December 1999 State Legislatures magazine: Dividing up the American pie; redistricting

State Legislatures Magazine: December 1999

Editor's Note: This article appeared in the December 1999 issue of NCSL's magazine, State Legislatures. To order copies or to subscribe, contact the marketing department at (303) 364-7700.

Dividing Up the American Pie

Who's Going to Draw the Lines?
Losses in California
Some States Are Close

Drawing the Lines in California

Dividing Up the American Pie

It looks like the Republicans are going to control the bulk of redistricting in 2001, unless Democrats can pull off some election victories in key races.

By Herbert A. Sample
Mike Veon has a problem, and it could be a big one. If he doesn't win a few Pennsylvania House elections next year, his fellow Democrats in the state's congressional delegation will find themselves in considerable political trouble.

It's a stark challenge facing Veon, Democratic whip in the Pennsylvania House who is plotting to swipe control of the state House from Republicans in next year's election. He knows that if he fails, the state's GOP leaders will do in Democratic members of the U.S. House from the Keystone State when political boundaries are redrawn in early 2001.

"If Republicans control the redistricting process, they could take the [state's Democratic U.S. House] delegation down to five or six" from the current 11, said Veon. "D-Day of the [state] Democratic Party is on Election Day 2000."

Pennsylvania Republicans, though, have no intention of losing the complete control over redistricting they now enjoy. "It's always a battle in Pennsylvania for the House no matter who is in control," said Stephen Drachler, an aide to John Perzel, House GOP leader.

But, he added, "The plain fact is that Pennsylvania is tilting Republican. The growth in Pennsylvania is occurring in areas that are Republican. The losses in population are coming in the cities, which are overwhelmingly Democratic."

Pennsylvania's state capitol is just one of many battle zones that will erupt next year as the parties jockey for advantage over the redistricting process in 2001 and the partisan makeup of Congress during the rest of the decade.

WHO'S GOING TO DRAW THE LINES
"The lower-level offices on the ballot [next year] are actually in many ways the crucial contests," said Kim Brace, president of Election Data Services, a Washington consulting firm that specializes in redistricting. The winners of those elections "will be dictating who will be in the game."

As of now, the 2001 round of redistricting is still bubbling below the radar of many political activists who are focused on the race for the White House. But with control of the U.S. House over the next decade at stake, state races are likely to attract growing attention during the next year.

Republicans currently hold just an 11-seat majority in the 435-member House-not counting one independent who usually sides with Democrats and a vacancy in a Democratic-leaning seat in California. Thus, a net gain of just five Democratic seats in the 2000 elections could topple GOP control.

But if Democrats are able to pull it off, they may have little time to celebrate. If they reclaim the House, but Republicans simultaneously increase their control of state legislatures and governor's offices, the GOP will draw most new district lines in 2001. And those changes won't favor Democrats.

"One of the biggest fears of the national Democratic Party is that we win the House in 2000, only to lose it back in 2002" because of new GOP-leaning boundaries, said J. Gerald Hebert, general counsel at IMPAC 2000, which is coordinating redistricting efforts for Democrats.

That fear is justified. Democrats' political standing in the states has fallen on hard times since the last decennial redistricting in 1991. Then, Democrats controlled both legislative chambers in 25 states, Republicans ruled both chambers in eight states, and the parties split control of 16 legislatures. (Nebraska's one-chamber Legislature is nonpartisan.) Now, Democrats command 19 legislatures, the GOP controls 17, and 13 are split.

"Republicans are in much better shape on a state-by-state basis," said Benjamin Ginsburg, a former top counsel of the Republican National Committee from 1989 through 1993 and now a private lawyer. "So for 2000, much more is being done in the individual states, in the legislative chambers and in the governors' suites that Republicans control that they didn't [10 years ago.]"

Republican progress is even more marked among governors. Ten years ago, Democrats held the top state job in 29 states, including many with large congressional delegations such as New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas. But GOP governors now preside in those four states, as they do in 27 others, including Massachusetts, Virginia and Illinois. Republican chief executives in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio enjoy the bonus of GOP-controlled legislatures.

The only states with 10 or more U.S. House members, a Democratic governor and a Democrat-controlled legislature are California, North Carolina and Georgia.

"Just as the Democrats expected to benefit 10 years ago from redistricting, I think the Republican governors would also anticipate they would be able to influence the redistricting process in a favorable way toward Republicans," said Clinton Key, executive director of the Republican Governors' Association.

