This is a long post, but the content-to-fluff ratio is fairly good, so I hope you'll read the whole thing.
Yesterday, by a 5-to-2 vote, the Colorado Supreme Court struck down a redistricting statute passed by the Republican-controlled Colorado General Assembly. (The case is titled "Salazar v. Davidson"). The statute at issue in the case attempted to re-district Colorado's congressional boundaries in mid-decade, for partisan advantage.
In my judgment there are a couple of points in Salazar that strongly support Rep. Kahn's effort to force earlier implementation of Minneapolis' new ward boundaries.
First, Salazar takes note of the constitutional problem created when elected officials are responsible for one set of constituents, but electorally accountable to a different set of future constituents. The Court observed:
" . . . members of Congress could frequently find their current constituents voting in a different district in subsequent elections. In that situation, a congressperson would be torn between effectively representing the current constituents and currying the favor of future constituents." Salazar, (online slip opinion at 62).
This situation -- where elected officials are responsible for current constituents in old districts, but are politically accountable to a different set of future constituents -- is a huge part of the problem in Minneapolis, with its three-and-a-half year gap between "adoption" of new ward lines and "implementation" of those lines.
Second, Salazar also held that changes in district boundaries which occur MORE OFTEN than every 10 years are suspect because they confuse voters and thereby undermine political accountability:
"A 'fundamental axiom of republican governments,' [Justice Story] said, is that there must be “a dependence on, and a responsibility to, the people, on the part of the representative, which shall constantly exert an influence upon his acts and opinions, and produce a sympathy between him and his constituents.”
The framers knew that to achieve accountability, there must be stability in representation. During the debates over the frequency of congressional elections, James Madison said: 'Instability is one of the great vices of our republics, to be remedied.'" Salazar, (at 60) (citations omitted). Further:
"This fundamental tension between stability and equal representation led the framers to require ten years between apportionments. . . . This ten-year interval was short enough to achieve fair representation yet long enough to provide some stability." Salazar, at 60-61 (citations omitted).
In fact, Salazar concluded redistricting MORE OFTEN than every ten years undermines accountability in representative government:
"Moreover, the time and effort that the constituents and the representative expend getting to know one another would be wasted if the districts continually change. . . . '[A] boundary that is continually moving is one that is unlikely to serve as any kind of imaginative focal point for communal identity . . .' and '[r]edistricting thus flattens identity within a jurisdiction by preventing subcommunities from enjoying the kind of stability and sense of permanence that are necessary ingredients for communal self-identification and, ultimately, differentiation')." Salazar at 61-62 (citations omitted).
This part of Salazar applies to Minneapolis with particular force. If the City is permitted to wait until 2005 to "implement" the new boundaries, the new boundaries will be in effect for only seven years, until the next set of boundaries are adopted in 2012.
For example, I'd hate to be a resident of the old 3rd ward. In a 10 year period, voters in old 3rd will have had four council elections (2003 special, 2005, 2009, and 2013) conducted under three different sets of boundaries, potentially involving three entirely different districts (e.g., moving from the old 3rd to a new ward (1, 2, 4 or 5) and then into an entirely different ward in 2012).
This hodge-podge of political instability is equally applicable to any of the other wards where the boundaries have changed substantially, such as 2, 5, 6, 8 and 9.
If voter confusion created by being placed in THREE different wards in one 10-year period is not a constitutional problem based on instability in representation, I don't know what else is.
You can reach the text of the Salazar opinion through a hyperlink at the Election Law Blog, at http://electionlawblog.org/archives/000315.html Advance warning: the opinion is a 92-page MS Word document.
Salazar is not binding precedent in the Minneapolis case: it is a Colorado state court opinion and its holding is explicitly based in part on some specific language in the Colorado state constitution. However, given a fact pattern which is highly analogous to the Minneapolis situation, I would argue Salazar is very persuasive authority indeed.
Greg Abbott
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Greg Abbott Linden Hills 13th Ward
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