One of my least favorite things in yesterday's redistricting mess was the Senate Republican memo outlining "why incumbency protection is an appropriate factor for the Court to consider in drawing redistricting maps.".
I was very happy to find this between items 148 and 149 of the case docket:
ORDER: LATFOR is ordered to furnish the Court and Nathaniel Persily, forthwith, the P.L. 94-171 Data as formatted for use by the computer program, Maptitude for Redistricting. No political or other data, including incumbent residence, shall be included with the data provided. Ordered by Magistrate Judge Roanne L. Mann on 3/1/2012. (Mann, Roanne)
I appreciate that Congressional seniority is valuable to the state, but seriously - it's time to take the dealmaking out of these maps. I'd love to see the same requirement imposed on the Senate and Assembly maps, though they are not part of this piece of the process.
(I'm also guessing that the LATFOR folks will take that as a sign that they'd better get serious about cutting a deal if they want to protect any of their friends. Personally, I'd rather they all retire from the process, but I won't be surprised if they suddenly find a renewed burst of energy to get the job done quickly in their preferred corrupt way.)
Posted by simon at March 2, 2012 7:43 AM in politics (state)