LOSSES IN CALIFORNIA
So losses that House Republicans expect to suffer from Democratic redistricting in California-where the Democrat-controlled Legislature and Democratic Governor Gray Davis are due to redraw at least 53 House district boundaries-may be offset by redistricting gains in other states where the GOP is in a position to raze Democrats.

"Our primary concern is what's happening in Pennsylvania," said Drachler. "But there's no question that strategically we're looking at how we can help the Republicans in Washington D.C., maintain their edge or even build on it."

That prospect, of course, doesn't make California House Republicans feel any better. They are quite aware that their ranks could be thinned considerably by hostile Democrats. They are pinning their hopes on an initiative next March that would strip control of redistricting from the state Legislature and give it to the California Supreme Court. (That plan has caused internal GOP dissension, however, because the initiative also proposes to significantly cut the pay and perks of state lawmakers.)

In 11 other states, redistricting skirmishes will play out before commissions that embody varying amounts of partisanship. In a few additional states, there's little likelihood of the out-of-power party taking control of either the legislative or executive branch. In Florida, for example, Governor Jeb Bush does not face re-election until 2002, and Democrats lag far behind in both legislative chambers.

SOME STATES ARE CLOSE
But battles for several other state legislative chambers, contested in scores of individual districts, are imminent. In Texas, for example, some Republicans after studying new population data recently predicted their party will pick up as many as 10 Democratic seats through redistricting. Democrats said the GOP was reading too much into the numbers. Nevertheless, Democrats will try mightily to defend their eight-seat margin in the state House and to overcome a one-seat GOP margin in the Senate.

In North Carolina, where Democrats comfortably control the Legislature, Republicans are aiming next year to succeed Democratic Governor James Hunt, who is term-limited. Kentucky Republicans want to protect their first-ever majority in the Senate, which they won recently when two Democrats switched parties. Arizona Democrats must overcome a two-seat GOP advantage in the Senate to direct remapping.

"Our goal is to have a net gain of seats and chambers," said Kevin Mack, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. "It's a part of every meeting and every targeting strategy.

People are trying to figure out whether we have a strategic advantage or if Republicans have a strategic advantage. It's on everybody's minds."

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, Perzel has publicly threatened to halve the ranks of Democrats in the state's congressional delegation if the state House remains in GOP hands next year. That delegation now contains 10 Republicans and 11 Democrats. (The state could lose two congressional seats after the 2000 census.)

"Mr. Perzel will do everything he can, legally, to give Republicans whatever advantages are available. That's the nature of politics," said spokesman Drachler.

Conversely, Democrats need only a net gain of two seats in the Pennsylvania House to take control and thwart Perzel's plans. "At the very least, we would have a seat at the bargaining table," Veon said. "That would give us the necessary leverage to ensure that we would be able to protect most, if not all, of the Democrats."

To achieve his goal, Veon has pleaded for more money and resources from national Democratic officials, who are somewhat preoccupied with bigger battles.

"Everyone understandably gets involved with what's in front of them, and that's naturally the 2000 congressional elections," Veon said. "It's hard for them to take a step back and focus on the state legislative elections." But with the partisan margin in the U.S. House so narrow, he added, "to lose four or five Democratic seats in Pennsylvania, just from redistricting, would be a very hard burden to overcome [in other states] in the 2002 election."

Herbert A. Sample is a reporter in the Washington bureau of the Sacramento Bee.

Drawing the Lines in California

One of the most significant issues before California voters in their primary election March 7, 2000, is an initiative that would shift legislative and congressional redistricting from the hands of the Legislature to the state Supreme Court.

The proposed amendment to the state constitution would place the initial authority for drawing new district lines in the hands of the court. The lines would then be put before state voters for final approval. If the amendment is approved, California would become the only state where another branch of government has the sole authority to redraw legislative lines. It would also be the only state where voters would have to approve the district lines.

The proposal does not say what would happen if voters reject the court's proposed lines although it is safe to assume that massive litigation would ensue to sort out the problem.

The redistricting proposal also carries a provision to cut legislative pay and per diem. Legislative pay increases would then have to be recommended by a commission, approved by a roll call vote of the Legislature and finally approved by California voters in a statewide ballot.

Following the census in 2000, five states will have a commission draw their new congressional district lines. In 11 states, a board or commission has primary authority to draw new legislative districts. In addition to the ballot proposal slated for the California election in March, initiatives are circulating in Arizona and Florida to take redistricting out of the hands of the legislatures and place it in the hands of a commission.

Visitor counts for this page.