Districting / redistricting
Issues
• Who draws the lines?
– State leg, congress, local...
• What criteria?
• Partisan strategy
• Minority representation
Partisan strategy (partisan
gerrymander)
• Maximize dominant party advantage
– If party controls state leg + gov.
– Packing
• cram other party voters into few districts, so they have
no influence in most
– Cracking
• spread other party voters across many districts they
can’t win
Incumbent strategy (bipartisan
gerrymander)
• Maximize seats safe for incumbents (all)
• Might be default if neither party controls gov
+ leg
Criteria
• Equal population
+/- 10% (depends on state)
• Contiguous
–RCW: “if common land border or connected by ferry,
highway, bridge, tunnel”
–coincide with boundaries of local political subdivisions and
communities of interest”
–Number of counties and municipalities divided should be as
small as possible
Criteria
• Compact
• Communities of interest
– identify (concentrated people with shared
interests)
– represent
– do not divide (as best possible)
Criteria
• Protect incumbents
– in practice, and in law
• Minority representation
– in practice, and in law
• Competitive elections (not an explicit goal in
most states)
Who Draws?
• State (and local) legislature
• State Courts
• State (and local )commission
– Independent
– Bi-partisan
– non-partisan
Who Draws?
• Legislature
– 37 states do state leg districts; 43 do
congressional districts
– Gov. can veto in most states
– 2/3 req in CT, ME
Who Draws?
• Commissions (political)
– AR, CO, HI, MO, HJ, OH, PA
– elected officials can be on commission
• ‘Independent’ Commissions (6 states)
– no legislators or other electeds, WA no lobbyists
Who draws?
• Independent Commission (AK, AZ, CA, ID, MT,
WA)
– WA (2 Ds, 2 Rs, one non-voting moderator)
– CA: lottery -> 20Rs, 20Ds, 20 ‘other’
• then 3 Ds, 3 Rs, 2 others, they pick 6 more (14)
– 9 votes to pass map
Who draws?
• Independent Commission (AK, AZ, CA, ID, MT,
WA)
– expectation they will be less strategic re: partisan
goals
– All states with ind. commission adopted via voter
initiative
• legislators / parties don’t want to give up authority over
districting
Who Draws?
• Initiatives & referendums
• Courts
– legislatures often gridlock over plans
– litigate
– miss deadlines
Districting
• Why care?
– most important part of elections
– elected officials pick their voters, vs voters pick
elected officials
– ‘gerrymandering’ and electoral competition
• Do districting practices make elections non competitice
Districting
• Incumbents don’t lose
– How much is ‘incumbent advantage’ due to safe
one party districts?
– How much is due to other factors
•
•
•
•
campaign finance
pork barrel politics
name recognition
representatives serving well
Districting
• gerrymandering vs. self-selection
• How difficult is it to
– 1) partisan gerrymander
– 2) create competitive districts
• 50% D voters & 50% R voters
Redistricting vs districting
• At least every 10 years, districts are redrawn
– populations shift
– growth
State Legislative Redistricting
• Before the 1960s, states rarely redrew district
boundaries
• Populations shifted however
• Malapportionment—unequal representation
• In 1962, the Supreme Court established “one
person, one vote”
• Reapportionment revolution
Redistricting
• Reapportionment and re-districting: how
often?
– States may redraw districts as often as they like
following League of United Latin American Citizens
v. Perry (2006)
Minority Representation
• Why value, what effects
• Descriptive
– legislature mirrors population
• Substantive
– legislature approves policies in group’s
interest
Minority Representation
• Why value?
• Fairness
– history of explicit disenfranchisement
• Empowerment
– Trust
– Participation
– Contacting representatives
Minority Representation
• Descriptive Representation
• How facilitate via elections?
• Voting Rights Act Amendments
– registration without representation?
– maximize opportunities for real representation?
– since 1970s, Act used to challenge local election
systems that ‘dilute’ minority representation
Minority Representation
• Majority Minority Districts
– Local “at-large” elections original target
– “sweep effect” group w/ 40% could lose all seats
– Gingles v. Thornberg, 1986
• “at-large” illegal if:
– minority group politically cohesive
– minority could be a majority in potential district
– majority votes as block against minority
Minority Representation
• Majority Minority Districts
– State legislative plans, congressional plans,
can be challenged if not providing adequate
minority representation
• under VRA
Minority Representation
• Racially polarized voting
– in parts of US, this has been a fact of life
– southern parts of the US, in particular
– do the math: if white majority won’t vote for
minority candidates.....
Racially Polarized Voting
•
Voters of different racial or ethnic groups have different candidate preferences.
•
Voting in opposition, rather than in coalition
•
Since more white voters, minority candidates will usually lose
•
Actual voting patterns determine if voting is racially polarized
•
Look at precinct data
Racially polarized voting
• Exists in WA,
– but no minority group (?) large enough to
challenge for m/m US House district
– m/m State leg district?
