Yesterday Tom Schaller offered some acute analysis of trends in congressional elections, and suggested that the next round of decennial redistricting, which will be strongly affected by state elections in 2010, could be a game-changer in terms of the partisan balance of power.
I couldn't agree more, which is why I want to share some preliminary analysis I did back in December for The Democratic Strategist that included thoughts about the likely 2010 battlegrounds for control of redistricting.
Here was my take after a close look at those states where control of redistricting appears to be in play for 2010:At present, Democrats control the governorship and the legislature in 17 states, while Republicans have complete control in 10 states (22 states have divided party control, and one, Nebraska, has a nonpartisan legislature). If Janet Napolitano is confirmed as US Secretary of Homeland Security [note: this subsequently occurred], Republicans will gain complete control in AZ as well.
In terms of the upcoming redistricting process, there are six states (CA, CT, HI, RI, NV, and MN) where a gubernatorial victory would likely give Democrats complete control of state government, and four (KS, OK, TN, and WY) where the same is true for Republicans. In six states (AL, AZ, FL, GA, ID, UT) a Democratic gubernatorial takeover would disrupt what would otherwise almost certainly be complete Republican control of state government. That’s the case for Republicans in seven states (AR, CO, IL, IA, MD, MA and NM).
There are three states (MI, OH, and PA) where a realistically feasible legislative chamber victory could (if nothing else changes) give Democrats complete control of state government; the same is true for Republicans in two states (AK and IN). Meanwhile, there are four states (AK, ND, OK, TX ) where a feasible Democratic legislative chamber victory could disrupt complete Republican control of state governments, and five states (ME, NH, NY, OR, and WI) where Republicans have the same opportunity.
Add all this up, and eliminate the single-district states where congressional reapportionment is irrelevant, and the four states (AZ, CA, IA and ME) where the governor and legislature have no direct role in redistricting, and there are fully 29 states (AL, CO, CT, FL, GA, HI, ID, IL, IN, KS, MD, MA, MI, MN, NV, NH, NM, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, UT, VT, and WI) where the election results of 2010 could affect congressional redistricting.
Among these states, TX is expected to gain three U.S. House seats after reapportionment; FL should gain two; GA and UT should gain one. NY and OH are expected to lose two; IL, MI and PA should lose one.
This is a lot to absorb, I know, and that's sort of the point: partisan control of redistricting across the country is a highly complex, dynamic situation that isn't easy to generalize about--but's it's very important nonetheless. Totally aside from the impact on the future shape of the U.S. House of Representatives, state legislatures typically control their own "maps," which can have a big impact on politics and policy at the state level.
Fortunately, Democrats, at least, have a good public resource for keeping up with all these developments: a "Redistricting Update" page at the site of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), an organization that helps identify and target state legislative opportunities around the country. This page also provides news on redistricting process changes, which are almost always complicated and can be crucial in affecting state legislative maps.
The GOP counterpart to DLCC, the Republican State Leadership Committee, has a web site with lots of info on it, but doesn't seem to publicly track the sort of developments relevant to redistricting that could enable readers to keep up.
5.20.2009
Redistricting Battlegrounds
@ 2:01 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
21 comments
Can Five Thirty Eight go through each state one-by-one and give about five scenarios.
1. What if the status quo prevails and the balance of power during redistricting doesn't change as a result of the 2010 elections?
2. What if things generally break for the Dems in the 2010 election and redistricting is done in a mildly partisan manner?
3. What if things generally break for the GOP in the 2010 election and redistricting is done in a mildly partisan manner?
4. What if the Dems have a strong electoral year in 2010 and engage in extreme partisanship during redistricting?
5. What if the Dems have a strong electoral year in 2010 and engage in extreme partisanship during redistricting?
6. What is the most likely scenario given what we know know? Is the status quo most likely? If not, how is the balance of power likely to change? What are the likely partisan inclinations of the people at the state level? What sort of pressure will the state players get from DC party bosses? From grassroots partisans?
You forgot Virginia.
The Governorship there is obviously up for grabs this fall, the House of Delegates is 5 seats away from switching hands, and the Dems are expected to hold onto the State Senate there.
