Four constitutional amendments are an the ballot for Missouri in the November elections (as downloaded for absentee voting). Item 18 on the ballot paper is : “State of Missouri Constitutional Amendment No. 1” This deals with five issues at once. All but the first one are clearly explained, dealing with assorted political matters. Item one in the list says only: “- change process and criteria for redrawing state legislative districts during reapportionment.” There is no explanation of the change on the ballot paper, no pros or cons, no detail at all. But it could provide a legal way to gerrymander congressional districts in the hands of a political appointee whose map could only be amended with the greatest difficulty before becoming law.
The details of the change are described in the website of the Missouri Secretary of State, but the implications are left to the reader. First, we are told that “Currently, bipartisan house and senate commissions redraw boundaries and those maps are adopted if 70% of the commissioners approve the maps.” This means that currently 31% of the bipartisan committee can block a partisan map from being adopted.
The proposed change would put drawing a map in the hands of a “state demographer”. This person would be selected by the bipartisan commission from a slate compiled by the State Auditor, an elected position. When the state demographer submits a map to the commission, changes to the maps can be made “only if 70% of the commissioners vote to make changes ... within two months”. So only 31% of the commission’s members could prevent any changes whatever being made to the map submitted by the state demographer.
We would go, from a system requiring bipartisan agreement to arrive at 70% approval, to a system where a minority party can BLOCK any changes to the submitted map with only 31% of the commission’s votes. The demographer is chosen by the commission, but must be selected from a slate of candidates drawn up by the elected state auditor. Elect the auditor, and you control the list of candidates for state demographer. The demographer then draws up a map which requires 70% of the commission to alter in any way. Even a 2/3 majority of the commission is helpless to make changes.
The current State Auditor is Nicole Galloway (Democrat). She was appointed by Governor Jay Nixon (D) to serve the remainder of Thomas Schweich's (R) term. Galloway is opposed in the current election by Saundra McDowell (R), who won over 3 better funded candidates in the Republican primary in August. McDowell’s eligibility for the office under the Missouri Constitution is currently disputed, but is likely to stand.
The issue is not any current or prospective holder of the office of State Auditor. It is whether the power to establish electoral districts should be vested in one person (the state demographer), who must be selected from a slate drawn up by one elected official (the state auditor), and whether that map can be made immune to change by 31% of the commission’s members. Capture the post of state auditor, and you can control the electoral boundaries for the next 10 years.
But if you vote “No” on Constitutional Amendment 1, you are also rejecting the other four changes — reduce limits on campaign contributions, create limits on gifts to legislators, prohibit the latter from moving into jobs as lobbyists, and requiring that legislative processes be open to the public. These are all clearly stated, desirable aims, however, all five measures must be accepted/rejected together. So item one, the unspecified change to redistricting, gets voted in with the bundle.