Now that it’s 2011, the redistricting games will soon begin in earnest, with more detailed Census data expected in February or March and some states holding spring legislative sessions to deal with drawing new maps. Long ago I planned to do state-by-state rundowns of the redistricting process as soon as 2010 election results and Census reapportionment were clear. Now that time has arrived, and it’s time to look at California, Colorado, and Connecticut.
Previous diary on Alabama, Arizona, and Arkansas
The rest below the fold…
California
Districts: 53
Who’s in charge? Nonpartisan commission
Is that important? Heck yes
Boy, is this the big kahuna. With California’s delegation comprising 12.2% of the entire House, and 17.6% of the whole Democratic caucus, the Golden State was already a dominant player in the nationwide redistricting wars, but with its recent switch from legislative control (which would have meant a Democratic gerrymander in 2011) to a nonpartisan commission, any semblance of certainty is out the window. The commission must preserve VRA-protected minority seats, of which there are at least 12 (Barbara Lee’s 9th, Jim Costa’s 20th, Xavier Becerra’s 31st, Judy Chu’s 32nd, Karen Bass’s 33rd, Lucille Roybal-Allard’s 34th, Maxine Waters’s 35th, Laura Richardson’s 37th, Grace Napolitano’s 38th, Linda Sanchez’s 39th, Joe Baca’s 43rd, and Loretta Sanchez’s 47th) and several more if you interpret the law as protecting Latino-majority/plurality districts represented by non-Hispanic whites.
Republicans say the losers in California redistricting will be white Democrats representing less-than-completely-solid seats (such as Jerry McNerney and Dennis Cardoza), seats likely to be broken up and redistributed between other districts (such as Lois Capps), or seats likely to be turned into VRA-protected minority districts (such as one of the San Fernando Valley Dems: Berman, Sherman, or Schiff). Democrats say that the current map is not that gerrymandered in their favor, and is instead an incumbent protection gambit; they argue that nonpartisan redistricting will ruin as many GOP incumbents (Ken Calvert and Gary Miller, say) as Dem incumbents. In any case, few solid predictions can be made at this point, and I’d like very much to hear what those of you at SSP think will happen. If forced at gunpoint to predict something about the new map, I’d say a seat will be shifted from the Bay Area to the Inland Empire, and that Jerry McNerney is the likely “eliminee,” though it could also be a longtimer like George Miller or Pete Stark. Also, a competitive Central Coast district will be recreated à la the California 22nd in the 1990s, hurting the reelection prospects of both Lois Capps and Elton Gallegly. Demographics will also compel the commission to create a couple new Hispanic districts, at least one of which will be a reconfiguration of a seat now represented by a white L.A. Democrat.
The commission’s membership has been finalized and its work should be complete by sometime this autumn. I, for one, greatly look forward to the fireworks.
Colorado
Districts: 7
Who’s in charge? Split (Dem Governor and Senate, GOP House)
Is that important? Not really
The bare Republican majority in Colorado’s House should ensure a safer seat for Scott Tipton in the 3rd (represented by a Republican from 1992 to 2004 and a Democrat from 2004 to 2010), but otherwise won’t change the partisan dynamics much in Colorado. Overwhelming Democratic edges for Diana DeGette in Denver and Jared Polis in the Boulder area may be diluted a bit to create a rock-solid constituency for Ed Perlmutter, but that will be the only tangible benefit for Team Blue.
Connecticut
Districts: 5
Who’s in charge? Democrats
Is that important? No
An overwhelmingly Democratic legislature will draw districts for an already all-Democratic House delegation. Jim Himes and Chris Murphy should get slightly safer seats at the marginal expense of rock-solid incumbents John Larson and Rosa DeLauro, but that will be the extend of remapping drama in the Nutmeg State.
Later this week: Florida, Georgia, and Hawaii!
I don’t see the CO Dems agreeing to anything that helps Tipton, who won by less than 5 points in a red wave year. Perlmutter is safe (he won by double digits) and does not need any help.
I have my CA say. CT’s redistricting has to be approved by 2/3 of each house. The republicans have just enough to prevent democratic super majority in each house. There a commission/committee from both parties that meet on redistricting. They present a plan to the legislative bodies. In 2001 it worked fairly smoothly as the 5th district was a fair fight between incumbents. Generally speaking the lines need to move Eastward a bit and only minor changes are needed. I don’t look for a lot of changes in CT or a prolonged battle. So I think there will still be three seats that could be competitive in 2012. Actually the same three that nearly went GOP in 2010.
