Capstone Prospectus Julia Jackson, PUAD 5361 September 2, 2015 Project Introduction The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) "provides research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers to exchange ideas on the most pressing state issues and is an effective and respected advocate for the interests of the states in the American federal system" (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2009). NCSL serves as a resource for legislators and legislative staff on a variety of issues, including elections and redistricting. NCSL provides the following overview of the issue of redistricting: Redistricting is the process of redrawing state legislative and congressional district boundaries every 10 years by state legislatures following the decennial U.S. Census. NCSL helps prepare legislatures and others for the redistricting cycle with comprehensive information on redistricting law, technology and process. ( Redistricting Redistricting Laws and Information from NCSL, n.d.) For my capstone project, I will work with NCSL s Redistricting and Elections team to learn more about how legislators and legislative staff manage the redistricting process, and what resources NCSL can provide for them. My third reader for the project is Wendy Underhill, NCSL's program manager for elections and redistricting. My second reader is Dr. Benoy Jacob, a School of Public Affairs professor who conducts local government research. Redistricting comes after reapportionment. The basic law of reapportionment is found in Article I, Section 2 of the US Constitution, as modified by the 14 th Amendment, and it is short: Representatives [ ] shall be apportioned among the several states [ ] according to their respective numbers[.] The actual Enumeration shall be made [ ] within every subsequent term of ten Years, in such manner as they shall by law direct (U.S. Const. art. I, 2). After the Census has completed its survey, each state is granted Representatives based on its share of the population. It is then up to the states to draw districts for those Representatives. State and local governments also usually update their district lines at this time. For purposes of this project, I will focus on redistricting as it relates to the US Congress and state legislatures. Both functions are usually conducted by state legislatures, though some states use a commission process for one or both (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2009). While much has been written about redistricting, there has been very little focus on its administration. As the professional organization for state legislators and legislative staff, NCSL is the ideal organization to report on this. It is also relevant to the field of public administration. Since redistricting generally only occurs every ten years, the legislators and staff involved are often starting from scratch. Term limits and normal staff turnover mean that many people who drew redistricting maps in 2010 will not be doing so in 2020. NCSL expects the technology to have changed dramatically over this decade as well. Since 2015 is the midpoint between redistricting rounds, it is an appropriate time to evaluate the redistricting process and the resources that can be prepared for the next round in 2020.
Julia Jackson Capstone Prospectus 2 Methods I will be conducting a survey to learn more about the administration of redistricting in each state. My goal is to obtain survey results from all 50 states. NCSL maintains a list of redistricting contacts drawn from its Redistricting and Elections Task Force, but this is not entirely complete, so I anticipate having to track down responses from some states. I plan to prepare the survey in Google Forms and, once my readers and a few trusted staff members have reviewed it, send it to the existing contacts. When I have a better idea of which states are not represented in the responses, I will follow up with phone calls. Questions I plan to cover in the survey are: Who is responsible for congressional redistricting in your state (legislature or commission)? Who is responsible for legislative redistricting in your state (legislature or commission)? If you have commissions, how were they created (initiative, legislation, other)? Tell us about the staff assisting the redistricting process: o How many people? o What kind of staff (nonpartisan legislative staff, partisan legislative staff, staff for an election official like the Secretary of State, contract staff, other)? o How long were these people working on redistricting? o How many of the people who did this work in 2010 still work there? o What percentage of the people who do this work in 2020 do you expect to be doing it for the first time? What technology vendor did you use to draw your maps in 2010 (Maptitude, ArcGIS/Esri, other)? Was your technology on a laptop/server, or was it web-based? Are you considering moving to a different technology vendor or model in 2020? If so, what are you looking for? Did you offer the general public an opportunity to make and submit maps? If so: o How many submissions did you receive? o What did you do with them? (How were they managed?) Was your adopted plan challenged in court? What happened? When (month, year) was the final plan in place? Rating scale for the usefulness of various NCSL materials: Red Book (redistricting law), Summary of Cases web page, website generally, sessions at Legislative Summit, sessions at the fall forum. What other resources do you use? What resources would you like to see from NCSL before 2020? I hope to use the responses to some of these questions to prepare 50-state tables and generate some statistics that NCSL can post on its redistricting website or use in its materials. The questions about resources will likely remain internal but should help guide NCSL staff in its preparations for the 2020 redistricting round.
Julia Jackson Capstone Prospectus 3 Literature The literature on redistricting is vast, and it would not be interesting or useful to attempt to cover all of it. To the extent that it is available, I intend to focus on literature related to the process and administration of redistricting. This may include technological advances, data availability, and the role of commissions as opposed to legislatures. For example, I found an interesting article about the controversial nature of census data as it pertains to redistricting (Persily, 2011). I also read a note from the Harvard Law Review that provides a helpful analysis of all the political problems with redistricting, sorting them into different types of harms ( An interstate process perspective on political gerrymandering, 2006). Professor Adam Cox has written a number of articles on redistricting, and I read one that focuses on the design of redistricting institutions (Cox, 2006). I will continue to look for articles like these. I will be reading NCSL's Redistricting Law 2010, known as the "Red Book," both to learn more about redistricting and to better understand NCSL's available resources on the subject. I also plan to give a basic overview of the case law governing redistricting. (I will review the cases themselves, but the list used here comes primarily from the Red Book and SCOTUSBlog.) This includes the "redistricting cases" from the 1960s, particularly Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), which together established the principle of one person, one vote. I will also look at the cases clarifying the role of the Voting Rights Act in redistricting, like Thornberg v. Gingles (1986) and Shelby County v. Holder (2013), and the most recent Supreme Court action on redistricting, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2015). Finally, I will preview the upcoming cases of Harris v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (2016) and Evenwell v. Abbott (2016). MPA Program Competencies Since this project focuses on administering the redistricting process within the existing legal framework, I think I will primarily be addressing two competencies: (1.2) understanding the context of public management, and (2.5) understanding the connection between policy and the administrative process. I will also be collecting data using appropriate research methods (3.1), and I will critically assess existing research in my literature review (3.3). The most relevant core classes will likely be Organizational Management and Behavior and The Policy Process and Democracy. I also expect to draw heavily on skills I learned in the Administrative Law course.
Julia Jackson Capstone Prospectus 4 Proposed Project Timeline September 4: complete draft survey September 5-15: review survey with Wendy and selected state contacts select and read literature for literature review September 16: distribute survey by email September 17-22: write literature review and other portions of draft September 23: 1 st (partial) draft deadline September 30: deadline for survey responses October 1-9: follow up with missing states make calls gather additional responses October 10-27: tabulate and organize results prepare tables and statistics edit based on 1 st draft feedback write 2 nd draft October 28: 2 nd draft deadline October 29-November 21: edit based on 2 nd draft feedback prepare final document prepare oral presentation November 22: final draft deadline November 30-December 4: oral presentation (date TBD)
Julia Jackson Capstone Prospectus 5 References An interstate process perspective on political gerrymandering. (2006, March). Harvard Law Review, 119(5), 1576+. Cox, A. B. (2006). Designing Redistricting Institutions. Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy, 5(4), 412 424. http://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2006.5.412 National Conference of State Legislatures. (2009). Redistricting Law 2010. Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/redistricting-law-2010742.aspx Persily, N. (2011). The Law of the Census: How to Count, What to Count, Whom to Count, and Where to Count Them. Cardozo Law Review, 32(3), 755. Redistricting Redistricting Laws and Information from NCSL. (n.d.). Retrieved August 27, 2015, from http://www.ncsl.org/research/redistricting.aspx U.S. Const. art. I, 2. (n.d.).