Our organization is neutral on the California redistricting measure and
I'm in fact very sympathetic to its goals of removing partisan and
personal corruption from the redistricting process. Nevertheless, I did
want to clarify one part of the Rose Institute analysis referenced by
Douglas Johnson below that was touched on in my remarks in a Los
Angeles Times article yesterday about the Institute's report.
The Institute's analysis suggests that passage of the redisticting
measure would lead to an increase from no competitive congressional
districts to ten congressional districts. But this big jump in
competitiveness is based zlmost entirely on the Institute using two
different approaches to measuring competivness.
To demonstrate current of competition, the Institute focuses on past
results. Thus, if Loretta Sanchez wins big in a district that now is
50%-50% in a reasonable measure of partisanship in federal elections,
the district is called "non-competitive." But for analysis of a
prospective new plan, they look at the underlying measures of
partisanship, as of course there are no results available.
Here's the problem. Using FairVote's measures of partisanship (ones
that have been such a powerful predictive tool in our Monopoly Politics
reports), there in fact are four districts that are within a 47%-53%
partisanship range and fully nine that are within the 45% to 55% range
(counting two that are 55.3% Republican) that the Rose Institute deems
competitive in the potential new districts. The four most competiive
current districts (three of which are held by Democrats, interestingly
enough) by underlying partisanship are:
- CA-47, Sanchez, 50% partisan district based on 2004 presidential
results (down from 58% -- a very significant shift, by the way, that is
consistent with shifts toward Republicans in several California
districts with heavy Latino populations)
- CA-20, Costa, 52% Democratic partisanship
- CA 18, Cardoza, 51% Democratic partisanship
- CA 11, Pombo, 53% Republican partisanship
Furthermore, just as these theoretically competitive districts in the
current plan don't lead to competition in many situations where
entrenched incumbents have developed their standard edge due to a
variety of incumbent advantages (which on average boost an incumbents'
vote share by about 7%, in our analysis of past races), the prospective
new plan would likely not mean competitive elections in all or even
most of the potentially competitive races.
That means some 90% of congressional districts in California would
generally be non-competitive under the new plan, which wouldn't be out
of line with what we would expect in most states if their commission
didn't pro-actively try to make districts competitive. For more
evidence about why things have been getting less competitive, see our
"Shrinking Battleground" on presidential races and studies like the Pew
Research Center's report "Mapping the Political Landscape 2005." Our
nation has experienced a distinct partisan realignment in the past
century, one that was accelerated by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and
for the moment that realignment is largely finished.
It's time to confront that reality more than many have done. This is
why for us, the case for redistricting reform is largely a matter of
personal/partisan corruption, not rosy views about likely impact on
voter choice. For those who truly care about vote choice, we believe
it's necessary to be bolder about rethinking exclusive reliance on
winner-take-all elections -- and failure to do so reflects timidity
about learning about learning about international norms and about our
own electoral history with different systems that provide very
"American" results in cities like Cincinnati and states like Illinois.
For a new interesting twist on how such a change could be done in a
system quite similar to what we have now, see the description of
"single member district plus" at:
http://fairvote.org/?page=1587
Rob
Rob Richie
Executive Director
F a i r V o t e
The Center for Voting and Democracy
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 610
Takoma Park, MD 20912
www.fairvote.org
rr@fairvote.org
(301) 270-4616
Douglas Johnson wrote:
Message
For those interested in redistricting
reform:
Today the Rose Institute released a new report on the gerrymander of
California in 2001 and how the competitiveness, city and county
integrity, ethnic minority representation, and compactness is likely to
change if the voters pass Proposition 77 and new districts are drawn.
The full press release, executive summary, and full report are
available on the Rose Institute website:
http://rose.research.claremontmckenna.edu/
- Doug
Douglas Johnson
Fellow
Rose Institute of State and Local Government
doug@talksoftly.com
310-200-2058
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