<x-flowed>From: "Kimball, David C." <kimballd@msx.umsl.edu>
To: <election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu>
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 10 Jan 2006 19:11:19.0687 (UTC) FILETIME=[A354B970:01C61619]



The post about the Texas brief on political competition reminded me to
add something.  There are a number of studies which find that
redistricting is not to blame for the decline in competitive contests or
for the incumbency advantage in American congressional elections,
including this article from the January 2006 issue of Journal of
Politics by Alan Abramowitz and his colleagues
(http://journalofpolitics.org/files/68_1/Incumbency.pdf).  Not everyone
agrees with this finding, but I didn't see any of the studies which
claim to exonerate redistricting cited in the Pildes, Issacharoff, and
Neuborne brief.

- David Kimball

=20

David C. Kimball

Associate Professor, Department of Political Science

University of Missouri-St. Louis

One University Blvd., 347 SSB

St. Louis, MO 63121-4400

phone: 314-516-6050

web page: http://www.umsl.edu/~kimballd

=20





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