Redistricting lessons

Riff Raff, by Michael Tilley
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When it became clear Congressional redistricting would divide the Fort Smith metro area in a way that defied reason, the first response by local media and others was to blame our area legislators.

By way of reminder, let’s note again that new Congressional district lines split the city of Alma almost down the middle between the 3rd and 4th districts — the only city in Arkansas to be so divided. Crawford and Sebastian counties are among only five of 75 Arkansas counties to be divided.

The process in the last few days of the 88th Arkansas General Assembly certainly smacked of in-your-face-ain’t-nuthin’-you-can-do-about-it politics. Because of that, the low-hanging blame found many suggesting the weakness of the Fort Smith legislative delegation allowed district lines in our area to look like a Picasso piece from his surrealist years.

That’s not entirely a fair location for the blame. The events and political realities surrounding the last two weeks of redistricting chaos were too complicated and intense to simply blame a weak legislative delegation.

However, it’s safe to say the chances of the metro area being divided would have been greatly minimized if our delegation had the depth, experience and respect we once had with folks like Morril Harriman, B.G. Hendrix, Travis Miles, Carolyn Pollan, Bud Rice and Ed Thicksten.

So what are the lessons to be learned from this unpleasant political ass-whooping? There are plenty of lessons, and I don’t pretend to know or understand them all. Following are a few lessons my simple mind could grasp.

• Expect and work to be politically positioned for the unexpected.
No kidding, right? But it’s possible that our leadership organizations in the Fort Smith area — including local governments — didn’t stay on top of this critically important Congressional redistricting process. Sure, a gaggle of folks rushed to Little Rock at the last minute to fight the redistricting plan eventually approved. The lesson learned from the last-minute rush is to be at the station BEFORE the train departs. And not just on this issue, but other important issues that come before our representative bodies in Little Rock and Washington D.C.

• We’ve got to roll back our term limits law.
Please know I’m not blaming term limits for our delegation not having the political heft one might expect for the state’s third-largest metro area and state’s second-largest city. Term limits create a level playing field in the Arkansas Legislature, which is to say the Democratic leaders who pushed this crazy redistricting plan are also term-limited. And that’s part of the point: I firmly believe a more experienced political body would have produced a better map with a lot less drama.

We don’t have to repeal the term-limit law, but limiting House members to six years and Senators to eight years is too restrictive. Maybe we lead or support an effort to change the law and limit House and Senate members to 12 years in each chamber.

• We’ve got to send a stronger legislative delegation to Little Rock.
The strength of our legislative delegation may not have mattered in this case, but we do need a better delegation.

We do have some strong and emerging leaders in our delegation, such as Sen. Jake Files, R-Fort Smith, Rep. Terry Rice, R-Waldron and Rep. Tracy Pennartz, D-Fort Smith, — although Pennartz’s support of the “Fayetteville Finger” redistricting plan didn’t help build bridges with Northwest Arkansas legislators.

But we unfortunately have a few area legislators who not only are ineffective, but lobbyists and other legislators frequently wonder aloud how an area like Fort Smith could send THE weakest legislators to Little Rock.

The names may change, but our relatively weak delegation will persist as long as we continue to send shallow social conservatives to Little Rock instead of coalition-building fiscal conservatives. We historically give our votes to legislative candidates because they love the Lord, love the Constitution and love the military. Those are nice qualities, but alone they rarely result in a competent legislator. We need informed and effective leaders more interested in working with others to make things happen than in merely casting a series of “No” votes, or being eager to convert Sunday School lessons into state law.

• Turn the Congressional redistricting chicken s&^% into chicken salad.
We lost the redistricting battle. It sucked. Let’s move on.

Let’s encourage regional business and civic leaders to improve connections with U.S. Rep. Mike Ross, D-Prescott. Geographically, he now represents more of the Fort Smith area than U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers. (To their credit, several area leaders are already focused on adapting to the new political realities.)

Let’s also encourage regional business and civic leaders to begin working on getting the last laugh. How do we do that? Well, the most obvious way is in the near future we elect a 3rd District Congressman from the Fort Smith area and a 4th District Congressman from the Fort Smith area.

With a 3rd District Congressman from Van Buren or Fort Smith, and a 4th District Congressman from Greenwood or Booneville, well, then it would be time for us to practice a little in-your-face-ain’t-nuthin’-you-can-do-about-it politics.