Schaller on Retaking the House

by Chris Bowers, Thu Jan 19, 2006 at 01:01:24 PM EST

Over at the Gadflyer, Tom Schaller has a really great post about Democratic opportunities and retaking the House in 2006. Among other things, he shows pretty convincing evidence that the vast majority of pickup chances for Democrats in 2006 come from outside the south and the west, and are instead clustered in the northeast and the Midwest. That may sound counter-intuitive to many here, since Democrats are already doing better outside of the south than they are elsewhere, but the information he provides is very difficult to argue with. Check it out.

Also, Schaller reveals just how badly Democrats are hurt by existing gerrymanders:

What's interesting is that Republicans have won the presidency by narrow margins the last two times (actually once; having won it by a negative margin in 2000), but there are more districts with a Republican PVI [Partisan Voting Index] because many Democrats--including almost all Congressional Black Caucus and Hispanic Caucus members--are elected from what you might call too-safe districts. That is, they are gerrymandered so as to "pack" far more Democrats into them than needed, thereby diluting the overall power of Democrats elsewhere. The most Republican district in the country belongs to Congressman Chris Cannon of Utah, with a PVI of +26.2R . Amazingly, there are 31 Democratic districts with a PVI of 26.2D or greater. That's a lot of wasted Democratic votes. The safest Republican seat still in the house is still less safe than thirty-one Democratic seats. Good lord. Existing congressional district maps, especially in states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan where Republicans had the trifecta in 2000, are a major impediment to Democrats taking back the House.

Tags: House 2006 (all tags)

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Reapportionment

"Existing congressional district maps, especially in states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan where Republicans had the trifecta in 2000, are a major impediment to Democrats taking back the House."

That's a good reason to focus energy on retaking control of state legislatures.

by danielj 2006-01-19 01:09PM | 0 recs

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Really Interesting Post

The gerrymandering is worse than I realized. I am hoping 2006 will be the type of year in which we can overcome it.

One thing that is not discussed enough is the importance of winning Governorships and state legislatures this year. The Rs cemented their majority after the 2000 census because they still controlled many Govs and state legislatures from their 1994 sweep. The state legislatures draw Congressional lines in most states and they also serve as the "farm team" for open seats.

It is just as important to win at this level as it is to win nationally.

by John Mills 2006-01-19 01:13PM | 0 recs

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Re: Really Interesting Post

a lot of these districts are the so-called minority majority districts. And it is the CBC that cries racism when their members have to be in slightly more competitive districts in order to get more democratic seats. Just look at Maryland, Illinios, Georgia, New York, and many other states.

by DaveB 2006-01-19 01:43PM | 0 recs

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Re: Really Interesting Post

The majority minority districts were an idea pushed by the Bush I Admin and are mainly in the South. There used to be districts in the South that were 25-30% minority prior to the 1992 redistricting which helped elect moderate Dems. For the most part these no longer exist due to combo of redistricting and the advent of majority minority districts.

I lived in the DC area and now live in NYC and I can't think of any district in either state that has become Repub because of majority minority districts. Both states are have lopsided Dem majorities in the House.

by John Mills 2006-01-19 03:53PM | 0 recs

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Re: Really Interesting Post

well, I don't know about the others, but Maryland is about as gerrymandered as you can get -- the 2000 redistricting allowed us to go from a 4-4 delegation to a 6-2 Democratic delegation. I don't think we can squeeze another seat out of our state.

by johnny longtorso 2006-01-19 04:09PM | 0 recs

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Are you sure it's gerrymandering?

I understand the point of the article, but I don't think you can jump from that data to the conclusion that Republicans are more guilty of gerrymandering. They are guilty in places like Texas, but the 31 districts with PVIs greater than 26.2D are not necessarily evidence of national wrongdoing. I have to guess that most of those liberal districts are urban, and urban districts are harder to break up. In other words, liberal blocs are simply more concentrated. To break up those blocs would require placing congressional boundaries along city streets, and that could raise some red flags.

by nstrauss 2006-01-19 01:43PM | 0 recs

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I agree

There's not much we can do to combat this problem other than to start winning majorities outside of cities. You simply can't cut up Manhattan, for instance, and join it with counties north of Albany. Not only would that most likely be illegal, it is anti-democratic.

To be sure, there are many districts in red states where we can share urban votes with surrounding districts, but I don't think it's very solvable.

by hotshotxi 2006-01-19 01:51PM | 0 recs

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Re: Are you sure it's gerrymandering?

Just look at IL-04 or NY-08. Urban areas are NOT hard to break up or gerrymander.

by edgeplot 2006-01-19 05:00PM | 0 recs

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Re: Are you sure it's gerrymandering?

Take a look at Eastern Pennsylvania:

These lines could easily be redrawn to make the districts more competitive. It's not like Manhattan. We're not talking about jumping over a river here. It's pretty much a 50-50 state, but the delegation is 12-7 GOP. That's gerrymandering.

You've adopted the frame of normal/wrongdoing, which inherently downplays the fact that the "normal" process, under GOP-controlled legislatures, at least, has systematically produced such loaded outcomes. If one adopts a different frame--representative/unrepresentative, say, or fair/unfair--then things look quite different. The situation is definitely unrepresentative and unfair. That's bad enough to fight against. And bad enough to be called what it is--gerrymandering: drawing lines to assure a given, pre-ordained political outcome.

by Paul Rosenberg 2006-01-20 05:17AM | 0 recs

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Re: Are you sure it's gerrymandering?

All I'm saying is that facts presented in the article are not an indication of willful gerrymandering on the part of the GOP. I'm trying to explain how the situation could be inherently disadvantageous to the Dems. No, it's not fair, and no, it's not representative. But it doesn't necessarily indicate willful gerrymandering.

