<x-flowed>In reviewing news coverage of the Texas ruling, I am puzzled by the
comments of many analysts, including some active on this list, that
suggest the only kind of mid-decade redistricting we should
anticipate is when the motivation is partisan advantage.
Surely a driving calculation in much redistricting involves
sweetheart deals to protect incumbents of both parties. Most
editorial writers and news analysts greatly overstate the role that
partisan districting has in creating the entrenched incumbency and
unaccountable leadership we see in so many of our legislatures, but
at the same time, we certainly all know of many circumstances where
the partisanship of a district was tweaked bs by a few percentage
points to give a potentially vulnerable incumbent more of a cushion.
I would think we could regularly start seeing more of this
mini-redistricting in the wake of the Texas ruling. For instance:
* Suppose one party has firm control of its districting -- let's take
the Florida legislature as an example. Suppose further that in the
November 2006 elections two Republican congressional incumbents and
four Republican state legislators have races that are too close for
comfort. Wouldn't it seem likely that we'd see some modest adjusting
of district lines (as recently done in Georgia) to help their side?
* Suppose there's a state with bipartisan control of redistricting in
which each party has one long-serving incumbent who is having closer
races than anticipated. Might the two parties do a sweetheart deal to
each help the other's incumbent out?
As an aside, look more from our organization this summer that I trust
will help inform the debate about why incumbents are more entrenched
than ever -- both about how incumbents are running farther and
farther above their projected partisanship and about the basis for
most partisan imbalances being founded in the natural geograhyof
today's partisan division. You can get a preview of the latter by
seeing our analysis of the "shrinking battleground" in presidential
elections in our "Presidential Election Inequality" report at
www.fairvote.org/presidential
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
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