Democratic commissioners’ differences with Lou Esposito, a Republican redistricting commissioner, were well documented during the first commission’s meetings and need not be rehashed in complete detail here. I do take exception, though, to his unfounded claim of patrimony to L-93, the plan finally adopted.
The most thoroughly documented presentation during our commission’s term was L-28 (www.legislature.idaho.gov/redistricting/PlanHtml/L28.pdf), presented by the Democratic commissioners early in the deliberations. Even a cursory glance shows its remarkable similarity to L-93 (www.legislature.idaho.gov/redistricting/PlanHtml/L93.pdf). At that time, Republican commissioners rejected not only the plan but also the principle that a minimum number of counties should be split, and that every other consideration should come after that. In fact, when Republicans produced L-87 much later in the commission’s life, they also announced that they would not vote for it.
For the record, the Ada County part of the plan is also very, very close in form to the map that the first commission agreed to, and for the same reasons; it made legal and electoral sense. If history is to be rewritten, best that it be rewritten accurately.
Esposito also makes a disturbing assertion; that commissioners owe some sort of obeisance to their appointing authorities. Our understanding, and that of our appointing authorities, was that we served on an independent commission with a duty to the Constitution and people of Idaho. No one else. We consulted with many in the course of our work; we took direction from none.
Or, as Mr. Esposito so delicately puts it, we did not “ask for assistance” from party or legislative leaders.
Mr. Esposito was an appointee of House Speaker Lawerence Denney and is clearly loyal to his party’s leadership. That leadership’s view of the commission is well known through its public statements and lawsuits. From these and the events of the first commission, we fairly conclude that there was no desire on the part of at least two Republican commissioners for the commission to succeed as an independent body. It was to be a political body, or it was to fail. During the commission’s deliberations, Mr. Esposito and Evan Frasure time and again threw up at us a statute drafted by legislators who wanted redistricting back in the hands of the Legislature. At one point Mr. Esposito claimed that the statute has equal standing with constitutional requirements. We respectfully disagreed, and refused to back down. The Supreme Court completely concurred with us, as would have most high school government teachers.
The intramural warfare in the Republican Party, evidenced by a biting reference to two Republican commissioners as “rock stars,” might be entertaining. But it also represents a clear threat to the principle of independence of appointed bodies in Idaho government. The message to the Republicans on the second commission from party leaders couldn’t have been more clear: “Our way or the highway.” The Democratic commissioners, all three of us, believed something very different. We believed that an independent commission is just that, and that the Constitution means exactly what it says. We are proud to have stood by those principles.
George Moses, an Idaho resident for 15 years, was a member of the first redistricting commission. He is a former Air Force officer, Vietnam veteran and former congressional assistant.
