If you did speak out against 77, Tom, and, more to the immediate point, in your comments corrected some of the wildly exaggerated assertions that were pervasive in the press, then that is a pertinent response to my question and I am glad to know of it.
Best,
Daniel Lowenstein
UCLA Law School
405 Hilgard
Los Angeles, California 90095-1476
310-825-5148
________________________________
Van: Thomas Mann [mailto:TMANN@brookings.edu]
Verzonden: di 5/23/2006 12:03
Aan: Lowenstein, Daniel; election-law
Onderwerp: RE: RE: Electionlawblog news and commentary 5/22/06
Dan is being a bit too harsh with his scholarly colleagues who disagree
with him on the efficacy of redistricting reform. While a proponent of
redistricting reform, I actually opposed Proposition 77 and often spoke
and wrote publicly about the limited but nonetheless consequential
impact of gerrymandering on competition and polarization. There is a
middle ground, especially among scholars who have entered the political
fray, between Dan's vehement opposition to taking redistricting out of
the hands of state legislatures and those who would accept even the most
gerry-rigged process to deal what they see as the dominant cause of
uncompetitive elections.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
[mailto:owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu] On Behalf Of
Lowenstein, Daniel
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 10:15 AM
To: election-law
Subject: RE: RE: Electionlawblog news and commentary 5/22/06
In general, the scholarly literature on gerrymandering is
careful and qualified. The same is not true in popular debate. In the
California Prop 77 campaign, for example, the press was filled with
statements that the partisanship of virtually all districts was
absolutely frozen, that the choice of the voters was irrelevant, that
the Republicans had locked themselves in for the entire decade, etc. It
was rarely if ever pointed out that the stability in the last several
House elections was matched by equal stability in the way people voted.
Now, in this discussion, all the scholars are rushing in with
qualifications. But I'd like to see someone point to a single example
of any of these scholars entering into the popular debate in 2005 with
similar qualifications.
I am struggling with a Flemish keyboard, so I'll leave it at
that.
Best,
Daniel Lowenstein
UCLA Law School
405 Hilgard
Los Angeles, California 90095-1476
310-825-5148
________________________________
Van: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu namens Thomas Mann
Verzonden: ma 5/22/2006 6:01
Aan: Michael McDonald; election-law
Onderwerp: RE: RE: Electionlawblog news and commentary 5/22/06
In response to Michael's question about nonuniform national swing, as
Butler and Stokes demonstrated in Political Change in Britain and I
confirmed for U.S. elections in Unsafe At Any Margin, large national
swings are on average proportional to prior party strength. So, for
example, the mean 1972-74 Democratic swing was 12.6 % in safe Republican
districts (60 %+R), 8 % in competitive districts (60 To 40 %R), and 3.8
% in safe Democratic districts (40 %-R). There was also a good deal of
variation around these means. This suggests a strong Democratic tide in
2006 will roll over Republican incumbents who last won their seats with
comfortable margins.
________________________________
From: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu on behalf of Michael
McDonald
Sent: Mon 5/22/2006 6:50 PM
To: 'election-law'
Subject: RE: RE: Electionlawblog news and commentary 5/22/06
I don't agree with Ronald's analysis of "the most competitive" Texas
statewide race in 2002 as a basis for claiming a third of the Texas
congressional seats will come into play with a 5% vote swing. Checking
the
Texas SoS website, The margin of victory in the 2002 LT governor's race
was
5.74%, the next closest was the Commissioner of the General Land Office
at
11.68% and the average of eight statewide offices, including the Chief
Justice, was 16.79%. I rather doubt that the 2002 LT governor race is
representative of the underlying partisanship of Texas.
I agree, however, that a uniform vote swing model is most likely
incorrect
(anyone who reads the fine print of the academic articles by authors as
early as Tufte will see the caveats in this regard). Though, without
knowing where the qualified candidates and money are this far in advance
of
an election, it is the best that we can go on at this point. Indeed, I
rather expect that the Democrats will do better in terms of their
overall
vote totals simply on the fact that they are fielding more candidates in
uncompetitive races -- races that would have previously been uncontested
by
a Democrat -- and Republicans are not fielding a like number in
uncompetitive Democratic districts.
I've heard it mentioned before that the "non-uniform" (for the lack of a
better word) vote swings are concentrated in competitive races. I
wonder if
that is true. It could be just as likely that a larger amount of the
overall swing comes from second-tier competitive districts (because the
favored party is fielding more qualified challengers than in other
elections) or from the uncompetitive districts (because any challenger
is
fielded). I suppose one could estimate the normal vote for a given
election
and then observe where the largest error occurs. Anyone know of such a
study?
As for David's question, 7.5% does seem to be a large number (btw, I
mean
57.5% of the two-party vote), but I haven't done a similar study for
previous elections, so I can't say with authority how unusual it is.
But,
perhaps there is a paper worth writing here about where vote swings are
concentrated that would produce the statistic as a by-product.
I am skeptical that Hispanic turnout is going to be much higher in this
election. Like it or not, midterm elections are low-turnout affairs and
given the lower socio-economic status among Hispanics, they will likely
vote
at the low rates as they have done in previous elections. Even in
California, where Hispanics were organized and mobilized in the 1990s by
Prop. 187, 2004 CVAP turnout among Hispanics (from the CPS) was 46.9%
while
among white non-Hispanics it was 70.6% (see:
http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/voting/cps2004/tab04a.xls, plus
my
calculations).
Finally, why incumbency is collapsing into uncompetitive seats is that,
as
Jacobson points out, there was a lot of sorting of mis-matched
incumbents
into similar partisan-leaning districts in the last round of
redistricting.
------------
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Assistant Professor, George Mason University
Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institution
Mailing address:
(o) 703-993-4191 George Mason University
(f) 703-993-1399 Dept. of Public and International Affairs
mmcdon@gmu.edu 4400 University Drive - 3F4
http://elections.gmu.edu Fairfax, VA 22030-4444
-----Original Message-----
From: rkgaddie@ou.edu [mailto:rkgaddie@ou.edu]
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006 5:37 PM
To: David Lublin
Cc: Michael McDonald; 'election-law'; owner-election-
law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: Re: RE: Electionlawblog news and commentary 5/22/06
Good points made by David.
How much of that incumbency advantage is personal anymore? Oppenheimer
points out that the incumbency advantage is collapsing onto general
party
safety in districts. Abramowitz has been tracking a similar collapse
of
congressional partisanship into presidential partisanship. The exit
poll
data in 2004 also confirm that the presidential vote and congressional
vote are now generally structured by ideology. So, if voters do go
south
for Republicans, it may be that large numbers of seats have sufficient
partisan capacity to weather the storm.
But, as David also points out, these will not be uniform swings . . .
I
would be concerned for Republicans in every district in California,
but
also in districts where there are large Latino, citizen populations -
say
the 3-10% range - that are undervoting. The current political
environment
makes this undermobilized electorate potent for a general election
with an
embattled GOP incumbent or a usually Republican open seat.
Even the districts in Texas showed a potential to swing dramatically,
despite the nature of the gerrymander. The graphic I attached shows
the
seat swing from the 2002 LTGV in Texas (most competitive seat), based
on
uniform one-point shifts in the vote statewide (Alford and I presented
similar graphics in our reports in 2003). About a third of the seats
in
Texas that are currently in GOP hands could come into play based on a
five-point shift. There are structural biases, but they are
insufficient
to mitigate great political tides.
_____________________________
Ronald Keith Gaddie
Professor of Political Science
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@ou.edu
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/G/Ronald.K.Gaddie-1