opinion

'Backdoor gerrymandering' just one of Iowa GOP election-rigging attempts

Iowa prides itself on its clean elections. Our state’s nonpartisan redistricting, which ensures fair treatment for both major parties, is a model for the nation.

But that doesn’t mean Iowa is immune from efforts to twist the election process to the advantage of the party in power. Two bills moving in the Iowa Legislature are notable examples.

The Iowa Senate last week approved a bill that would put Republicans at the top of the ballot in 98 out of 99 counties for the 2018 general election.

This may not seem like a huge deal to people who take time to learn who’s running for office before they show up to vote. But the fact is, numerous studies have shown that the party whose candidates come first on the ballot have an advantage.

Senate File 2346 would require county auditors to put partisan candidates on the election ballot according to the results of the last governor’s election. So if Republicans won the governor’s race in that county, as they did in all but Johnson County in 2014, their candidates would top the ballot.

“This is just a blatant power grab. It’s so obvious,” Sen. David Johnson, an independent from Ocheyedan, said during floor debate. He called the bill “backdoor gerrymandering.”

Republicans argued that they were giving the decision to voters instead of letting county auditors choose which party goes first on the ballot.

“It’s clear that the Republican Party is about … the government closest to the people,” Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel, said. “I can’t think of anything closer to the people than the people themselves casting votes and making that determination.”

It’s true that Democratic auditors tend to put Democrats first on the ballot and Republicans generally put GOP candidates first. But the auditors are elected by the voters in their county, so the people are already making the choice.

The current law could stand some improvement. The voting process should be entirely neutral and not give any party an advantage. But that’s not what the Senate GOP is doing.

If Chapman and Senate Republicans were really worried about partisan election officials making a partisan decision, they could have opted for a random or rotating party order. That would be better than what Iowa has today. Instead, they chose to rig the system to clearly benefit their own party and incumbents.

More: Bill governing election ballots passes Iowa Senate after bitter debate

This isn’t the only way Republicans are trying to change election laws in their favor. A bill approved last week in the Iowa House would change the way counties draw district lines for county supervisor elections.

House File 2372 would require nonpartisan redistricting for counties that elect supervisors by district. It would also require certain counties to elect supervisors by district if they currently elect them all at large or if they use countywide voting for all districts.

More: Bill would change redistricting process for Iowa county boards of supervisors

It sounds like a great idea, in theory. The state uses a nonpartisan process for legislative and congressional redistricting every 10 years. It’s clean, fair and has long enjoyed bipartisan support.

The bill would put the same nonpartisan staff from the Legislative Services Agency in charge of drawing county district maps. Currently, county supervisors appoint a board to redraw district maps, a process that could allow partisan influence.

So what’s the problem? The legislation takes a worthwhile idea and gives it a partisan spin. Only the 10 most populous counties would be forced to adopt district-level voting for district supervisors if they currently use a different process.

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The effect would be to eliminate partisan advantage for redistricting in all counties that use district voting. But the only counties that would be forced into district voting are the ones that happen to have the highest percentage of registered Democrats. The effect would be to give Republicans a more even playing field in urban counties while maintaining their partisan advantage in some of the less populous counties.

If nonpartisan redistricting is a good idea for counties, then it should be good for every county. The bill should be implemented statewide or not at all.

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These efforts to rig future elections, of course, comes just a year after the Republican-controlled Legislature implemented the voter ID bill. A clean-up bill making generally non-controversial changes to the law turned into a four-hour-plus debate last week, with Democrats trying unsuccessfully to dismantle the voter ID requirement. They argue that the legislation puts unnecessary barriers in front of certain eligible voters: people who may be elderly, low-income, college students or racial minorities.

At a time when a Republican president makes jokes about ending the two-term limit for the presidency, voters must diligently guard their rights. The more insecure the GOP majority gets, the more brazen the efforts to disadvantage the minority party and challengers.

Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, predicted that the GOP was digging its own grave. “The drunker you get on power, the drunker you get, the more these kinds of bills that come out of the Legislature, the harder the fall," he said. “Mark my words. The blue tsunami is coming, and it’s gonna take you all out.”