[EL] House votes vs seats in AZ & CA

Wed Nov 21 19:50:27 PST 2012

Redistricting authorities are so incredibly powerful. Not only can they
determine the partisan composition of districts using past election results,
but according to the commentary on this thread from knowledgeable
redistricting experts they are able to forecast how candidates run their
campaigns -- the quality of the candidates, the money they raise, the
success of their messaging, and even gaffes and scandals -- and predict
changes in demography as well as state and national mood swings to
ultimately precisely determine vote shares.

Or, the more reasonable way to assess redistricting intent and effects is to
examine manipulation of baseline partisanship of the districts using an
average of statewide elections, and not the election results for the
redistricted offices. This baseline partisanship is one of many factors that
feed into election outcomes. I will grant that candidate quality may also be
affected by redistricting through incumbent displacement gerrymanders, but
the rest is out of redistricting authorities' control.

I classify New Jersey's congressional commission and Washington's commission
as bipartisan commissions, not independent commissions like CA and AZ. New
Jersey's state legislative commission is more independent in character,
given that the New Jersey Supreme Court has historically chosen a neutral
tie-breaker. 

The tie-breaker for New Jersey's congressional commission decided that a
fair division of the state was to draw 6 Democratic and 6 Republican leaning
seats using averaging of statewide vote shares, in a state that Obama won
58.0% to 40.9%. To accomplish this "fair" outcome, Democrats were packed
such that Democratic congressional candidates won 299,040 more votes --
according to the AP -- than Republicans, or 55.5% of the votes, but only won
50% of the 12 seats. This Republican bias of +5.5% greatly reduces Nick's
average calculated across the four states he chose to analyze. The average
vote share of the Democratic candidates in Democratic winning districts was
73.2% while the average Republican vote share in Republican winning
districts was 58.6% (the lowest vote share for a winning Democratic
candidate was 63%.3%). Since levels of competition are related to turnout,
the lower levels of competition in the Democratic districts likely resulted
in lower turnout. With greater turnout in the uncompetitive Democratic
districts, the Democratic congressional candidate statewide lead would have
probably been greater, considering Obama won 58.0% of the vote but
Democratic congressional candidates only vote 55.5% of the vote. These vote
shares thus further illustrate how campaign effects distort gerrymandering
measures based solely on election outcomes to the districts in question.

For full disclosure, I served as a consultant for the Democratic members of
the New Jersey congressional redistricting commission.

============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor
George Mason University
4400 University Drive - 3F4
Fairfax, VA 22030-4444

703-993-4191 (office)
e-mail:  mmcdon at gmu.edu               
web:     http://elections.gmu.edu
twitter: @ElectProject     

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Gaddie,
Ronald K.
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 3:57 PM
To: Sean Parnell; 'Nicholas Stephanopoulos'
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] House votes vs seats in AZ & CA

Hence the 'quotes' . . . ;) 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Ronald Keith Gaddie, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science
Editor, Social Science Quarterly
The University of Oklahoma
455 West Lindsey Street, Room 222
Norman, OK  73019-2001
Phone 405-325-4989
Fax 405-325-0718
E-mail: rkgaddie at ou.edu
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/G/Ronald.K.Gaddie-1
http://socialsciencequarterly.org
________________________________________
From: Sean Parnell [sean at impactpolicymanagement.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 2:49 PM
To: 'Nicholas Stephanopoulos'; Gaddie, Ronald K.
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: RE: [EL] House votes vs seats in AZ & CA
It’s been a while since I’ve seen California and New Jersey referred to as
“good government states.” ;-> 

Which maybe helps to illustrate that ‘good government’ might be something
other than having the ‘right’ ethics/campaign finance/lobbying/election
laws.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Best,

Sean Parnell
President
Impact Policy Management, LLC
6411 Caleb Court
Alexandria, VA  22315
571-289-1374 (c)
sean at impactpolicymanagement.com

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Nicholas
Stephanopoulos
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 2:49 PM
To: Gaddie, Ronald K.
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] House votes vs seats in AZ & CA

Here's a slightly more rigorous analysis: Four states with at least five
districts each (Arizona, California, New Jersey, and Washington) used
commissions this cycle, and they had an average partisan bias of 3.7% in the
Democratic direction. Twenty states with at least five districts each
allowed politicians to draw district lines, and they had an average partisan
bias of 10.0% in the Republican direction. I'd say that's a pretty good
record for the good-government states...

Nick
On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 1:12 PM, Gaddie, Ronald K. <rkgaddie at ou.edu> wrote:
So, if I read this right, in commission-based, 'good government'
redistricting states, there was an eleven-point swing bonus for the
Democrats, and in one instance a minority of the votes resulted in a
majority of the seats?

Ronald Keith Gaddie, Ph.D.
Professor of Political Science
Editor, Social Science Quarterly
The University of Oklahoma
455 West Lindsey Street, Room 222
Norman, OK  73019-2001
Phone 405-325-4989
Fax 405-325-0718
E-mail: rkgaddie at ou.edu
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/G/Ronald.K.Gaddie-1
http://socialsciencequarterly.org
________________________________________
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on behalf of Douglas Johnson
[djohnson at ndcresearch.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 1:52 PM
To: 'Rick Hasen'; law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] House votes vs seats in AZ & CA
This article notes that in AZ, according to the latest votes counts,
Democratic House candidates received 44.6 % of votes and won 55.56% of
seats. 

In California – the other state where an independently-selected and
independently-acting commission controls redistricting – according to the
vote counts on Nov. 20 Democratic House candidates won 60.2% of votes and
71.7% of seats. 

All House races in California have been called by AP, though 1.2 million
ballots remain to be counted.

Both states saw a number of close elections. At one point, seven of the nine
not-yet-decided elections in the country (as counted by The Hill newspaper)
were in AZ and CA.

-        Doug

Douglas Johnson, Fellow
Rose Institute of State and Local Government
at Claremont McKenna College 
douglas.johnson at cmc.edu
310-200-2058 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Rick
Hasen
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 9:13 AM
To: law-election at UCI.edu
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/21/12
“Guest Column: Arizona’s nonpartisan redistricting creates fairer election
outcomes” 
Posted on November 21, 2012 8:49 am by Rick Hasen 
Elliott Weiss has written this oped for the Arizona Daily Star.

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-- 
Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos
Assistant Professor of Law
University of Chicago Law School
nsteph at uchicago.edu
(773) 702-4226
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/stephanopoulos