I don't think this is true, if it ever was. The "gerrymanders
are self-limiting" argument might have had some merit in a more
low-tech era, but the overwhelming success of extreme partisan
gerrymanders in winning all of the districts they're "supposed
to" in recent years suggests that computers have made it possible to
have a very biased set of districts in which everyone's seat is
safe. Right now, the best (worst?) examples are Republican, though
there's no reason it has to stay that way in the next decade. But
consider Florida, where everyone said the map would return 18 Republicans
and 7 Democrats from a 50-50 state; and, lo and behold, it did, with the
overwhelming majority of races landslides. Or the re-redistricting
plan now being litigated in Texas, where the experts seem (from the
admittedly limited sample I've read) to agree that the new map will
return 22 Republicans and 10 Democrats unless there are very substantial
swings in partisan support. In Pennsylvania, the Republicans
managed to blow one race where they'd paired a Republican and a
Democratic incumbent in a Republican-leaning district; otherwise, it
doesn't seem that partisan gerrymanders in the 21st century produce
competitive races.
Or, in short: when the disfavored party wins its minority of seats
by 75-25, and the favored party wins its majority of seats by
"only" 60-40, there's still no competition.
At 03:16 PM 12/10/2003 -0500, David Epstein wrote:
I was happy to see the Times chime
in with an editorial on Vieth this
morning, but then disappointed to see they clearly hadn't thought
the
issue through very well.
In particular, they first decry the rise of partisan gerrymandering
via
powerful computer programs, then they bemoan the lack of
competitive
races. *But these work in opposite directions!* Partisan
gerrymanders
mean that the majority party plans to win a lot of districts by a
few
votes; i.e., these will be competitive. And if they misjudge, then
they
stand to lose a lot of seats.
Contrast this with a (more typical) bipartisan gerrymander, where
everyone is safe and voters are fairly well separated into
different
districts depending on their partisan affiliation. It's this latter
case
that leads to lazy representatives, since they won't get
significant
opposition from the other party, and to polarization within
Congress,
since the electoral bases of the different representatives are
getting
relatively more extreme.
Ah, well. Redistricting is tricky, and even very smart people
sometimes
make very elementary mistakes when thinking about it.
David Epstein
J. J. Gass
Associate Counsel, Democracy Program
212-998-6281
jj.gass@nyu.edu
Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
161 Avenue of the Americas, 12th Floor
fax 212-995-4550
www.brennancenter.org