One Man, One Vote, One Mess

By James Kelly

As states try to redistrict, recriminations--and fists--fly

During a late-night session of the Illinois senate last week, Mark Rhoads, the honorable member from Western Springs, rose to address Philip Rock, esteemed president of the chamber. "You son of a bitch," Rhoads roared. He thereupon threw aside his red leather chair, ripped the microphone from his desk and stormed toward Rock with all deliberate speed. A colleague, however, stepped in Rhoads' path and slugged him. The pair tussled for several moments before they were pulled apart. It was the first time that violence had marred the orderly processes of the Illinois legislature since, um ... ten days earlier, when armed officers were called in to break up a brawl on the floor of the house.

The cause of all that passion--and of lesser outbursts in other state legislatures --is a subject guaranteed to put most ordinary citizens to sleep: reapportionment. In state capitols across the country, legislators are wrangling to draw new boundaries for U.S. congressional districts to conform with the 1980 census. (After that, they will reapportion their own state legislatures.) The decennial battle, always a partisan struggle, is especially heated this year: a total of 17 seats must be transferred from ten states in the Northeast and Midwest to eleven states in the West and the South. Those losing seats are New York (five), Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania (two each), and Indiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and South Dakota (one each). Gaining seats are Florida (four), Texas (three), California (two), and Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Washington (one each).

In addition, population shifts within the states themselves--generally from Democratic urban strongholds to Republican suburban outposts --will threaten dozens of traditionally "safe" Democratic seats. Republicans hope to use the redistricting to help whittle away the current 242-to-190 Democratic majority in the House of Representatives; they even hope to capture control of the House in 1982. "For Democrats, redistricting is an enormous problem," gloats Michigan Representative Guy Vander Jagt, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "For Republicans, it is an enormous opportunity."

The Democrats are hardly defenseless: they control twice as many statehouses as the Republicans and thus have a larger say in drafting the new districts. In several one-man, one-vote rulings in the early 1960s, however, the Supreme Court decreed that districts within a state must be as nearly equal in population as possible. (An average district should now contain 519,532 people, up from 465,468 in 1970.) Thus the ease with which a state legislature can gerrymander* districts into odd shapes to preserve partisan majorities has diminished greatly. Yet there is still much room for mischief, and both the Democratic and Republican national committees are trying to make sure things go their way. Armed with a $1 million budget, the Republicans are hiring teams of lawyers and computer experts to advise local G.O.P. groups on how to cut the map to the party's advantage; the Democrats, however, plan to spend only $500,000 on their redistricting campaign.

The battles promise to be most bruising in the Northeast, which must give up nine seats, and in the Midwest, which must shed eight. Legislators in New York, whose five-seat loss is the largest of any state, will not begin carving up the map until a bipartisan commission finishes redrawing districts by computer.

In Illinois, house Republican leaders finally passed their plan, but the Democratic-controlled senate adjourned after last week's fisticuffs without taking up the proposal--thereby ensuring that the 1980 districts will be drawn in federal court, just as the 1970 maps were. In Indiana, Republican Governor Robert Orr has already signed into law his state's new reapportionment plan, which conveniently dumps three Democratic incumbents into the same district. Even the pro-Republican Indianapolis News blasted the G.O.P.-dominated legislature for "basely abusing" its power.

In Ohio, the Cleveland area will almost surely lose a district. Its four Democratic Representatives are already wooing--and bullying--their friends at the statehouse in Columbus. "We're hearing everything from 'Let's think of me' to 'If you don't, we'll get even with you,' " says State Democratic Chairman Paul Tipps. In scissoring their state to make room for a new district, the Republican-controlled state legislature in Arizona may try to snip away west Tucson from Democratic Representative Morris Udall--thus depriving him of some of his most ardent supporters --and give him instead the largely Republican subdivisions that sprout along the city's eastern edge. In California, the struggle may even pit brother against brother: Democratic Representative Phillip Burton may find his San Francisco district enlarged to the north--thus nudging his younger sibling, Democrat John Burton, into heavily Republican farm land. In Missouri, the most vulnerable Congressman is Democrat William Clay, a black whose district has lost 25% of its population since 1970. Says State Representative Fred Williams: "There's no way you can draw him a safe district, unless you take all us blacks in north St. Louis, draw a thin line along Interstate 70 to Kansas City, 250 miles away, and take in all the blacks there." Complains fellow Democratic Representative Richard Gephardt, a white who may indeed be thrown into the same district as Clay: "It's a game of musical chairs, and one of us won't get to sit down."

No Gerrymanders have surfaced yet, but some strange creatures are appearing on the map. In Tennessee, the newly passed congressional scheme boasts districts that uncannily resemble a giraffe, a bird and a snake. Of that last district, which is 300 miles long, State Senator John R. Rucker dryly notes that "a candidate will need a helicopter, a race car and a couple of TV stations to run there."

In Texas, the Democratic-controlled state senate drafted a plan that would concede two of the three new seats to the G.O.P. but would also create a dragon-shaped 27th Congressional District around Austin that would be solidly Democratic. Republican Governor William Clements promptly vetoed it. Texas Republicans, meanwhile, cut a deal with black and Hispanic Democrats that would turn two mostly white Democratic seats in the Dallas area into a heavily black Democratic district and a largely white Republican district. Indeed, though all 17 black members of Congress have lost constituents since 1970, nearly all are expected to survive redistricting. Republicans in their states want to dilute the strength of black votes for Democrats by concentrating blacks in a single, overwhelmingly Democratic district. Says Texas Democratic Chairman Robert Slagle of this new alliance between Republicans and blacks: "It's kind of like the devil converting to Jesus Christ."

The cutting and pasting will go on well into 1982, and even then many districts may end up being drawn in court. If new maps are not drafted before filing deadlines arrive, candidates may have to run at large in statewide contests. Even in the simplest cases, where one party dominates a state, legislative reapportionment is proving to be a major headache. In Iowa, where the Republicans control both houses and the Governor's mansion, the state legislature ruled that a nonpartisan commission redraw the districts with the help of a computer. The embarrassing result: two Republican incumbents were dumped into the same district. "It must have been a Democratic computer," said an aide to Governor Robert Ray. The legislature quickly ignored the computer and decided to redraft its own plan so that none of the state's three Republican Congressmen will be imperiled. --By James Kelly. Reported by Christopher Ogden/Chicago, with other U.S. bureaus

* The word was coined in 1812, when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry sliced up the state to favor his own party. So peculiar was the shape of one district that opponents described it as a salamander, and one pundit finally dubbed it a "Gerrymander."

With reporting by Christopher Ogden, other U.S. bureaus

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