Remapping the political status quo

By Jerry Burris
Advertiser Editorial Editor

The decision of the state Reapportionment Commission to include military dependents in its population count underscores one overarching truth about this process: It is all about preserving the status quo.

Constitutionally, there is nothing wrong about including the dependents of nonresident military in the political headcount. After all, there is no way of knowing how many of them will vote in Hawai'i during their stay. But common sense tells you otherwise. Most do not vote.

So including them in the count has little to do with making sure that the actual number of voters in any particular district is accurate. What it does accomplish, however, is to increase the number of bodies being counted on O'ahu, which has a very important effect. It helps offset the population shift toward the growing Neighbor Islands that — unless counterbalanced — might have shifted some political representation from O'ahu to the Neighbor Islands.

All this is simply a matter of protecting the interests of those who hold office over the interests of whoever might emerge to run for one of those new Neighbor Island seats. And it illustrates how tough it is to balance the needs and rights of the voters against the needs and (perceived) rights of those who hold office.

You'd think there'd be a better way. But what?

One suggestion has been to put the reapportionment process into the hands of nonpartisan experts who presumably wouldn't worry about the political consequences.

Fat chance.

New Jersey, which is sometimes seen as a test battleground for the trench warfare of reapportionment, gave the nonpartisan approach a shot this year.

Officials chose a prominent and publicly nonpartisan professor of political science at Princeton University — Larry Bartels — to be the tie-breaking member on a reapportionment commission made up of five Democrats and five Republicans.

Bartels, the commissioners and a passel of politicians and aides holed up in a hotel for 10 days in an around-the-clock attempt to come up with a plan that would satisfy both sides.

Bartels emerged from the experience battered, bruised, 10 pounds lighter and the subject of a lawsuit by disappointed Republicans which is on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

If the ultimate decision is going to be put into the hands of a nonpartisan authority, Bartels suggested, then that person should be involved in the process from the start. That might help, but the human and personal factor would still dominate.

Another proposal would be to let computers do the work. Sophisticated computer modeling programs (which are available to the Hawai'i commission) are perfectly capable of drawing up maps using technical factors such as population and demographic continuity. Just chunk the information in, punch a button and let the maps roll out.

But again, this would require the up-front acquiescence of those with political power. And what politician in his or her right mind would turn political power over to a machine?