Subject: Re: Why won't mid-decade redistricting bee done simply to protect incumbents?
From: rkgaddie@ou.edu
Date: 6/29/2006, 7:19 AM
To: JMWice@aol.com
CC: rr@fairvote.org, election-law@majordomo.lls.edu

It is difficult to reshape the three New Mexico districts and make any significant Democratic gains without inviting a potential Shaw challenge.  You'd have to really pack the districts, which are highly competitive on their face, and in the process you'd be narrowly tailoring by race.  The effort to create a south New Mexico M-M district in state court in 2001 led the court to conclude that the so called "south valley" district, which started in Bernalillo county and then flared out toward the southern corners of the state, did not satisfy the concept of a compact minority electorate for Gingles prong number one. So it is difficult to get there from here based on previous experience.

In South Carolina, Jack Spratt's security defies a redistricting effect, and Clyburn's district is one that Republicans have no incentive to mess with. 

So, a remap in those two states might net the incumbent party one seat, max . . .

_____________________________
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

----- Original Message -----

From: JMWice@aol.com

Date: Thursday, June 29, 2006 8:52 am

Subject: Re: Why won't mid-decade redistricting bee done simply to protect incumbents?

> For the most part, it's too late this year to make any
> redistricting changes,
> however slight, to impact the 2006 elections (and not counting
> remedial
> action in Texas).   From my survey of states, there are few one-
> party controlled
> states likely to revisit redistricting. I also doubt we'll see
> sweetheart deals
> in two-party control states.   It took Georgia's legislature
> several months
> earlier this year to change the 2004 plan.
>
> We really have to wait and see what happens after the November
> elections and
> new legislative leaderships and Governors get 2007 sessions
> underway. There
> are also legitimate questions whether state legislatures should
> amend their own
> plans. There are approximately nine states with either court-drawn
> state
> legislative or congressional plans. Of those states, only New
> Mexico and South
> Carolina have one party control (I would add Maine, but Democrats
> already have the
> Senate, House, and congressional districts).
>
> Jeff Wice
>