Oregon Supreme Court Sanctions Legal Gerrymandering

Democracy and the rule of law begins with the equitable division of congressional and legislative districts, maximum access to the ballot box for all eligible voters as well as oversight and maintenance of those equitable voting districts and all voters’ rights by automatic judicial review.

Sadly, our U.S. Supreme Court has already proved itself a dangerously radicalized partisan cabal. Its restrictive decisions on voting rights, abandonment of redistricting oversight and indefensible creation of corporate “humans” with virtually unlimited overt and covert power to fund political campaigns supports American Plutocracy and Authoritarian minority rule.

Our Oregon Supreme Court has recently followed its federal brethren in its diminution of democracy by sanctioning legal gerrymandering. Its recent decisions in both congressional *1 and legislative *2 redistricting cases ranged from self-serving self-inflicted ignorance to judicial cowardice. Regardless of which future entity makes voting districts maps, i.e. Legislature, Secretary of State, Citizens committee etc., they are now all bound by the precedent set by the Oregon Supreme Court voting district decisions of 2021.

Despite having been forewarned that the members and staff of the Senate and House Democratic caucuses refused to acknowledge who the actual map makers/cartographers were in order to coverup the fact that their maps ignored ORS 188.010 (2) No district shall be drawn for the purpose of favoring any political party, incumbent legislator or other person *3, the justices charged blindly into the darkness of their own making without due diligence and with a disturbing disregard for the law.

Norman R. Williams, professor of law at Willamette University College of Law writes, “The Oregon Supreme Court has shown little willingness to enforce the statutory requirements in any significant manner.” *4 The high court’s 2021 redistricting decisions provide more evidence that professor Williams is right.

Common Cause writes, “Oregon law requires that district lines are not to be drawn for partisan advantage, so partisan data is not analyzed publicly. But in reality, legislators share this data behind closed doors, and are well aware of how various options will affect party advantage. Oregon needs to end the “wink and a nod” sharing of partisan data behind closed doors and make this information available for public scrutiny.”*5 It certainly got that right. There is clearly no way the congressional and legislative redistricting maps were made without input from political data sets.

The court failed to include an analysis by Princeton University’s Gerrymandering Project which graded Oregon’s congressional maps with an “F”. *6

OPINION OF THE SPECIAL JUDICIAL PANEL The SJP must affirm a legislatively adopted redistricting plan “if the plan complies with all applicable statutes *3 and the United States and Oregon Constitutions.” *2

Based on ORS 188.010, we will void the Legislative Assembly’s plan only if we can say, based on the record, that that body “either did not consider [ignored] one or more criteria [set out in ORS 188.010] *3 or, having considered them all, made a choice or choices that no reasonable [What does reasonable mean?] [reap- portioning body] would have made.” *1

The most, indeed, the only credible method to determine if ORS 188.010 (2) No district shall be drawn for the purpose of favoring any political party, incumbent legislator or other person, has been violated, i.e. ignored, is to ask the person(s) who actually created the maps. In this regard, none of the judges involved in the approval of both the congressional and legislative district maps ever asked who actually created these maps, nor did they ask the actual map makers/cartographers to testify to ascertain whether or not they created these maps with knowledge of the political data. No reasonable person would believe that both the congressional and legislative district maps under review were made by map makers/cartographers who had NO knowledge, NO advice and NO instructions based on a political data set of the street addresses and party registration of registered voters and or a data set of precinct voting history. Access to both of these data sets is both legal and easy to get. The fact that these data sets are not present as data sets within the maps presented to all the justices involved is NOT proof that the map makers/cartographers did not seek out and receive this political data from outside sources *5 and thus deliberately and covertly violate ORS 188.010 (2) *3

Oregonians, indeed, most Americans, want an equitable division of congressional and legislative voting districts. This cannot happen unless and until the statutory guidelines are revised to reflect political reality and the supreme court is directed to rule on the reapportionment maps on behalf of the citizenry without requiring a legal suit. Here are the only three necessary guidelines.

1. Districts must have equal populations

2. Districts must be contiguous

3. Political data sets must be used to create congressional and legislative voting district maps that are comprised, as nearly as possible, of districts that each have equal numbers of registered Democrats, Republicans and Others.

Of course, to accomplish this citizen oriented, democracy enhancing task we must depend on partisan legislators. The chances of that happening are slim to none.

Richard Ellmyer

North Portland

Oregon citizen since 1971

Portland Homeowner and Citizen Activist since 1975

NAV, Non-Aligned Voter

Legislative assistant to former state senator Bill McCoy observer and participant in the 1981 reapportionment process.

Senior Policy Advisor to former Multnomah County Commissioner Gladys McCoy 1981-1984

Author of The Ellmyer Report, a newsletter that informs, educates and influences on public policy. Occasionally distributed to more than a quarter of million readers in Oregon and beyond. Facebook, Portland Politics Plus . Contributor: Patch.com

Project Champion and Data Wrangler - Metro/Oregon Public Housing Location Maps https://www.goodgrowthnw.org/m...

*1

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21117597-oregon-congressional-redistricting-opinion-11-24-21

*2

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21115899-p17027coll3_9432

*3

https://oregon.public.law/statutes/ors_188.010

Criteria for apportionment of state into congressional and legislative districts

(1) Each district, as nearly as practicable, shall:

(a) Be contiguous;

(b) Be of equal population;

(c) Utilize existing geographic or political boundaries;

(d) Not divide communities of common interest; and

(e) Be connected by transportation links.

(2) No district shall be drawn for the purpose of favoring any political party, incumbent legislator or other person.

(3) No district shall be drawn for the purpose of diluting the voting strength of any language or ethnic minority group.

*4

https://www.osbar.org/publications/bulletin/11febmar/redistricting.html

*5

https://www.commoncause.org/oregon/our-work/gerrymandering-and-representation/gerrymandering-and-redistricting-2/

*6

https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/report-oregons-congressional-map-receives-an-f-grade/