[EL] Redistricting Commissions and Republicans

Sat Oct 29 17:22:08 PDT 2011

I'd agree with Justin that Republican lack of success in commission states
means Republican opposition to commissions. The CA commission provided
Democrats with significant opportunities to gain seats. But without the
Commission, the Democrats would have had total control of redistricting in
CA and the plan would have been significantly more pro-Democrat (with a
focus on locked-in Dem seats, rather than the Commission's provision of
significant opportunities to gain seats). 

In both CA and AZ, the Democrats have proven much more successful at
maneuvering in the commission environment. That doesn't necessarily mean
Republicans will oppose commissions (especially in California, where the
odds of Republicans gaining control by 2021 of even one house of the
legislature are near-zero and the governorship seems like a long shot). I
suspect it's more likely that the Republicans will spend a lot of time
studying what happened this time around, and trying to be more effective in
2021 (just as the Democrats in CA and AZ spent a lot of time preparing for
2011 by studying what worked and what did not work for them in Arizona in
2001).

One final note: be careful about lumping the commission states together: AZ
and CA are independently selected commissions that also operate
independently. WA and ID are partisan-nominated commissions that then
operate independently. NJ has an equal number of partisan appointees and a
court-named "tiebreaker" if needed. There are a significant differences
among the different structures.

AZ may be a case where Republicans move to abolish a commission. In AZ
Republican control of both houses of the Legislature (with 2/3 majorities in
both) and the Governorship, and there is talk of attempting to abolish the
commission there. But at this time that's still just talk. In part it's a
reaction to how badly Democrats have outmaneuvered the Republicans with the
Commission in AZ.

- Doug

Douglas Johnson

Fellow

Rose Institute of State and Local Government

m 310-200-2058

o 909-621-8159

douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Justin
Levitt
Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2011 4:58 PM
To: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/29/11

I don't doubt Rick's projection: some will see the redistricting facts
below, and draw the conclusion Rick that suggests may be drawn.  But that'd
be a pretty shabby reason to draw that conclusion.

This is a version of the correlation-causation problem that I've discussed
<http://www.senate.gov/fplayers/jw57/urlMP4Player.cfm?fn=judiciary090811p&st
=4914&dur=2700>  in the ID context.  Once again, the data comes from a
really small sample of states: "Dems made gains" in California, might
possibly make gains in Arizona, probably won't in Washington, and didn't in
Idaho.  In 2 out of 4 states with independent commissions for congressional
lines, Dems seem to have done better in this cycle; in the other 2, they
seem to have done about the same.  If four people play a single hand of
blackjack, and 2 out of 4 win one hand and the other two push, that doesn't
really tell you much about their chances of continuing to win against the
house.  I'll happily take the other side of that bet.

In addition to the exceedingly small number of data points, the causation
argument also doesn't account for all of the other factors at play, other
than the fact that commissions were involved.  In the last cycle, for
example, California's notorious plan aimed to preserve as many incumbent
seats as possible, including some significant Republican-leaning
gerrymanders.  Perhaps the change in this cycle is simply regression to the
mean.  Perhaps not.  My point is that there's just not enough information to
know whether it's the fact of a commission doing this work, or some other
factor (or dozens of other factors).  And I'm not the only one on this list
to have made that point: see, e.g., here
<http://department-lists.uci.edu/pipermail/law-election/2011-October/001412.
html>  and here
<http://department-lists.uci.edu/pipermail/law-election/2011-October/001415.
html> .

As I've written <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1710191> , even when a commission
is well-designed, there may be good reasons to prefer commissions, and good
reasons not to prefer commissions.  (And not every commission is
well-designed: there are Aston Martins of the commission world, and there
are Pintos of the commission world.  Details are important.)  But the
political results so far from the 2011 cycle don't add up to a reason one
way or another: the fact that California's commission in the 2011 cycle may
have resulted in a net gain of a few seats favoring Democrats doesn't really
tell you much about a different variation of the form in a different state
in a different year.

Justin

On 10/28/2011 8:30 PM, Rick Hasen wrote: 

 <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=24737> "2012 redistricting update:
Republicans and Democrats fighting to a draw in battle for new seats" 

Posted on  <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=24737> October 28, 2011 2:50 pm by
Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>  

According to The Fix
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/2012-redistricting-update-
republicans-and-democrats-fighting-to-a-draw-in-battle-for-new-seats/2011/10
/28/gIQAoM9uPM_blog.html> , Republicans made gains with partisan
redistricting but Dems made gains in states with redistricting commissions.

If this pans out, it is likely to increase Republican opposition to
commission-based districting.

<http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%
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Posted in citizen commissions <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=7> ,
redistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>  | Comments Off 

-- 
Justin Levitt
Associate Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA  90015
213-736-7417
justin.levitt at lls.edu
ssrn.com/author=698321
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