House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New Mexico?

by Jonathan Singer, Thu Dec 14, 2006 at 12:43:17 PM EST

This afternoon Roll Call's Josh Kurtz reports that with solid control of more state legislatures and governorships around the country some Democrats are beginning to think about redrawing congressional districts around the country to help solidify the gains made on November 7 -- and perhaps even create more Democratic-leaning districts.

New Mexico Democrats, frustrated by their inability to defeat Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), now are openly talking about redrawing the state's Congressional district boundaries prior to the 2008 elections.

There are a number of potential political downsides for the Democrats should they opt to redistrict mid-census, whether in New Mexico or elsewhere. The first, and perhaps most important, is appearing to overreach. Voters went to the polls looking for change on November 7 and as a result will have scant patience if Democrats start using the type of strong-arm tactics implemented by Republicans to maintain power over the last dozen years. Secondly, redrawing lines to create more theoretically Democratic districts has the potential to make Democratic support in the remaining districts so thin that the Republicans can come in and challenge previously safe seats, potentially negating any benefits of redistricting. And looking specifically at New Mexico, the first district, in which Republican Heather Wilson narrowly won reelection this fall, has a Democratic-lean to it already. According to the Cook Political Report (.pdf), NM-1 tends to vote about 2 points more Democratic than the nation as a whole. If a well known Democrat like this year's nomineee, Attorney General Patricia Madrid, is unable to win in a district this Democratic in a year like this then it's up to the Democratic Party to improve its infrastructure and for party leaders -- Governor and potential 2008 presidential candidate Bill Richardson included -- to get their act together and do what's necessary to win future elections rather than try to change district lines before the next census.

Tags: House 2008, New Mexico, NM-01 (all tags)

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New

Of course, Patricia Madrid's debate Gaffe probably lost her enough voters to enable her defeat on election day.

by KainIIIC 2006-12-14 12:44PM | 0 recs

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What was the gaffe? NT

by EricJaffa 2006-12-14 12:48PM | 0 recs

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Re: What was the gaffe? NT

Here's the ad it spawned.

by Adam B 2006-12-14 01:06PM | 0 recs

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Thanks.

It doesn't seem like a big deal to me that Patricia Madrid stumbled over her words momentarily.

by EricJaffa 2006-12-15 11:33AM | 0 recs

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Re: Thanks.

My understanding is that it did really hurt her when condensed to thirty seconds like that, even worse than Lois Murphy's staring at her crotch while asking "What's going on down there?" in one of her last ads?

by Adam B 2006-12-16 05:42AM | 0 recs

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Re: What was the gaffe? NT

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by youppan 2007-03-22 10:54PM | 0 recs

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting

Since creating "safe" districts has tended to give us more extreme politicians on either side of the aisle, why not push for program-controlled (although not hidden, black box programs) redistricting.

Districts would be assigned from the northeast corner of a state by publc-domain software.

by CorpsAreNotPeople 2006-12-14 12:59PM | 0 recs

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Automatic Impartial Redistricting

Such software exists, I have written it

by bolson 2006-12-14 07:49PM | 0 recs

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Re: Automatic Impartial Redistricting

I hope you get an opportunity to use your software at some time in the future. Have you compared the probable republican/democratic representative ratios for district maps produced by your software and the actual gerrymandered districts?

by CorpsAreNotPeople 2006-12-15 04:21AM | 0 recs

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New Me

i think the last point is your strongest. really, we're just at the beginning of (re)building progressive infrastructure. this is only seven years from the start of moveOn, three years from the start of ACT, three years since the founding of CAP, etc. you get the point. the upshot is that we've only barely begun to assemble the kind of institutional girding that the GOP was working on over the course of 30 years. i just don't think it's all that necessary when it comes down to it.

of course, the law of unintended consequences is also in evidence in TX. so there's no obvious reason to think we wouldn't be subject to the same pitfalls.

by beyondo98 2006-12-14 02:49PM | 0 recs

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New Me

whoops, nine years from the start of MoveOn

by beyondo98 2006-12-14 02:49PM | 0 recs

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting

I don't think you can blame NM-01, CT-04, and PA-06 on anything other than bad (and arguably stupid) candidates. I remember I felt like vomiting after seeing Diane Farell on Hardball.

