Farewell to John Sapinsley, Common Cause Rhode Island co-founder

We were saddened to learn of the passing of John Sapinsley, one of the co-founders of Common Cause Rhode Island. You can read about Professor Sapinsley's extraordinary life here. John was a great supporter of our work in good government over the years. We were proud to award him our highest honor when he and his wife Lila were made John Gardner Fellows. He will be missed.

Merit selection for magistrates

Common Cause played a large role in enacting the most sweeping change to judicial selection in the United States, back in 1994. Unfortunately, that system has been undermined ever since by the explosive growth in the number of magistrates in Rhode Island. We are supporting a bill in 2012, H 7086, that would require magistrates be selected under the open and transparent merit selection process. You can read our testimony here.

Common Cause calls for pause to redistricting process

Common Cause Rhode Island issued the following statement regarding the redistricting process in Rhode Island:

Common Cause Rhode Island expresses deep disappointment about the drawing of the proposed maps for Rhode Island’s congressional districts. The proposed maps, designated as “Plan E,” move over 100,000 people according to media reports, when the legal requirement to reapportion required a shift of approximately 7200 people. We believe the redistricting commission has not done due diligence in preparing these plans, using incomplete information to justify their decisions. Common Cause believes the commission should halt the process and wait until all of the necessary information is available before proceeding.

In 2010 Common Cause introduced legislation that would have prohibited the redistricting commission from considering the home address of incumbent politicians in the production of plans. In the first hearings of the commission in 2011 we asked that they not protect incumbents in this process. Both efforts were met with silence. We believe that no districts should be drawn to protect an incumbent politician, or advantage a particular candidate, whoever they may be.

While the commission’s consultant has publicly stated his intent to maximize minority representation with the current plans, including those for the General Assembly, we believe there is no way to assess that claim at this point. The redistricting commission has yet to receive any information about the turnout or voting behavior of the minority communities in Rhode Island, information that is necessary to determine whether districts viably meet the majority minority designation. According to a report by WPRI’s Ted Nesi, Congressman David Cicilline’s campaign had access to such information. The commission’s failure to receive this information is a result of Rhode Island being the only state in the nation to not fully participate in Phase II of the Census redistricting program.

Because of the lack of necessary information we believe this process should not move forward at this time.

My draft congressional plans

At the Monday, December 5th hearing of the Reapportionment Commission I, John Marion, promised to put my draft maps for CD 1 and CD 2 on this website. Please scroll down and read the entry titled "Redrawing Rhode Island" for my maps and explanation. Note, these maps drawn by John Marion and are not endorsed by Common Cause or Common Cause Rhode Island.

Draft Congressional maps for Rhode Island

On Monday, November 28th, three draft plans for redrawing Rhode Island's congressional districts were publicly released at a meeting of the state's reapportionment commission. Unfortunately those maps are not yet available online. Although certainly not an optimal solution, I'm posting the drafts, with brief explanations, here.

First up are the existing districts. This plan puts 19 cities and towns in each of our two districts and splits Providence roughly in half.

The first draft plan, labeled "Plan A"makes some drastic alterations to the current districts. It shifts Burrillville, Portsmouth, Middletown, Newport, Little Compton and Tiverton to CD2 from CD1. To balance population CD1 would receive seemingly all of Providence.


Draft "Plan B" takes a different approach. In addition to Burrillville, North Smithfield, Cumberland, Woonsocket, Lincoln, and Jamestown are added to CD2. Johnston, in turn, is moved to CD1 and seemingly so is the balance of Providence.

Finally there is "Plan C." This version moves Burrillville to CD2 and makes some changes to Providence.

We were assured that high resolution versions that will allow closer examination of these plans will be made publicly available soon. Let's hope.

Private caucuses no substitute for public deliberation

The Democratic members of the Senate caucused last weed at a private restaurant to discuss the pension reform bill being considered during the special legislative session. Setting aside for a minute the fact that campaign money was probably used to pay for meals, instead of actual campaigning, this type of secret deliberation is troubling. And with the House Democrats poised to caucus today (Monday, November 7th) the question needs to be ask, is this a transparent process?

Common Cause has consistently been asking for public release of any amendments to Rhode Island Retirement Security Act of 2011. General Treasurer Gina Raimondo has said that there will be 37 proposed changes coming from her office, including one that is a result of a serious error. The General Assembly leadership has been silent on the question of whether the amendments will be released publicly. Our elected leaders will be voting soon on amendments that the public has no chance to see in advance, and that may only have been discussed at private party caucuses.

Redrawing Rhode Island

Recently I had a chance to try my hand at redistricting Rhode Island. I made an appointment with Election Data Services and was invited to room B-5 to take a crack at drawing some lines using the same software being used by the official Reapportionment Commission. To make things easy I first tried my hand at creating two congressional districts. Because of shifts in the population in Rhode Island, a little over 7,000 people need to be moved from CD2 to CD1. Dividing a pie in half would be easy, right? Wrong.

Recently Rhode Island's members of Congress sent a joint letter to our commission requesting that, much as it does now, all communities be kept intact with the exception of Providence. My first map (diagram to your right) tried this. Although it's hard to tell, I moved the line between CD1 and CD2 within the City of Providence, but kept historic neighborhood boundaries in place. This map got me within a 100 person difference, or 0.01 percent, between the two districts. Courts have consistently said that congressional districts must be within 1% of each other so as not to violate the principle of one person, one vote.

Is that the only way to divide the pie in half? Certainly not. My second attempt started with the idea that Burrillville should be moved from CD1 to CD2. Why? well mistakenly I thought Burrillville was not considered part of the Blackstone Valley, and had more in common with Gloucester and Foster than Smithfield and Pawtucket. Of course I later discovered that both Burrillville and Glocester are considered part of the Blackstone Valley.

Nonetheless, operating under my false assumption, I moved Burrillville over to CD2 and took more of Providence for CD1. The result was a districts that is a more visually appealing split of the state. And again, I was able to keep the population difference between the two districts within several hundred, thus satisfying the 1% standard, and able to keep Providence neighborhoods intact. Of course visual appearance is just one of many, many criteria that can be applied to the creation of legislative districts.

The simple exercise of dividing Rhode Island into two equal parts illustrates the difficulty of this process, and the need for contextual information. Creating 75 House districts and 38 Senate districts is more difficult by an order of magnitude than this simple illustration. Factor in matters of race, ethnicity, partisan competition, geographical compactness and contiguity, and the process gets more and more difficult.

Common Cause urges the public to get involved in the process by submitting your own maps. You can do as I did and use the official software to draw some lines, or take a first shot at it by using a free online tool called Dave's Redistricting Software. The official software allows you to draw districts using the exact data used by the commission, down to the very small Census block tract. Dave's Redistricting Software uses the Census block group data which is an aggregation of Census block tracts. Nonetheless it is a great way to start without having to leave your house.

If you have any questions or concerns, please give us a call at Common Cause Rhode Island at 401-861-2322, or drop us a note at contact@commoncauseri.org and we'll be happy to help you. Happy redistricting!