Publisher’s Perspective

By Tim Douglass, Publisher of the Pope County Tribune

Some Minnesota lawmakers want to place a question on the 2024 general election ballot that would create an independent redistricting commission to prevent the common practice — including in neighboring Wisconsin — of majority parties drawing highly favorable legislative and congressional district maps that can lock in those majorities for a decade or more.

The proposed constitutional amendment would also seek to prohibit lawmakers from becoming lobbyists within one year of leaving office and give the Legislature more leeway to determine its calendar — including potential year-round sessions, it was reported online in the Weekly Reformer.

Every 10 years, the Legislature is tasked with redrawing the boundaries of Minnesota congressional and legislative districts to reflect population growth and shifts based on the decennial census. The Legislature has failed to redraw the state’s maps for more than 140 years, relying on court intervention instead. At this point, it’s the Democrats who want an independent commission to take up the redistricting responsibility.

The 15-member commission would include five people who support the state’s first political party, five who support the second — essentially five Democrats and five Republicans — and five people unaffiliated with either party. None of the members, within the immediate six years of their appointment to the commission, could have served as any federal, state or local elected official, legislative or political party staff member or a lobbyist, among other criteria.

A three-member panel of retired state, federal or tribal judges would choose the commission’s members from a pool of applicants. One judge would be affiliated with the first party, one with the second party and a third who is non affiliated would be the panel’s chair.

It is true that over the past 50 years Minnesota has had nonpartisan congressional and legislative district maps thanks to divided government and judges overseeing relatively fair maps. But has that been by luck?

Minnesota is among the majority of states in which state legislatures draw district maps, but lawmakers have for decades been unable to agree on district maps in a timely fashion, so the courts have intervened. In 2021, the Minnesota Supreme Court appointed a special redistricting panel because the Legislature was unable to come to an agreement on the final maps.

In this era of hyper-partisan politics, it seems important to address the issue now rather than after one party or the other decides only in its interest.