor­ing any polit­i­cal par­ty or can­di­date. (Take a look at Hal Rogers’ dis­trict, which has remained vir­tu­al­ly unchanged for many years.)
• Have strong rules on trans­paren­cy and pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion.  (Kentucky’s cur­rent map was drawn almost entire­ly behind closed doors and was pre­sent­ed at the last pos­si­ble moment to avoid seri­ous objec­tion before an upcom­ing election.)

Several states have adopt­ed rules which encom­pass some of these reg­u­la­tions and two states, California and Arizona, are often illus­trat­ed as hav­ing strong non-par­ti­san redis­trict­ing com­mis­sions.  In addi­tion, some states have adopt­ed rules that pro­hib­it the inclu­sion of any leg­is­la­tors on such com­mis­sions.  And while the exclu­sion of sit­ting leg­is­la­tors or run­ning can­di­dates will not absolute­ly assure fair­ness, these exclu­sions have result­ed in a more rea­son­able and sane approach to redis­trict­ing where they have been implemented.

Clark County has just com­plet­ed its local redis­trict­ing for mag­is­te­r­i­al dis­tricts.  The process is gov­erned by Kentucky Revised Statutes 67.045.  Section (5) states: “To ini­ti­ate a reap­por­tion­ment pro­ceed­ing, the fis­cal court shall … appoint three (3) com­pe­tent cit­i­zens of the coun­ty over twen­ty-one (21) years of age, and resid­ing in dif­fer­ent dis­tricts, and the coun­ty clerk as a non­vot­ing mem­ber as com­mis­sion­ers to reap­por­tion the county….”

Section (2) also states: “… the bound­aries … shall be drawn so that the dis­tricts are com­pact, con­tigu­ous, and the pop­u­la­tion of each dis­trict shall be as near­ly equal as is rea­son­ably possible.”

With the cur­rent dis­pu­ta­tious nature of the court and the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of a sin­gle par­ty on that court, it’s not hard to imag­ine the aver­age local cit­i­zen being dubi­ous about the fair­ness of how the com­mis­sion appoint­ments were made.

The fairest method of local redis­trict­ing – and one that would, or should, be applaud­ed by local res­i­dents — would be to form an inde­pen­dent com­mis­sion com­posed of an equal num­ber of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents from the gen­er­al pop­u­lace who apply for an appoint­ment. And each per­son select­ed would take an oath to work in a non-par­ti­san man­ner to pro­duce a fair map based sole­ly on pop­u­la­tion dis­tri­b­u­tion.  In fact, Section (5) requires impar­tial­i­ty: “The com­mis­sion­ers, before they pro­ceed to act, shall be sworn to faith­ful­ly per­form their duties.”

The process and final map had to be approved by the fis­cal court, as stat­ed in Section (6): “…the fis­cal court shall con­sid­er the report of the com­mis­sion­ers and, in accor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of KRS 67.075 to 67.077, adopt or amend [empha­sis added] the report in estab­lish­ing the dis­tricts.” 

Of course, the fis­cal court could move to make reap­por­tion­ment com­plete­ly fair by insti­tut­ing reg­u­la­tions, with­in the con­fines of Section 67.045, that clear­ly stip­u­late how com­mis­sion­ers are to be appoint­ed and their required qual­i­fi­ca­tions, includ­ing par­ty affil­i­a­tion, if any.

The ques­tion we should be ask­ing the fis­cal court is, “Why not choose a fair­er process of redistricting?”