"when many "old" Republican constituents are replaced with "new" Republican constituents."

 

Parties in control do this to their own elected officials too: this is how California Democrats beat Representative Gary Condit in the 2002 primary, instead of risking his losing the November general election.

 

I suspect we may see the same thing in Ohio in 2011: Republicans may put "new" Republicans in Jean Schmidt's district to enable a 'chosen' challenger to beat her in the primary (she's had a series of very close re-election campaigns, despite having a safe Republican seat -- essentially a negative incumbency effect).

 

Bruce Cain's "The Reapportionment Puzzle" (1984) describes an extremely similar scenario in detail, though it's slightly different in that Cain focused on how removing incumbents' home residences can make districts more competitive without making any demographic changes to the districts (or at least trigger problems among the 'out' party's elected officials).

 

- Doug

 

Douglas Johnson

Fellow

Rose Institute of State and Local Government

Claremont McKenna College

o 909-621-8159

m 310-200-2058

douglas.johnson@cmc.edu

www.RoseReport.org

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu [mailto:election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Antoine Yoshinaka
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2010 10:52 AM
To: Michael McDonald; 'Election Law'
Subject: Re: [EL] Redistricting answer

 

One reason why there is an upward limit to competition may be due to partisan segregation.  Bruce Oppenheimer has some work showing that more and more Republicans live near Republicans and Democrats near Democrats.  So it may be difficult to draw districts with a good number of both R and D voters.

 

As for the finding that optimal partisan gerrymandering leads to safe districts, I would like to add one wrinkle.  Chad Murphy and I published a couple of articles (2009 Political Geography and forthcoming Political Research Quarterly) in which we show that partisan mapmakers are able to target out-party districts in a different way, by inducing population instability.  So for instance, it may be the case that an out-party Republican incumbent's district is composed mainly of Republican constituents both prior to and following redistricting (i.e., it's a safe district in terms of partisanship).  However, when many "old" Republican constituents are replaced with "new" Republican constituents, it creates an environment propitious to a competitive election.  That's what we found happened in 2002.  By looking mainly at partisanship, optimal gerrymandering models potentially miss an important source of heterogeneity which leads to competition.

 

Antoine

--------------------

Antoine Yoshinaka

Assistant Professor

Dept. of Political Science

2217 Watkins Hall

University of California, Riverside

Riverside, CA 92521

Tel:(951)827-4688

Fax:(951)827-3933

Email: antoine.yoshinaka@ucr.edu

Website: http://politicalscience.ucr.edu/people/faculty/yoshinaka/index.html

 

 

---- Original message ----

>Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:00:53 -0400

>From: election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu (on behalf of Michael McDonald <mmcdon@gmu.edu>)

>Subject: Re: [EL] Redistricting answer 

>To: "'Election Law'" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>

> 

>Owen and Grofman (Political Geography 1988) create a formal mode and find

>that partisan and incumbent protection gerrymanders are the same in terms of

>competition. I illustrate this simply in my redistricting chapter for the

>Marketplace of Democracy edited volume (edited with John Samples). My

>dissertation took this one step further and formally showed that to maximize

>expected number seats or maximize probability of majority control in the

>presence of greater volatility (i.e., partisan gerrymandering), the optimal

>response is to draw safer districts. I published elements of this in:

>Michael P. McDonald. 2008. "Redistricting and the Decline of Competitive

>Congressional Districts." in Mobilizing Democracy: A Comparative Perspective

>on Institutional Barriers and Political Obstacles.

> 

>I would not disagree on the second part about the upward limit. Read my

>Midwest Mapping Project report, which you can download at

>http://elections.gmu.edu/Redistricting.html, which generally shows something

>similar. To see what might happen if one were to directly incorporate

>competition into the redistricting criteria and balance it against other

>goals, including the Voting Rights Act -- and not demote it below the other

>criteria as Arizona did -- I recommend reading the results of the 2009 Ohio

>Secretary of State redistricting competition at

>http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/redistricting.aspx. This competition shows

>that reformers' and the voting rights community's goals are not as at odds

>with one another as one may think, that is it is possible to simultaneously

>draw a Cleveland voting rights district and to draw districts that are more

>fair and competitive than the current Ohio congressional redistricting plan.

>This competition illustrates why I favor broad public participation in

>redistricting, so that we may have a better sense of the trade-offs between

>various goals and have an informed debate about those goals and the types of

>districts that may result.

> 

>============

>Dr. Michael P. McDonald

>Associate Professor, George Mason University

>Non-Resident Senior 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: election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu

>[mailto:election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu] On Behalf Of nate@persily.com

>Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 8:05 PM

>To: Douglas Johnson; Election Law

>Subject: Re: [EL] Redistricting answer

> 

>Since 2002, about 18 percent of congressional seats have changed hands (that

>is, a D and an R have held the seat). Jason Kelly and I have a paper on this

>that we will post once we incorporate the 2010 election results.  As far as

>I can tell, the seats that changed hands were proportionally distributed

>among partisan and bipartisan gerrymanders. For every successful bipartisan

>gerrymander (e.g., California) there were others that were less successful

>(e.g. New York). Same is true for partisan gerrymanders (compare Florida

>with Pennsylvania). 

> 

>I guess one could say that gerrymanders become more unstable over the course

>of a decade, all else equal. But each decade seems to differ from the last.

>Compare the 2002 and 2004 elections with 1982 and 1994, for example.

> 

>I would say (perhaps inviting controversy) that absent intentional efforts

>to draw competitive districts, it might be difficult to draw more than about

>a third of House districts that would be likely to change hands throughout

>the decade.  However, a lot could happen in terms of shifting party ID over

>the next ten years.

> 

>Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

>