By Glenn Rolfe

DOVER — Following redistricting, new maps for Delaware’s 41 House of Representative and 21 Senate districts were approved Nov. 1 by the General Assembly.

As Senate Bill 199, they were sent to Gov. John Carney and signed into law Nov. 2.

According to the Delaware Constitution, a candidate must live in the district for a year prior to be eligible to run for that district. With the general election in 2022 landing on Nov. 8, the maps were confirmed just in time.

However, there is a pitch that the next U.S. census-based redistricting, in 2031, be nonpolitical via an independent commission.

“I believe that the only way to get to nonpartisan districting and districts that are respected by all the voters is through an independent special commission,” said Jack Young, redistricting committee co-chair of the League of Women Voters of Delaware and the Fair Maps Coalition.

Claire Snyder-Hall, executive director of Common Cause Delaware, agreed.

“Unfortunately, it appears that some of the lines were drawn with attention to incumbents and where they lived, which we believe is violation of the clause that says you cannot unduly favor a person when you’re drawing the maps. And consequently, some municipalities and communities were divided that didn’t have to be. That was a concern that we had,” she said.

“I think it is only natural that people want to advance their own interests. So that is why we think it is important when we move toward redistricting next time to get an independent commission that would be less political and would really focus on communities and not trying to maintain the districts that incumbents need to get reelected.”

Due to a delay in receipt of 2020 U.S. census data and a condensed time frame, the General Assembly approved redistricting maps in a late special session Nov. 1. The vote in the Senate was 14-7 along party lines. The House approved the maps 40-1, with the lone dissenting vote cast by Rep. Mike Smith, R-Pike Creek.

Republican senators who cast votes against the bill cited reasons like underrepresentation and a low census count in Sussex County. Meanwhile, Senate President Pro Tempore David Sokola, D-Newark, said the district maps represent a “good-faith” effort.

The good and the bad

Common Cause Delaware’s score card for this year’s redistricting has varying grades.

“I think the process this year for state-level redistricting had its pros and cons,” Ms. Snyder-Hall said. “We were happy that they created a website, where people could submit testimony, that the maps were posted and that people had a chance to look at them. But the timeline was so short that people did not really have a chance to really understand and digest information in the maps. That was unfortunate.”

She continued, “Also, I was happy that they chose to include communities of interest as an essential criterion, even though that is not constitutionally required. That was great because they understand, as we do, that maps ought to be … centered around communities … because the whole point is, you are drawing the districts so that communities can elect somebody so that their voice can be heard in Dover.”

Mr. Young explained his reaction to the process.

“The good thing about this cycle was that both the Senate and the House held public hearings and solicited public input. The negative part is that a party and individuals who were sitting in the House still were considered as part of the redistricting process,” he said. “I think that the plus for this cycle was the General Assembly agreeing to public hearings and to submission of communities of interest maps.”

He noted that the League of Women Voters submitted more than 35 proposed maps of communities of interest, particularly to the House, and “many of the ideas were accepted.”

“The downside was that the process still didn’t meet the highest expectations of representation,” he said. “One of the reasons why is that the Delaware Code lacks the tools in gerrymandering in Delaware. The criteria need to be further flushed out.”

Ms. Snyder-Hall said more work needs to be done to perfect the redistricting procedure.

“This year, Delaware made great strides when it comes to making redistricting more fair, transparent and inclusive — but there’s still more progress to be made. It’s time we build on our successes and form a fully independent redistricting commission.”

Such a group would “transfer the power of drawing district lines from elected officials to the people. The process would minimize partisan interests and instead focus on the best interests of the people of Delaware,” said Ms. Snyder-Hall. “To ensure the process is fair and inclusive of every voice in our state, the commission would be required to follow a set of criteria, including a certain number of public hearings, mandate avenues for public input and ensure accessibility for limited English proficiency and disabled Delawareans.”

Mr. Young concurred.

“I believe that the only way to get to nonpartisan districting and districts that are respected by all the voters is through an independent special commission,” he said. “To do a commission correctly, we need two things. One, we need to expand the criteria to define clearly what should be considered … and what should not be considered, including partisan considerations.”

The second, Mr. Young said, is that the commission needs to be nonpartisan, as well.

“We have seen, in the most recent example of Virginia, that their efforts to add a redistricting commission failed because the commission was based on partisan considerations. Even though they had a commission, all they had done is moved the two parties fighting from one forum in the General Assembly to the commission. Because the commission appointment system was based on partisan considerations, all they did was transfer the partisanship from one form to another. That is unacceptable,” he said.

Ms. Snyder-Hall referred to 2017, when Sen. Bryan Townsend, D-Newark, introduced a bill — Senate Bill 27 — that called for a commission that would be responsible for drawing the boundaries of Delaware’s legislative districts every 10 years, following each decennial census. It passed the Senate 12-7 and was assigned to the House Administration Committee, where it stalled.

“Bryan Townsend did have one that looks good. We’re hoping we can work with him and Pro Temp David Sokola and anyone else who is interested in moving forward in a positive direction, building on some of the successes that we saw this year and remedying some of the shortcomings of the process,” said Ms. Snyder-Hall.

Mr. Young noted an instance during the House map redistricting in which initial lines placed two incumbents — Republican Michael Ramone and Democrat Paul Baumbach — in Rep. Baumbach’s district.

Following Republican objection, lines were redrawn, and both incumbents remained in their respective districts.

That, says Mr. Young, is gerrymandering. “That is a good definition,” he said.

“As we talk about the issue between Ramone and Baumbach, that arises in part because our state standards were not precise enough as to whether that should or should not be considered,” he said. “We believe that the Delaware Code prohibits it. But it is unclear. Like other things in the Delaware Code, they need refinement. We need to tighten the code up, make it more explicit so that we don’t have this question of politics. Would this have been different if it were two Democrats? It probably wouldn’t have happened. Or two Republicans?

“We’re back to the principle of people should pick their politicians, rather than the politicians picking their people.”

2017 bill

Ms. Snyder-Hall said CCD commends the legislature “for considering community-drawn maps, however, in the end, it seems that protecting incumbents — also called ‘preserving the cores of prior districts’ — ended up playing too great a role in the process. This appears to contradict the mandate in the Delaware Constitution that prohibits maps from being drawn to ‘unduly favor any person or political party.’ Delaware is actually one of the few states that includes such a prohibition in its governing document, and it should have been a bright line in the process.”

Mr. Young said LWV plans to reach out to the General Assembly and work on an initiative for an independent commission.

“We definitely want to promote fair redistricting. That will also mean providing the public input throughout the process, not only of drawing the maps but creating a system that will create the maps. We want to have public input. We want to have transparency, and we want to give the process as much time as possible,” he said. “We were somewhat constrained by the fact that the census data this year came out late. (And) it came out in forms that were not particularly useable at first.”

The hope, Mr. Young said, is that the General Assembly “hold(s) hearings soon, based particularly on our experience and our knowledge basis gained in the cycle to set forth a complete list of criteria that should be used in the next redistricting process. Those criteria alone will take some of the politics out of the process, no matter how it’s done. Then, move toward developing an independent commission and spending time to create it in a way that avoids the partisanship.”