I'm no expert on congressional districting, but here's another guess: that historically, many Democratic-controlled state legislatures have re-districted in ways that are distinctly disadvantateous to their own party. Not because of pressure from the right, and not because they are Republicans in disguise, but because they were trying to come up with a sane districting plan that didn't turn urban districts into sausage meat. Of course there are exceptions, but as a previous poster said, it's difficult to justify lumping parts of Manhattan with counties near Albany.

by nstrauss 2006-01-20 09:10AM | 0 recs

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Look At The Map!

Nobody's talking about Manhattan/Albany districts as the solution. Even though there's a long history of almost as elongated districts. And, there could even be a reason for them--such as representing a Hudson River district.

In short, there are an abundance of different plausible rationales for redistricting policies. There is also a fairly long history of Democrats being divided between (a) fairness, (b) incumbancy-protection deals with Reps and (c) partisanship, while Reps have only shown interest in (b) and (c), with (b) increasingly subordinated. (Heck, Tom DeLay even gave up some of his GOP voters in the Texas redistricting he engineered to give the GOP a stronger overall hold on Texas.)

In short, you arguing for a theoretical possibility that (1) is contrary to recent historical fact on the nation-wide level and (2) while plausible in describing behavior in some individual states--such as the Illinois Dems recent decision not to redistrict, does nothing to address the background against which such rationales operate.

This sort of "wishful thinking" analysis is good for hypothesis testing, but not much else when we have instances of good hard fact facing us. And in this case, we do. The arguments that Republicans advance in redistricting battles vary from state to state in a manner that reflects what will advantage them in that particular state. If the Dems try to act in a "principled" manner that takes no cognizance of this strategy, that naivete borders on criminal and treasonous.

by Paul Rosenberg 2006-01-20 09:42AM | 0 recs

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Play tough and redistrict back

Playing hard is the only way to beat GOP. We should threat with gerrymandering every blue state if the GOP don't back off and restore the old district maps.

by Populism2008 2006-01-19 02:02PM | 0 recs

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Re: Play tough and redistrict back

Why don't we just redistrict every blue state?

by Matthew Gertz 2006-01-19 02:21PM | 0 recs

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Re: Play tough and redistrict back

Agree 100%. We should have done in Illinois what the Rs did in Texas and screwed Denny Hastert.

by John Mills 2006-01-19 03:58PM | 0 recs

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Good news from The Gadflyer

There are 10 Congressional Districts on this list without a Democrat running. They are:

Delaware At Large
NY 3, 13 (King and Fossella)
NJ 4
FL 10
GA 11
Iowa 4
Michigan 3,7
Minnesota 3

Some seats not listed were fairly competitive in 2004 as well. NY 29, Mr. Massa? How bout the scandal districts like Ney's or Cunningham's?

by David Kowalski 2006-01-19 03:47PM | 0 recs

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Re: Good news from The Gadflyer

The NY filing deadline is not until July and there are Dems seriously talking about running against both King and Fossella. These are tough districts for us. They did vote for Kerry and Gore but it generally doesn't trickle down ballot but in the right year we might be able to take them.

by John Mills 2006-01-19 03:57PM | 0 recs

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Every super-solid Dem district

is made up of Dem's who are available to campaign in a neighboring district that's more competitive.

Prior to redistricting to a more fair makeup, we can make the most of the situation by venturing a few miles down the road and campaigning for the Dem's congressional candidate. And by getting our fellow Dem's to do the same.

I don't have data to back me up, but I suspect that Dems in these districts would respond well to an appeal to get active "next door", since it doesn't take a genius to realize that your vote in a super-safe district literally doesn't make a difference.

by PeterB 2006-01-19 05:52PM | 0 recs

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Redistricting

If redistricting is based on the citizen population NY and MI along with other blue states will gain seats while CA would be the only Dem state to loose seats, but this would be more than offset by Dem gains in the North East. Rep. Miller (R-MI) wanted to amend the constitution to only count citizens but strangely no Dems supported her. The GOP knows that most illegals will stay and they are concentrated in the South. To keep illegals from becoming legal and vote, they want to deny children of illegal aliens US citizenship. Thus, they would have more non-voters in the South, the electoral power of the southern whites enhanced and the GOP stays in power due to the bigger proportion of illegals in the south.
Had only citizens been counted in census, Bush would have lost the 2000 elections, as NY would have had 5 more seats, PA 3 more, IL 4 more, CT 1 more, MI 3 more which would have offset CA (8 less). Gore would have had 273 electoral votes instead of 267. If we only count citizens for redistricting, we will not have another GOP President for a very long time. Dems should consider giving support to this proposal.

by Boilermaker 2006-01-19 06:39PM | 0 recs

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Another Way of Slicing It

In their recently-published book, Off Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy, political scientists Jacob Hacker of Yale and Paul Pierson of UC Berkeley, identify two major building blocks of conservative power. One is the combination of informal networks of power that coordinate elections on the one hand and legislation on the other. The K Street Project is an integral part of this. The way the House is run today is also part of it.

Second is the recent growth of safe districts, making primary challenges from the right more threatening than general election challenges from Democrats. They also favor Republicans enormously: Democrats would have to win 57 percent of the House vote nationwide to gain a bare majority in the House, according to an analysis they cite by Michael P. McDonald of George Mason University. That's probably over-stating things, since there's likely to be enormous seat-by-seat variability based on competetiveness. But the Dems definitely need to win well more than 50% of the votes to get 50% of the seats.

by Paul Rosenberg 2006-01-20 05:47AM | 0 recs