by Terryus 2006-12-14 05:52PM | 0 recs

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New Me

all good points. And taken together they add up to a lot of negatives for such a move. And all for what? NM's 3 congressional seats - 2 of which are already Dem leaning (by PVI). In the TX move, there were a whole lot of districts - if the Dems want to take the heat for such a move, they should at least get a lot out of it... Try OH (6D/12R by PVI), MI (5D/10R by PVI) or IL (8D/10R by PVI). All of those states have a positive Democratic statewide margin, Democratic leadership at the state level, lots of seats and an unreasonable small (compared to other states) proportion of Democratic leaning districts. Of course, FL is the most in need of correction (8D/17R by PVI in a state which is evenly split in popular vote) - but there's no way that'll ever get passed there...

by DanD 2006-12-14 07:15PM | 0 recs

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New Me

We already have a big majority in the House. We don't need to sink to the Republicans' level to preserve it.

And anyway, your numbers are wrong: both of Ohio's legislative houses are controlled by Republicans, as is the Michigan Senate. And Illinois' congressional districts are 10D/9R by PVI. We can lead the way by instituting redistricting reforms in the states we control. This is unlikely to cost us many seats, because the only states that are really gerrymandered in our favor are Maryland, North Carolina, and (sort of) Tennessee.

by lorax 2006-12-14 07:26PM | 0 recs

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New Me

Yes, great idea, let's throw away seats in the hope that the Republicans will see what a wonderfully fair and noble deed this is and reciprocate.

Alternatively, we could make the system fairer by making sure that the states egregiously gerrymandered against us get forced back to a more honest ratio at the next redistricting.

Anything else, unless done at the same time in every state, is nothing but a recipe for losing with integrity. I don't see how that helps progressive values.

by Englishlefty 2006-12-15 03:20AM | 0 recs

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At most

we would lose like 3 seats in medium-sized states (1 in Maryland, 1 in North Carolina, 1 in Tennessee), although the power of incumbency might even preserve those for us. On the flip side, we get an issue to beat Republicans with in the 5 large states which are gerrymandered to help Republicans (Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan), which could collectively garner 15, 20, or more seats for us. It's absolutely the right thing to do.

Plus, once reform happens, we don't have to worry in the long-term about redistricting roulette every 10 years.

by lorax 2006-12-15 02:44PM | 0 recs

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New Me

You're right on a couple of counts. Mid-term redistricting is probably pretty hard if you don't control all of the state-level bodies (of course it depends on the individual state rules i guess.) And i didn't mean to say that democrats control ALL those elements in those states - just enough that given the inequities and current political leanings of the states that it might be possible (and worthwhile).
Also on IL, you're right that i'm missing a district (IL-04) - somehow that's missing in my dataset - (anyone want to tell me it?) That said, looking at the raw data, that district has to have a PVI >+27D... But my main point still holds: If you look at IL as a whole, you'll see it's rediculously packed:

IL19-8R
IL15-6R
IL08-5R
IL13-5R
IL14-5R
IL18-5R
IL10-4R
IL16-4R
IL06-3R
IL11-1R
IL12-5D
IL17-5D
IL03-10D
IL05-18D
IL09-20D
IL04-27D
IL01-35D
IL02-35D
IL07-35D

If you look at state with a similar PVI margin in the GOP direction (like IN, GA, TN) you'll see a 2-1 margin in Rep-to-Dem leanings in seats...

So all of the states i mentioned need to be redistricted to make them less "packed." Of course, FL is also on that list but my point there was that the state level is so dominated by the GOP it's probably unrealistic to expect anything remotely like fair play...

by DanD 2006-12-15 04:36AM | 0 recs

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Re: House 2008: Mid-Census Redistricting in New Me

And for anyone still following this thread, here's some killer analysis that someone put together on districts that are "vulnerable."

http://www.fairvote.org/media/research/m onopoly/2006/monopoly_politics_2006_1115 06.xls

This analysis is pre-2006 election, so it's interesting to see how the projections went. But the underlying data is still relevant for 2008...

by DanD 2006-12-15 06:24AM | 0 recs

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Illinois is unrealistic too

unfortunately. It should be redistricted in a rational manner (although I've talked to Illinois state legislators about it and they always say, "Oh yes, we definitely will do that. After the census."). The Dem Speaker of the Illinois House, Mike Madigan, was responsible for the heinous Illinois map (have you seen the map? It's crazy), which was drawn to preserve as many incumbents as possible as part of a deal with the then-Republican Senate. Unfortunately, I just don't think he's going to give way on the map they've drawn, and I don't think it's really necessary, considering the Dems' comfortable majority in the House.

by lorax 2006-12-15 02:52PM | 0 recs