State Legislatures Magazine: September 2002

Editor's Note: This article appeared in the September 2002 issue of NCSL's magazine, State Legislatures. To order copies or to subscribe, contact the marketing department at (303) 364-7700.

A Flood of New Faces

Campaign Issues
Redistricting
Turnover
Mid-term Election Trend
Party Parity
Governors' Races
Many New Faces

NCSL Provides Latest Election News

A Flood of New Faces

Election 2002 will bring peak turnover in legislatures, what with redistricting and term limits kicking in.

By Tim Storey

The 2002 state elections are going to look like the old saying about what brides should wear on their wedding day-something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

Old issues are back again. Education, health care and the economy are foremost on voters' minds.

Something new for this year are freshly minted districts using census data from 2000. Candidates, and especially incumbents, often must court new constituencies. Redistricting brings a sharp increase in turnover as members decide to retire rather than face a fellow incumbent, move to an unfamiliar district or put the extra work into campaigning in new territory.

Republicans are hoping to trade on George Bush's soaring popularity. The GOP would love to halt the more-than-60-year trend of the president's party losing legislative seats in mid-term elections.

And who knows which party will be singing the blues when they wake up on Nov. 6?

CAMPAIGN ISSUES
Pollsters say that voters beleaguered by worries about terrorism are focusing once again on local concerns where state legislatures are most involved. "The big issues everywhere will be budget shortfalls, taxes and education spending," says political scientist Gary Moncrief of Boise State University.

Ed Sarpolus, vice president of EPIC/MRA, a Michigan-based polling organization, says "bioterrorism is at the bottom" of the list. His Midwestern polling data shows "health care and education are back at the top of the list of issues that people think are most important."

In Pennsylvania, it's the same story. "Voters are telling us they care about the economy and education," says Terry Madonna, director of the Keystone Poll out of Millersville University. Madonna expects the legislative campaigns there to be dominated by talk of property tax reform and prescription drug benefits for seniors. "A lot of the same issues that drove 2000 are still present in the mid-term election this year," says Sarpolus.

REDISTRICTING
2002 is the post-redistricting free-for-all. With the exceptions of Maine and Montana, every legislative district has been redrawn in the past 18 months. Incumbents have to learn new territory and often face unknown challengers. Or worse yet, face a fellow incumbent, never an easy road, especially in a primary.

In Alaska, Idaho, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington, where courts or independent commissions drew redistricting plans, many incumbents got paired in the same districts. Many have opted to retire rather than face another legislator. The Iowa redistricting process is the cruelest to incumbents. There, districts are drawn by nonpartisan legislative staff who are forbidden by law from factoring in incumbent addresses.

As a result, 39 of 100 House members and 25 of 50 senators wound up in the same district as a fellow incumbent. Redistricting always pushes turnover up. "In Alaska, for example, turnover this year will be at least 35 percent," says Moncrief.

TURNOVER
The high turnover in Alaska is likely to be repeated in other states, leading to more new faces than legislatures have seen in years. Expect 2002 turnover to exceed the last high water mark of more than 25 percent set in 1992. That year, extensive changes to legislative maps were driven largely by the creation of a record number of districts containing a majority of minority voters. The average for legislative turnover is around 18 percent every two years.

This year, redistricting and legislative term limits converge for the proverbial double whammy. In 11 states, some 330 legislators must step aside because of term limits.

That's 4.5 percent turnover before the first ballot is cast.

Term limits hit two legislative chambers especially hard as they go into effect for the first time: the Michigan Senate and Missouri House. Twenty-seven of the current 38 Michigan senators are prohibited from running-a pre-election turnover of more than 70 percent. The Missouri House loses 75 of 163 representatives-that's almost 50 percent.

In addition to the turnover resulting from redistricting and term limits, Rhode Island is reducing the size of its legislature by 37 seats and North Dakota by six. The New York Senate is increasing by one district, bringing the total number of state legislators in the United States to 7,382 starting in January.

MID-TERM ELECTION TREND
Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, says that mid-term elections usually come down to the president's popularity, and the state of the economy. The mood of voters will depend largely on whether the economy is showing strong signs of recovery by Election Day, Sabato says. Voters inevitably link the economic situation to the current administration-for better or worse.

"People are either in a good mood or a bad mood when the election hits," he says, "and it affects whom they choose in the mid-term election. If voters are unhappy, they vote for change and that affects state legislative elections."

Since 1940, the president's party has lost legislative seats in every mid-term election cycle-losing an average of more than 350 seats. Going into the 2002 election, Democrats are encouraged by their success in the 2001 off-year balloting. In New Jersey, Democrats took advantage of a favorable redistricting plan to wrest back control of the Assembly and earn a tie in the Senate. In addition, they won the governorship for the first time in a decade. While Republicans actually picked up seats in the Virginia House of Delegates, padding their growing majority, they lost the race for governor there.

