In a recent opinion piece, former governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin praised Gov. Chris Sununu’s veto of House Bill 706 (Monitor Forum, Aug. 22).
HB 706 proposed establishing an independent redistricting commission to determine new legislative districts, the boundaries that create congressional and state legislative districts.
Currently, state legislators themselves determine these boundaries. Yet there’s a glaring conflict of interest. If state legislators are responsible for determining district boundaries they have the opportunity to adjust these boundaries to their advantage.
For example, your current state representative is a Republican and won their election in a close race. And you tend to vote Democrat along with the majority of voters in your town. During the redistricting process your Republican state representative could see your more Democratic-leaning town as a threat to their re-election and they could adjust district boundary lines so your town is in another district. In this scenario, the Republican state representative has made their district more Republican and more likely that he or she will win future elections. The roles could be reversed in which a Democratic state representative adjusts a boundary to rid a more Republican-leaning area from their district.
The point is that with state legislators in control of redistricting there is an inherent conflict of interest and the potential for improper boundary adjustments. HB 706 passed with bipartisan support in the House and Senate, yet Gov. Sununu vetoed it anyway.
And given that Wisconsin was sued for improper redistricting in 2011, while Scott Walker was governor, it’s hard to take Walker seriously on this issue.
CHRISTOPHER KNIGHT
Concord