– Local challenges successful (Yakima)
Minority Representation
• When US House districts plans suspect
– Remedy: Minority / Majority Districts
• 1990 US Congress Redistricting
– Maximize number of majority / minority districts
in US House, state legislatures
– Bush Dept. of Justice, Latino and African American
litigants in synch
Minority Representation
• Majority Minority Districts
– once estimated that district must be at least
65% minority to guarantee election of minority
candidate
• Congress elected in 1992
– first since new system
– record number of African Americans, Latinos
Minority Representation
• Majority Minority Districts
• Partisan consequences
–
–
–
–
–
Overwhelmingly safe Democratic seats
Mostly in South, Southwest
Demise of Democratic voters in “influence districts”
Surrounding districts more competitive for GOP
1992 Bad election overall for Dems (9 seat loss)
Minority Representation
• Majority Minority Seats
• Partisan Consequences?
– 1994 ‘Republican Revolution’
– GOP gain 54 seats
• many gains in southern states
• some in formerly majority Dem districts.
– GOP assumed control of US House / Senate
Minority Representation
• Challenges to Majority Minority Districts:
– ‘Unfair’ to white voters
– trade-off, loss of substantive representation
– “Bizarre” contours to districts
• difficult to draw, at times
North Carolina as Example
• 1991 State leg plan, 1 minority CD
– state 22% African American, 12 districts
– ‘proportionality’ = at least 2 seats (2.64)
• Population more concentrated in North
• Dem state legislature changed plan to add
2nd minority district
North Carolina 12th CD, 1992, 64% Black
WSJ:
“political pornography”
North Carolina as Example
• Shaw v. Reno (1993)
– legal challenge to NC 12th CD map
• when a State concentrates a dispersed minority
population in a single district by disregarding
"traditional districting principles such as
compactness, contiguity, and respect for
political subdivisions" the State is drawing a
racial gerrymander that is subject to strict
scrutiny
North Carolina as Example
• Shaw v Reno 1993
• ‘By perpetuating such notions, a racial
gerrymander may exacerbate the very
patterns of racial bloc voting that majorityminority districting is sometimes said to
counteract’
North Carolina as Example
• Shaw v. Reno 1993
– race-based redistricting not always
unconstitutional
– states did need to comply with Section 2 and
Section 5 of Voting Rights Act
– but...race can’t be main factor, district must be
compact
North Carolina 12 CD, 1997; 52% white
New map,
another lawsuit
North Carolina as Example
• Cromartie v. Hunt, 1998
– complaint alleged that the new 1st and 12th
congressional districts are unjustified racial
gerrymanders. The new 12th, was "fruit of the
poisonous tree"--the poisonous tree being the
old 12th and the poison being its racially
gerrymandered origins
North Carolina as Example
• Cromartie v. Hunt, 1998
• 12th of 1997 was noncompact and showed
evidence that race was the predominant factor in
its design. The Court noted that as the district
wound through certain counties and towns, the
deciding factor in which precincts it picked
up along the way seemed to be race rather
than party.
Third Time’s a Charm? NC 12th CD, 1998
More compact,
but not quite...
NC 12th CD post 2000 census, 47% white, 45% Black
Represented by Mel Watt (D) since 1993
Partisan View of Law?
• Shaw case
– two judges appointed by Democrats and one by a
Republican.
– ruled against complaint three times to uphold a plan.
– Each time the Republican dissented.
• Cromartie case
– two Republican appointees and one Democratic
appointee.
– ruled 2-1 in favor of complaint, with the Democratic
appointee dissenting
Minority Representation
• Future of Majority Minority Districts
• Minority litigants sensitive to partisan
consequences (substantive rep.)
– in 2001, tables turned re: GOP vs. Dems
– 2011 /12, same
• Compactness
– depends on segregation
• What about groups that are geographically
dispersed
– Latinos?
Minority Representation
• Alternatives to Majority Minority Districts
• Cumulative Voting
– A remedy in several VRA cases at state and
county levels in
• TX, SD, AL, NC
Minority Representation
• Cumulative Voting
• How it works
– ‘modified at-large’ system
– multi-member districts
– Voter casts votes equal to number of seats being
selected
– voter can ‘plump’ all votes to one candidate, spread
votes around...
Minority Representation
• Semi-proportionate
– threshold of exclusion = 1/(m + 1)
– 2 seats up = 33%
– 3 seats up = 25%
– 4 seats up = 20%
– 5 seats up = 17%
– 6 seats up = 15 %
Minority Representation
assume 3 seats up, 10,000 voters (30,000 votes)
If ‘at large,’
65% white voters, 35% Latino voters
6500 white voters, 3500 Latino
• if racially polarized voting....
Minority Representation
• Standard Voting 3 seat example
•
(3 seats, 10,000 voters. 65% Anglo, 35% Latino)
Ethn. name
votes for
W
L
W
A
F
H
6,000 elected
3,500
500
W
L
W
B
D
E
4,000 elected
3,500
2,500
W
L
C
G
6,500 elected
3,500
seat 1:
seat 2
seat 3:
Minority Representation
• CV, 3 seat example 10,000 X 3 votes
Ethn. name
votes for
W
W
W
W
W
L
W
L
7,500 elected
6,500 elected
5,000
250
0
8,000 elected
250
2,500
A
B
C
X
H
F
E
G
Cumulative Voting
• Evidence
– more candidates
– more campaigning
– more turnout
– more minority representation
Minority Representation
•
•
•
•
•
Cumulative Voting
Minority representation w/o the acrimony?
Not automatic
Not ‘tokenism’
Cross-racial coalitions?
Minority Representation
• Obama 2008: Is racially polarized voting a
thing of the past?
• If so, how defend majority-minority
districts?
• Any evidence that we are ‘beyond race?’