Despite the daunting trend, the White House mid-term losing streak could be broken in 2002. This year's Republican office seekers are buoyed by the fact that George Bush occupies the oval office with approval ratings that have held steady at more than 70 percent since last October. It appears that President Bush will work hard to support GOP candidates up and down the ticket from now until Election Day. Long before the traditional Labor Day start of the campaign season, the president was going out to key states to help raise money for state parties and allow local candidates to bask in the reflected glow of his popularity.

PARTY PARITY
When it comes to state legislative control, it is fair to say that the two parties are at almost complete parity, with the Democrats hanging on to a slight edge.

Heading into the fall election, Democrats control 18 legislatures. Republicans have the majority in 17. In 14 states, control is divided with neither party controlling both chambers, and the Nebraska Unicameral is nonpartisan. There are still 275 more legislators who are Democrats than Republicans. But Democrats have seen their numbers steadily decline in the past 25 years. In 1976, Democrats held 68 percent of all legislative seats. That number is now down to 51 percent.

Will parity continue? Sabato thinks so. "It only makes sense," he says. "The presidential vote was tied in 2000. The U.S. Senate is tied, more or less. The U.S. House is tied, more or less. After this election, the governors will be tied, more or less. And legislatures will be tied, more or less."

Although post-election control of each legislative chamber is impossible to predict, change is inevitable. A shift of only three seats from one party to the other would change control of 24 legislative chambers, and it is almost a given that the majority party will change in at least some states. In fact, an average of 12 chambers switched party control in every election since 1984. So the question is not will any chambers switch, but which ones.

Both parties have high hopes. Tom Hofeller, who coordinated redistricting for the Republican National Committee, thinks his side is likely to reap the benefits of this year's re-map. "Redistricting has positioned the GOP well for this election." He is most optimistic about GOP chances in legislatures in Texas, North Carolina, Arizona and Oklahoma. And he thinks the party will make substantial gains in other states that have long been held by Democrats-like Georgia. The Texas House is one of the most often cited opportunities for the GOP. A new commission-drawn map that many believe favors Republicans could hand them control of the Texas Legislature for the first time since 1870.

But Democrats like their chances of winning control in several states as well. They are salivating over the new district maps in Illinois, Minnesota and Oregon. By random draw, Illinois Democrats earned the majority of seats on the commission that drew the districts and crafted a plan they hope will deliver the Senate for the first time since 1992. Jeff Wice, counsel for the Democratic National Committee, says that DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe made redistricting one of his top priorities. He sent DNC staff into many states to build consensus and help produce favorable maps. "Winning redistricting was critical to building stronger Democratic caucuses for the 2002 elections," Wice says.

Rob Engel, executive director for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, agrees that the Democrats' lines are good, but says his optimism also comes from "having good operations in key states."

GOVERNORS' RACES
Party officials are also closely following governors' races, with 36 states due to elect a new chief executive. The politics in many of those races will undoubtedly spill over to legislative elections. Just as 1994 was a banner Republican year in legislative elections-when GOP control of eight states jumped to 19-the party also added 10 governors to its column for a total of 30. The challenge for the Republicans is that nine of the governors elected in 1994 are now facing term limits and leaving seats open. Going into this election, the GOP still has a comfortable majority of the governors with 27. Twenty-one governors are Democrats and two are independent. Of those, 20 are open seats without an incumbent running-the highest number in 30 years.

"We would need to see only two of the 16 incumbents now seeking another term to get beaten, and it will be the all-time high for new governors," says University of North Carolina political scientist Thad Beyle, an expert on governors. Two Republican incumbents are running on their own for the first time, having been appointed to the office; Texas Governor Rick Perry and Wisconsin Governor Scott McCallum assumed the office after their predecessors left for Washington.

MANY NEW FACES
The bottom line is that legislative staff planning new member orientation programs should have plenty of extra materials ready for this fall because they will see record numbers of new faces in many states.

Once all of those new legislators complete orientation and learn their way around the capitol in November and December, the tough work begins. Legislatures will again be tackling difficult policy issues-public safety, prescription drug benefits, energy, mental health, and education. And this new generation of legislators better bring some creative funding ideas because budgets will be the tightest in more than a decade.

Which party will be singing the blues on the morning after? If it goes like other years, both parties will find some good news in the returns, and train their sights on the opening of legislative sessions in January.

Tim Storey is NCSL's expert on elections and redistricting.

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