Congressional Redistricting—Who cares?

By now it should be known to most people that when compared to the rest of the country, Missouri is losing population. Missouri is not the growing state we used to be. With only two or three large cities, it's is not keeping up with the rest of the growing urban areas in our country.

As a result, our power in Washington D.C. is shrinking from nine members of Congress to eight. While this does not sound like a big deal, it will have repercussions for many years to come. With one less person fighting for government defense contracts, engineering projects, and agricultural/medical research, the Missouri economy could potential lose out.

What is making most of the headlines, however, is how the districts are being split. Not only is the representation in Washington D.C. changing, but the Missouri House and Senate districts are changing as well.

Redistricting is one of the most partisan issues in politics. It can place elected members of the same party in the same geographical district, causing friends to run against each other. So yes, redistricting does mean a lot to the elected officials whose maps change.

But for voters, redistricting can matter too. If you live in an area that is rigged to support only one party, that party may consistently prevail, regardless of the quality of the candidate. If communities are split up, the common will of the area can be diluted into two separate districts instead of one.

For example, areas as diverse as Oakville, Mehlville, Lemay and the City of St. Louis could be drawn into the same House district. This makes it difficult for moderate legislators to get elected, let alone represent such a diverse district. When you have different parts of a district that are far apart on the political spectrum, it makes for a highly-partisan and sometimes super-negative campaign.

The Missouri Constitution requires that districts are contiguous and represent communities rather than political trade-offs. When redistricting last took place in 2002, the majorities Missouri House and Senate switched from being disproportionately Democratic to disproportionately Republican. While many people have no concerns about this, I believe it was too large of a change that took place overnight. Coupled with the first year of term limits, I doubt we will see such an all-encompassing shift again.

What I do know is that political trade-offs for district mapping can only hurt voters. Stay tuned in the weeks ahead to see if Gov. Nixon will veto the current map or if there are many more political battles to come. Instead of being super political, your elected representative should be just that—representative.