‘A better way’ to draw political maps

For Texas, it was an eventful end to the Supreme Court’s latest term, with last week’s rulings that upset the state’s definition of marriage, approved federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act opposed by many Texas leaders, cleared the way for legal action under the Fair Housing Act and, on Monday, handed Texas and other states a major victory in a challenge against Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

There was enough in those rulings for a lot of thought and political grandstanding.

Another ruling on Monday is worth comment also, the case in which the Arizona legislature sought to invalidate the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.

Some Texas legislators have fought hard over the years to set up a similar commission. The idea is to rid the state of political gerrymandering and incumbent protection when new election maps are drawn.

Arizona voters in 2000 passed a proposition setting up that state’s commission, pulling authority for drawing election maps away from the elected legislators.

Republican lawmakers who didn’t like the commission’s maps drawn after the 2010 census brought suit in 2012, saying only the legislature had authority to draw new congressional districts.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg put that theory to rest with the 5-4 majority opinion issued Monday.

Arizona voters acted on the core governmental principle that “the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around,” she wrote.

The Republican-controlled Texas Senate passed a bill in 2011 to to create a bipartisan civilian redistricting commission. In fact, the Senate passed similar legislation in 2005 and 2007. Each time, the bills went nowhere in the House.

State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, pushed that legislation for 18 years before being defeated in the 2011 election.

Every 10 years, when redistricting time rolls around following a new federal census, often followed by lawsuits over the resulting maps, there are cries of “there has to be a better way” to avoid the partisanship and bitterness.

Maybe not, but one can hope. The Supreme Court’s ruling this week keeps that hope alive.

This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 5:51 PM with the headline "‘A better way’ to draw political maps."