It’s nice to see Shay and the 7 Days crowd gradually backing away from the overdone-to-the-point-of-kinda-weird fixation on UVM soap operas and back to what they do best. Totten’s column this week had some interesting insights into the tri-partisan Legislative Apportionment Board tasked with drawing up a template for redistricting. Of course, the truth is the activities of the Board are only marginally more relevant than the UVM drama.

The Board’s work, in the end, won’t matter whatsoever. As always, the final decision will be made by the Legislature – a Legislature that is overwhelmingly Democratic, and they have nothing to gain by even giving an audience to any radical changes offered by the Board that would inhibit or otherwise work against them. Even to the most triangulating of Dems, there is no political advantage to offering any gimmes to republicans in an arena that very few voters are interested in. In fact, making a major deviation from the status quo runs the risk of riling up voters who have little problem with the way things are (although even that much public interest is unlikely).

Let’s be clear: there is no special expertise to do this. The Maptitude software which will be available to the Legislative caucuses and the Democratic Secretary of State is point-and-click easy. Click this town into that district, see how much the population fits into the target range for a one or two member district. Don’t like that one, point and click on another one. I played it like a video game when I worked at the state Party during the last redistricting (although I bet the bells and whistles are cooler now – I always hoped they’d add a way to make the districts go to war against each other).

So at the end of this pointless intellectual gamesmanship underway in the Board meetings, the only positive effect will be that Dem Board member Gerry Gossens (a sharp dude) will emerge informed and well-versed in the statistics and dynamics of redistricting, and be in an ideal position to advise legislative Dems and shepherd the process.

The other effects? Well, those are kind of funny and run from the utterly meaningless to the absurdly self-destructive…

In the utterly meaningless camp, put Board member and charter Democrat for Douglas Frank Cioffi. Cioffi’s been a real weasel working against Democratic interests from Franklin County for years, in particular as a staunch ally/booster/spokesmodel for Jim Douglas and his agenda. The fact that he’s on this Board as one of the (Douglas) appointed representatives of the Democratic Party finally gives him something besides his perennial support of U.S. Representative Peter Welch that he can use to prove that he really is a Democrat! No, really! See how much he’s fightin’ for us! Oh, Yay!.

Pflpt. “Too little too late” doesn’t begin to cover it, Mr. Cioffi. Nobody’s buying it.

In the marginally self-destructive arena is the exercise in futility that Republican Board members Neale Lunderville and Rob Roper are engaged in – an attempt to make radical changes under the thinnest and most meaningless of rationales, all to forward a new map and system they feel will better promote their candidates. Mr. Roper will doubtlessly take to the radio waves and the internet to make it into the next far right cause, but it won’t resonate whatsoever. The only effect of this pre-show, then, will be to give Dems all the time in the world to marginalize the arguments (to whatever extent they need bother) before the actual debate even begins.

To understand the more significantly self-destructive subplot, you have to understand some history involving another Board member; Progressive Steve Hingtgen.

Board member Hingtgen was in the Legislature during the last redistricting, and he used to come to the Democratic Party offices to work over the software with the Democratic legislators as a team. Sounds all kumbaya and feelgood, yes? Well, there were two problems.

The first problem was that Burlington was going to take a hit, and districts were likely to go. Sure, there were easy – and fully demographically justifiable – ways to really stick it to the Progs and take out nearly all of their Legislators (and don’t think the idea wasn’t discussed by some behind the scenes), but this was a team, so the Dem crowd was clearly working towards sharing the pain.

The second problem was that Hingtgen was a Burlington Progressive Representative, and his Dem team was made up of non-Burlingtonians. Outside of Burlington, there’s a lot of desire in both P & D camps to see Dems and Progs work together more often. In Burlington, however, Dem-Prog wars are a bloodsport, and well-meaning members from both camps sometimes naively get burned when they cross into that arena.

So Hingtgen talked to the Rs, who ran the House at that time. He cut a deal to squeeze out more Dems from Burlington, and (I believe – not 100% sure) make some Prog friendly accommodations at Dems’ expense elsewhere as well. He dragged Progressive Mayor Clavelle into going along with it (he was reportedly pretty annoyed that it turned into more P-D partisan warfare), and the Republican-Progressive redistricting alliance was born.

By this point, Hingtgen stopped coming over to the VDP office…

But here’s the dumb. Sure, the GOP could pass their redistricting scheme designed to enhance and solidify their political power (and therefore, their right-wing agenda) in the House. Hingtgen didn’t mind at all, so long as the Progressive Party was enhanced, as he seemed to be from the Prog camp that saw the ultimate enemy not as the far right, but the evil Democrats. It’s a market share thing, I suppose.

But the Senate was in Democratic hands. This meant that the final decision on the new districts was going to be made in the House-Senate Conference Committee… made up of Democrats and Republicans only. No Progressives.

Hingtgen had this explained to him. He was told if he stayed away from the dark side, he would end up  in a position of ongoing influence with his original D partners – through that caucus – while the Republicans wouldn’t hesitate to give him the heave ho when it came right down to it. After all, we were talking about districts that the Rs could never win an election in, so how much were they going to care, really?

No dice – naturally.

And, of course, that’s exactly how it went down. The spectacle of Hingtgen furiously denouncing the evil backroom, anti-democratic dealmaking (that he was cut out of) during the final House vote on the conference committee bill was somewhere between cathartic, pathetic and embarrassing. In the end, the Progs and Dems each took a hit – and many Progressive activists to this day look back with scorn on the evil Democratic plot to get Carina Driscoll’s district cuz they were so scared of her (again, blissfully unaware that Dems could’ve done far more damage to the Progs and not fallen on their own sword if they’d been the hardball types).

So flash forward to today – and what’s Hingtgen doing on the Board according to Shay?

Why, he’s teaming up with the Republicans again.

And this time, the team-up will be even more pointless – since this whole freaking Board is meaningless. All it will do is remind all the Democratic legislators who were involved ten years ago of the shenanigans back then, and in the process dredge up a lot of pointless bad feelings towards Progressive Party interests among the majority party.

Brilliant.

And the wheel goes round and round….