SLG Hearing on Redistricting Bills January 11, 2008 Senate Committee on State and Local Government Operations and Oversight Hearing on Redistricting Commission Bills SF 595 (Rest) This transcript is an unofficial, partial transcript of a hearing SF 1810 (Michel) related to redistricting. See SF 2211 (Pogemiller) the link to the audio recording for the full hearing. January 11, 2008 15 State Capitol St. Paul, Minnesota Senate Audio Recording https://www.leg.state.mn.us/senateaudio/2008/cmte_stgov_011108.mp3 Transcribed by Trint Edited by Peter S. Wattson December 21, 2018 Sen. Ann H. Rest: [00:00:00] Good morning. It is my pleasure to call to order this hearing of the State and Local Government Operations and Oversight Committee. Today we are going to be focusing on reports and testimony from those who have been working on coming up with ideas for the creation of a bipartisan redistricting commission. We're going to begin our hearing with a bit of background from Senate Counsel Mr. Peter Wattson and then we will go from there to testimony from former Governor Arne Carlson and former Vice President Walter Mondale. The agendas are available for the public as well as members and because some of you may not know the members among our distinguished guests, I would like to ask them to state their names and what their districts are. Sen. Ann H. Rest: [00:01:04] Senator Betzold. Sen. Don Betzold: [00:01:08] I'm Don Betzold. I live In Fridley and represent the area of Blaine, Mounds View, and Spring Lake Park. Sen. Ann H. Rest: [00:01:12] And I'm Ann Rest, chair of the committee and I'm from New Hope and my district includes Robbinsdale, Crystal, and the northeast corners of Golden Valley and Plymouth. Sen. Larry Pogemiller: [00:01:24] Larry Pogemiller, represent Minneapolis area, northeast and southeast Minneapolis. Sen. Dan Larson: [00:01:29] Dan Larson. I live in Bloomington. I represent parts of Bloomington, the entire city of Richfield, and southwest Minneapolis. Sen. Ann H. Rest: [00:01:36] And the staff at the table to my left is Peter Brickwedde, my legislative assistant and Brenda Schafer-Pellinen, the committee administrator. Mr. Wattson. Peter Wattson: [00:01:48] Madam Chair, thank you. For the record, my name is Peter Wattson. I'm 1 SLG Hearing on Redistricting Bills January 11, 2008 Senate Counsel and I'm pleased to be with you at the start of the four-to-five-year process for adjusting the boundaries of legislative and congressional districts to accommodate the population shifts that have been occurring since the 2000 census. [00:02:07] Our first order of business here today, I think, is to begin deciding who will draw the plans, how will they do it, and what principles will guide them. And you'd asked me to provide the committee with background materials and I have done so, not designed to bury you in paperwork, but there are a lot of documents in the folder. What I'd like to do is, first just go through what's in your folder, so you'll see what all is there and then I'll come back to the first piece. [00:02:38] First thing should be the "History of Minnesota Redistricting." That's what I'll come back to. [00:02:44] You have a copy of your bill, Senate File 595, which would create a constitutional commission to draw the districts. It's similar to the constitutional provision that was put to the voters in 1980. But it does not include the 1980 statutory language that detailed the process that was to be used and the principles that would guide the commission in drawing their plans. [00:03:11] Next you should have Senate File 1810 and a summary by me explaining that. It would create plans via the nonpartisan legislative staff. It's similar to the plan that's been used in Iowa since, I think, about the 1970s. There would be a temporary advisory commission to hold hearings on the plan that had been drafted by the nonpartisan legislative staff and then the plan would be enacted by the legislature on an up or down vote. [00:03:46] There are detailed principles to guide the staff in drawing the plans and they are to be strictly non-political. To show a comparison of these principles in Senator Michel's bill with the principles followed by other states, there is an attachment, Table 5, which may or may not be in your folders, I think it might be a couple of pieces ahead of the bill. Table 5 shows all those redistricting principles in each of the 50 states. Then there is another handout, I think that was just placed on your desk, Appendix G, which has the text, the detail of all of those principles. [00:04:32] Next in your package should be Senate File 2211, Senator Pogemiller's bill that would have a statutory commission made up of retired judges draw the plans, again presented to the legislature for an up or down vote. In this case they would be required to make the districts politically competitive. So, the Michel bill says don't consider political factors at all, and the Pogemiller bill says make districts politically competitive. [00:05:06] There are a couple of attachments there to the summary, Appendix E and F. E is the description of all of the other commissions that draw legislative plans and Appendix F is a description of all the other commissions that draw congressional plans, and many commissions draw both legislative and congressional. [00:05:30] Somewhere after that should be a table called "Redistricting Success Rates, Legislatures v. Commissions," and it shows the success of legislatures and commissions over the last four decades at adopting plans that were either not challenged in court or, if challenged, were upheld without any change. [00:05:56] Just behind that should be detailed tables of the 50 states for the 2000s and for the 1990s showing all of the litigation that occurred and whether the plans were upheld or not. 2 SLG Hearing on Redistricting Bills January 11, 2008 [00:06:12] Then, I think maybe on the side, is a stack of three papers that were provided to me by my friend Tim Story of NCSL. One is an article that he wrote for State Legislatures magazine in February of '92 called "Dickering Over the Districts," which essentially says you can try to take the politics out of redistricting by creating a commission, but it still doesn't really take the politics out of redistricting. [00:06:45] The second is a law review article, "In Defense of Foxes Guarding the Hen Houses," saying that legislatures do have a role in drawing plans, and the third is an opposition paper for California's 2007 Redistricting Commission ballot initiative saying that this commission, to be composed of retired judges, wasn't all that its proponents made it out to be. [00:07:15] So that's a lot of reading and I don't expect that we're going to go really through all that today. We have a different focus for today. [00:07:22] So, back to the first paper, my "History of Minnesota Redistricting." As you can see, just glancing at the first page, for the first 100 years of Minnesota history, redistricting was easy. In the 19th century, as you can see, as the population grew and shifted the legislature just added more seats. At least they did that until about 1905, when this building was built and they kind of stopped adding any more seats. [00:07:51] In fact, they didn't even bother to redistrict between 1913 and 1959. (No trouble with the courts there, because the courts were staying out of it at that time.) And why was that? Well, I think it was primarily because around 1914 the growth of population in rural areas began to lag the growth of population in urban areas and, for some reason, rural legislators seemed to lose interest in accommodating population shifts. [Laughter] [00:08:30] By 1958, as you can see on the bottom of the page there, Honsey, top of the next page, the bottom of the first page, McGraw v. Donovan. In 1958, the federal district court found that the largest House district had a population 15 times the size of the smallest population House district and the largest Senate District had a population nine times the size of the smallest Senate district. The court found that the districts were grossly unequal in population, but it deferred to the legislature the task of adjusting boundaries to accommodate the shifts in population. The legislature did that in 1959, they passed a law. [00:09:20] But then, 1960, we have a new census. So, 1964, the court says the plan is invalid. In 1965- 66, the legislature submitted two plans to Governor Rolvaag, which he vetoed, finally approving one in 1966. [00:09:39] But, right around the corner, we had the 1970 census. The legislature did its duty and passed both legislative and congressional plans in the 1971 session. The congressional plan was signed by the governor, but the legislative plan was vetoed, so we had a federal court undertake, for the first time, the job of redrawing those legislative district boundaries. And they thought, if they were going to do it for the first time, they ought to do it right.