[EL] Redistricting Commissions and Republicans
LMolton at aol.com
LMolton at aol.com
Mon Oct 31 00:42:32 PDT 2011
Justin:
Doug:
I agree with both of your analyses, especially Doug's first paragraph
below. Legislative redistricting in CA was expected to produce a gain of about
8 House seats for the Democrats; that now will not happen.
Also, the 2001 bipartisan gerrymander in CA locked in GOP (and Democratic)
seats as of 2000. Republicans are weaker in CA today, so any neutral
mapping will give them fewer seats at first than they had in 2001.
Obviously, a party that had a great year in a key state in 2010 would do
better with total control of redistricting than with a Commission. And if
it also had control of the same state in 2001, then it will do worse with a
Commission than it did the last time. But that does not imply that a
specific party will always do better under one system or another.
There is a political aspect to the CA story as well. I was involved in
the campaign to enact Congressional redistricting by commission (a 2010
ballot initiative). I also testified before the Commission in 2011, as an
adviser to one of the groups that presented (four) sets of maps.
Although there are two current GOP House seats that no longer exist, and
one that is now a tossup, at least three redrawn Democratic seats are in
serious jeopardy, and more could swing if Republicans regain support in the
future.
The rhetoric from some quarters that the Commission cost the GOP House
seats in CA is actually the result of intra-party disagreements. The forces
behind the successful enactment of a redistricting commission in CA (and the
top two primary in the previous election) have a view of the ideal
Republican candidate that is vastly different than that espoused by the national
party or its leaders. There are now opportunities for Republicans to make
gains in CA over the next decade that would never have existed without a
commission. But that is considered a defeat by some Republicans, because the
winners won't be strong social and anti-tax conservatives. One
conservative national magazine explicitly defined one House seat as lost because a
"liberal" Republican may defeat a Democrat next year. The Commission process
will help California Republicans; it just may not help certain factions
within the party.
Larry Molton
Castro Valley CA
In a message dated 10/29/2011 5:23:47 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
djohnson at ndcresearch.com writes:
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:
_“2012 redistricting update: Republicans and Democrats fighting to a draw
in battle for new seats”_ (http://electionlawblog.org/?p=24737)
Posted on _October 28, 2011 2:50 pm_
(http://electionlawblog.org/?p=24737) by _Rick Hasen_ (http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3)
According to T_he Fix_
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/2012-redistricting-update-republicans-and-democrats-fighting-to-a-draw-in-batt
le-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://electionlawblog.org/?p=24737&title=“
2012%20redistricting%20update:%20Republicans%20and%20Democrats%20fighting%20to%20a%20draw%20in%20battle%20for%20new%20seats”&description=)
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_ (mailto:justin.levitt at lls.edu)
ssrn.com/author=698321
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