TALKING POLITICS Minority voters get their due in redistricting reversal BY IAN DONNIS

Three years ago, as Rhode Island was embarking on the decennial process of redrawing legislative districts, then-Senate Majority Leader William V. Irons took exception to suggestions "that the legislature needs to be guarded against." Bound for the newly established Senate presidency, Irons expressed confidence that legislative leaders learned their lesson in the early ’90s after a fatally flawed 1982 Senate redistricting plan wound up in federal court, causing a half-year delay in elections and $1.5 million tab in court and special election cost for taxpayers. "We’re not about to build a mousetrap that fails," Irons told me as the redistricting process unfolded (see "The shape of things to come," News, March 1, 2001). "The question is, ‘Do you get treated fairly during the process?’ "

So many critics felt the answer was "No" that former state Representative Harold Metts, the Providence branch of the NAACP, and the Urban League of Rhode Island, among other plaintiffs, filed suit two years ago in federal court, charging that the redistricting plan was unfair to minority voters. Most notably, by uniting upper and lower South Providence in one Senate district, the plan fostered the election of Senator Juan Pichardo, the first Latino senator in Rhode Island – but only at the expense of Charles Walton, the chamber’s only black member.

In an agreement surprising for its sweep, state Senate leaders last week unveiled a settlement of the lawsuit that, if approved by the governor and General Assembly, would change 12 of the 38 Senate districts. As the Providence Journal reported last week, the resolution would force 10 incumbents to face new territory in an election year while creating two new districts without current representation. Irons and John A. Celona represented the two unoccupied districts, of course, until they resigned following questions about their financial links to CVS and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island.

H. Philip West Jr., the executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island, remained skeptical while serving as the secretary of the Fair Redistricting Coalition, a grassroots group that monitored the process in 2001. At he noted at the time, "The public is really at the mercy of the leadership," and without greater specificity in the laws governing redistricting, the mapping out of legislative districts was more likely to suffer.

Asked whether last week’s settlement is due more to the flaws in the 2001 redistricting or the consensus-building leadership style of Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano and Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva-Weed, West says, "I’m not sure it’s one or the other." Although it couldn’t have happened without the resignations of Irons and Celona, West gave credit to the plaintiffs in the suit, noting, "If they had given up the lawsuit, this [settlement] would not have happened, even after the resignation of Irons and Celona. There would have been new elections, and that would have been the end of it. They [the plaintiffs] were tenacious, they weren’t going to let go."

West also praised Montalbano, who in 2001 had cited efforts, albeit unsuccessful ones, to create a South Side district that wouldn’t pit black and Latino voters against each other, and Paiva-Weed, who voted at the time in support of a district that might have accommodated both Walton and Pichardo. As far as the settlement itself, West says, "I think it achieves one of the most urgent goals that we saw then, that the minority community not be disenfranchised."

As seen by fiercely partisan efforts in Texas and other states, redistricting remains one of the closest things to a blood sport in politics. The shortcomings of the process might make for colorful reading, but Rhode Island, according to the ProJo, has already spent more than $1.1 million defending against the related suits — meaning this is the second time in three rounds when taxpayers have been stuck with such a grand tab. It might be too much to expect, but West has some hope that these kind of adverse consequences will lead states to turn to independent, nonpartisan redistricting commissions.