REAPPORTION: Best model discovered

The League of Women Voters of Idaho sends congratulations to the second Reapportionment Commission, which produced a plan in only 15 days. The league acknowledges that the plan is not yet final, because several counties and cities have filed suits to have the Supreme Court rule on the plan adopted by the commission, but this is not surprising. No one would expect everyone to be happy with any one plan. Fortunately, the system allows for those who feel injured to ask the Supreme Court to rule. It will be settled, either by the court or by another round of meetings of the commission.

In recent years, an average of 40 states have had their plans challenged in court. It is interesting to note that information from the National Conference of State Legislatures indicates that, when challenged, plans made by redistricting commissions were more likely to be upheld in court than plans made by legislatures.

In 1994, the Idaho League was very active in the successful effort to pass a constitutional amendment to take redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature, and give it to a Citizens Commission. Continuing to support the bipartisan Citizens Commission, the league applauds the second 2011 commission that, in only 15 working days, produced a plan.

The commissioners decided from the start that they were not going to "play politics" with the maps. So they set about designing a plan that met the constitutional mandate of one person, one vote, without looking at how it would affect incumbents or any particular party's power. Thus, they avoided any "gerrymandering," the creation of odd-shaped districts. Their plan did not split cities and towns. They did their best to comply with the other requirements.

The league would point out that the expense of redistricting by a six-member commission is far less than by the entire Legislature. Using the commonly accepted figure of a cost of $35,000 a day for the Legislature to be in session, and considering that in both 1971 and 1981 the Legislature required a 15-day special session to complete the redistricting, the cost today would have been $525,000 each time, not including the software and plotters required. This year's second commission expenses were only $43,833. Even counting both commissions which worked on the 2011 reapportionment, the total expense was $367,045, a figure which includes the electronic tools the 2011 commissions used.

Clearly, a bi-partisan commission determined to do the best job for the voters of the state can do the job at a lower cost than can the Legislature. The league believes this is the way to continue to reapportion in the future. We look forward to the court's approval of a plan in time for the 2012 election, and to the continued use of the bi-partisan Citizens' Commission for the next reapportionment, after the 2020 census.

KATHRYN BONZO

SUSAN STEELE

League of Women Voters of Idaho