The website www.ncsl.org is a good source of redistricting data. I recall back in 2001-2002 they had maps which showed which party, if any, had control of redictricting. It also indicated which states the governor had some veto power over the plans. There were separate maps for Congressional redistricting versus state legislature redistricting, as the rules in some states were not the same as for Congress.
The maps did not exist until after the 2000 elections, so similar maps won't be around until after 2010. They do have articles about this topic in the meantime.
2010 Illinios Redistricting process.
Illinios is going to lose 1 seat in the 2010 Redistricting process and the Democratic controlled State Legislature needs to protect Democratic House Members in the Chicago Suburbs such as Melissa Bean (IL-8),Debbie Halverson(IL-11),and Bill Foster(IL-14). Defeat Republican House Members in the Chicago Suburbs such as Roskam(IL-6),Kirk(IL-10),and Biggert(IL-13).
Starting with IL-8(Bean). We should detach McHenry County and give it to IL-16(Manzullo) and put all of IL-10(Kirk's)Lake County base in IL-8. Making the new IL-8 a (Bean-D vs Kirk-R) general election matchup.
IL-6(Roskam) gets chopped up.
The Western Cook County and DuPage County portion of IL-6 goes to IL-14(Foster-D) district. Making the New IL-14 a (Foster-D vs Roskam-R) general election matchup. The Eastern Cook County and DuPage County portion of IL-6 goes to the remaining portion of IL-10. The Southern DuPage County portion of IL-6 goes to IL-13(Biggert-R).
Kirk-IL-10 has to run against Bean-IL-8 in which Kirk is going to lose in the November General Election. Roskam-IL-6 has to decide whether he wants to run against Foster-IL-14 which he loses in the November General Election. Run against Biggert-IL-13 in the Primary or run in the newly created district containing Northern Chicago Suburubs and Eastern DuPage County.
NY is already in complete Dem. control. Also, it won't matter what happens in AZ and IA, since redistricting in these states is not done by the state legislatures.
Tahir:
No, I didn't forget Virginia, but the document I was quoting from was intended to be an analysis that could be updated going into the 2010 cycle, so I just ignored 2009 states. But you're obviously right: Virginia will be a redistricting battleground, and in fact, that may be more important in real life than all the pundit-driven "analysis" we're going to hear about the outcome as an indicator of where the country is going politically.
There's also a gubernatorial race in NJ with redistricting implications. As I suggested, keeping up with all this stuff is like playing three-dimensional chess!
Bill:
Yes, I noted the AZ and IA procedures in coming up with a proposed final list of battleground states (I also noted NJ, which I should have remembered in writing my last comment!).
The whole issue of redistricting procedures is itself a tangled subject that merits separate discussion: there are states with commissions that make recommendations, states with commissions that actually draw maps approved or disapproved by the legislature and governor, and states where commissions make final decisions. In states with divided control, courts often make the decisions. And there are all sorts of different map-drawing criteria utilized in different states.
That's not to mention Voting Rights Act compliance, which could be greatly affected by a pending Supreme Court decision!
The best single source on "independent redistricting commissions" is the NCSL site:
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/legismgt/Com_Alter.htm
i apologize for not drinking enough coffee today and completely missing the paragraph where you pointed out AZ and IA
You are wrong about California.
While it's true that the Legislature/Governor have no role in redistricting *state legislative districts*, the proposition which created the independent redistricting commission in California *explicitly* did not cover Congressional districts. The power to draw Congressional district lines remains in the hands of the Legislature.
Scuttlebut had it that this was done because Speaker Pelosi had threatened to campaign against the measure if it included Congressional districts.
Vermont has only one house member, I doubt even the most skilled gerrymandering job there is going to do much.
Ditto Alaska and a few other states you mentioned.
Penney:
You're right about VT, which I somehow failed to strike from my final list of potential battlegrounds, but I did omit AK and all the others.
Nebraska has a non-partisan legislature? Yeah, technically, that's true. But as a practical matter, it's solidly Republican and as partisan as they come.
Then again, it hardly matters in Nebraska, I suppose, though there ARE some Democrats in Lincoln and Omaha (such as me).
Take Massachusetts off that board. There is no way redistricting will do anything to help the Republicans pick up even one seat in the Mass delegation. Trust me, Massachusetts invented gerrymandering, and the Repupublicans have lost he state so bad that only the right candidate in the right district can help them.
