Yesterday I filled out my Census 2010 forms, explaining there was a white American of Mexican-American ancestry living at my apartment. In a years' time, that information will be coupled with the millions of other people to create a Snapshot of America. Soon after this, my current state of California will use this information to create 53 Congressional districts, 80 State Assembly districts, and 40 State Senate districts.
The goal behind this is to create districts said to be representative of local portions of the state's population. In some cases, however, these are drawn not to represent the state, but to represent the party in power. This was famously illustrated by the 2003 redistricting of Texas specifically designed to increase the number of Republican representatives in Congress.
Today Sam Stein at Huffpo outlines the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee's $20 Million "Redistricting Fund" designed to help the party win seats for the state bodies which do the redistricting. The Republican party has been doing this for years, so on the one hand, it provides a counter-attack to ensure that DeLay-style Republican redistricting doesn't happen. On the other hand, it creates a situation where a Democratic-controlled state legislature could do the same thing.
I'll admit I'm still on the fence about this, which is why I'm writing this diary; this seems to be a battle between what is good for progressives and what is good for Democrats. We see these types of battles every day here on DailyKos. Most if not all of us consider ourselves progressive and/or liberal, yet the Rec list is full of articles where the author does not agree with what the Democratic party (the "progressive and liberal" one) is doing.
As I see it, the progressive thing to do is to allow communities to be represented as human beings, not as political idealogues. How many of our craziest politicians are put there by extremely far-right districts? When a party's hold of a district is solid because it was created to be solidly Republican/Democratic, the winner is inevitably the winner of the party primary, and primaries tend to favor the extremes within the parties. Good for the party structure, but not representative of the people.
Each state determines its own method of redistricting. I grew up in Arizona, where an initiative in the 1990s created a five-member board made up of two Democrats, two Republicans, and one Independent to create the US House congressional districts. The districting plan must still abide by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by ensuring proportional minority representation; as such, two of Arizona's 8 districts (Districts 4 and 7) have a Hispanic majority. In addition, because of a long-term land dispute between the Navajo and Hopi nations, and since the US House addresses tribal concerns, the Navajo and Hopi must have separate representatives in Congress. This last portion is difficult, since the Hopi nation is surrounded by the Navajo nation.
The result is a set of compact districts (with the exception of District 2 as explained above). As far as I'm concerned, this is what progressive representation is about; representing the people without creating party-only districts.
I guess you could argue that by ensuring more Democratic districts, you ensure more progressive legislation is passed. But if the people were voting more democrats into office, wouldn't they be more likely to support progressive legislation anyway?
I'd love to know your thoughts on this. After living in two independently redistricted states (Arizona & Washington) and two politically-redistricted states (Texas & California), I much prefer the former, and feel its application to all states should be a progressive cause. What do you think?