When the last Republican we truly liked, Bill Weld, started shilling for Bush it was over for that party in this state. Call us when the party splits and moderates can have a voice again in a party that is not the Democrats.
Indiana is definitely up for grabs. If the GOP wins the state house, they could redistrict the entire state to 1 Dem congressional district.
You note, correctly, that election of a Republican governor in Arkansas would disrupt complete Democratic control of the redistricting process. Shouldn't Arkansas be on the list of states where the 2010 elections could affect redistricting?
Not all states are created equally. States with 5 or fewer HR have a hard time gerrymandering, since they can only make so many cuts. Utah tried to gerrymander Salt Lake City as Republican in the 1990s, and they ended up with a Democrat in Provo for 3 terms and still lost SLC, giving it a 2-1 split for the Dems.
Texas is already so gerrymandered that it can't change too much. In fact, adding seats makes it hard for the legislature to keep all those new Hispanic voters in a few districts, and gerrymandering cost them 3 seats in 2006. California is similarly split, especially since Ahnuld will not be around for the gerrymandering.
New York may be a problem for Democrats if they lose the governorship, but they have made gains in the legislature and Republicans are losing ground there electorally.
I don't see big changes this time around because states are already so gerrymandered and Republicans are losing voters. At most it may cost Democrats a handful of seats, but they have a sizeable majority that should last another decade.
Pip,
You are correct about the fortunes of the Mass GOP, which makes it more remarkable that - if they can come up with a decent candidate - the could very easily knock off Patrick. Patrick joins Patterson and Cornine and Blago in the ranks of truly awful Dem Govs. I happen to think that this is an underrated aspect of the current political landscape in the country. This site tends to fixate on national numbers. Local and state dynamics, however, play very differently, and can effect the fortunes of the two parties very significantly. Upshot - it is difficult to exaggerate the corruption and incompetence of the states controlled by Democrats. I lived in both Illinois, Mass, and spend a great deal of time in basically Dem controlled California. All three are complete Banana Republics - full of criminal corruption. So are NY and NJ. These states seem to have pretty much standing committees of Federal investigators trying to drain their swamps. GOP fightback may well begin at the state level.
Shouldn't you remove states like CT (and all of New England for that matter) where one party controls the entire state Congressional delegation? It's less important how these states divvy up their seats than in states where different boundary lines could produce real partisan advantage.
I don't think the New England states are going to be affected by redistricting, but not because all the House seats are held by one party. To be affected by redistricting, you need to have:
(1) The state has to not be redistricted by an outside entity (i.e. commission)
(2) One party controlling the process (i.e. both houses of its state legislature, and the governor's office, if applicable).
(3) The party opposite of (2) holds one (or more, preferably) U.S. House seats which can be redrawn to its disadvantage.
BTW, Utah's U.S. House split is 2-1 GOP, not 2-1 Dems. And yes, the GOP tried to split SLC so Matheson would lose the seat. It did not work.
A gerrymandering attempt in Utah is assured, especially with a fourth seat to play with. Dems probably won't be able to stop it, even if Herbert becomes unpopular between the time Huntsman resigns and the 2010 special election, and the Dems can find a good candidate — rather than a sacrificial lamb like last time.
A legislative upset in either chamber is astronomically unlikely, and it's long odds that the Dems could gain the Governor's office. Further gerrymandering in Utah is guaranteed, but the demographic shifts over the last ten years will limit the damage.
The Utah State Legislature will likely try to gerrymander the congressional districts to get an all-Republican delegation. I don't think that they can pack and crack what they likely think of as the "blue stain" that stretches from Tooele to Park City across northern Salt Lake County enough to get an all-R delegation, though. They weren't able to after the 2000 census, and there's been enough Dem-leaning people move in since then that it's unlikely they'll be able to now, even with an extra seat to play with.
If they realize this they may be able to settle for a 3-1 delegation. If they don't, they might overreach (such as by putting the three Dem-leaning counties in eastern Utah in with northeastern SLCo, which is what's kept Matheson in office) and make it so the Dems can pick up a second seat, sometime before 2020, even if not in 2012 itself.
interesting breakdown. however with the GOP rudderless: http://www.newsy.com/videos/gop_soul_search
it will be interesting to see what role independents and moderates will have on the new face of the legislature.
Post a Comment