Yes CA is the big whale of redistricting 2012. The current map has probably helped the GOP during the 2002-2008 period but was a drag in 2010. Generally speaking I think the GOP did okay in this redistricting plan considering where they were in 2001. On the flip side democrats in CA have accumlated a ton of seniority in secure seats and have focused much of their efforts on a national agenda. Safe secure seats have their plus sides.
The big wild card this year in CA are the 14 commissioners. They are a diverse crowd with only three white members compared to five Asian members. I think I have those numbers right. In my mind there are several major questions.
1. The creation of additional minority majority seats. CA is now 41% white while the congressional delegation is 2/3 white. The current map divides hispanics in the central valley–silicon valley area plus San Diego area. The diverse makeup of the commission would lead one to think we would see more minority/majority seats.
2. Will the commission follow the current flow of seats? For instance look at Northern California. For years and years the seats have flowed North/South but when you talking 300 miles does it matter? Why not East-West?
3. How many times will counties be split? For instance should be Long beach be attached to Coastal Orange county or should it move North to communities in LA county that might not have the same community of interest? I don’t know.
4. What about those incumbents? You could draw an LA county seat with three incumbents and perhaps the same in San Jose. Will we see this commission draw nice neat non partisan lines that just happen to have a seat for every incumbent to run in?
There are lots of questions.
Although it was pretty mild, CT-2, CT-4, and CT-5 were modestly gerrymandered to be more Republican-leaning in 2000.
Here’s my idea of a de-gerrymander for the state. The new borders all follow town/city lines, and wherever possible follow county lines.
Overall, this should improve the Democratic performance in CT-4 significantly (Stratford is now in the district), CT-5 more modestly, and be a wash for CT-2.
I’ve been playing with California maps extensively, and plan to post the one that I think is closest to what’s likely to result from the Commission process tomorrow (when I think my ability to post diaries will be enabled).
First of all, I reject the premise that “any semblance of certainty is out the window” and that “few solid predictions can be made at this point” – which I think is more a function of how tedious it is to map out a big state with 53 districts than anything else (it takes about 2 days for me to do a full map with Dave’s app). We know where the people are at, we know where the partisans are at, and we know the rules that the Commission is supposed to follow. In many case, it hardly matters where the lines are at precisely; for instance, you’re gonna end up with three solidly democratic seats in Santa Clara county no matter how you divide it up.
In any case, here are my comments on the points you raise, in no particular order:
1) The current map is clearly a GOP-favorable incumbent protection plan. Any attempt to play with the lines using routine redistricting rules (compactness, contiguity, communities of interest) immediately makes that readily apparent. I actually argued this extensively on political boards back in 2001, but few were willing to listen. With something like Dave’s app I could’ve proven my point then.
2) You are overstating the number of “VRA protected minority seats”; California only has 4 counties that require preclearance: Kings, Merced, Monterey, and Yuba. This is actually an anachronistic anomaly dating from when a lot of Vietnam draftees were registered in those counties back in 1970 but weren’t voting because they were fighting the war. In any case, by all my calculations the only likelihood that these four counties could significantly impact the map would favor Democrats (more below).
3) There is no way CA-11 (McNerney’s seat) will be eliminated. If you apply compactness then the first thing that jumps out is that there will be no salient from the CA-01 district (D-Thompson) into the Sacramento area. What this means is that the seat that will ‘shift’ will be one of the northern California seats (CA-01, CA-02, CA-04) to the inland empire. The rules of compactness & not crossing county lines except when necessary also mandate that Sacramento gets two compact, adjoining seats. The current CA-11 seat was drawn to protect Pombo. If you compact it then it actually becomes more Democratic, not less. The place where you necessarily end up with a swingy district in the north-central region is in eastern Sacramento. The rest become solidly Dem.
4) The person who gets screwed in the Central Coast is clearly Gallegly, not Capps, unless you violate the rules of the Commision and go out of your way to create a competitive district. You have to anchor a district in Monterey Co and another in Santa Barbara Co, and then in both cases you need more people, but no matter which way you go you still end up with Democratic districts. The Monterey Co based district ends up being around 70% Dem while the Santa Barbara district ends up being around 58-60% Dem. This is somewhat less Dem than Capps current district (66%) but still solidly Dem. The Gallegly district necessarily gets pushed into Ventura Co, and goes from about 50/50 to 55% Dem.
5) Now, let’s go over the so-called “VRA seats”:
CA-09: Lee’s district is super-Dem and also rather compact and virtually no mapping scheme changes its basic outlines, nor makes any meaningful difference elsewhere.
CA-31 & CA-34: Becerra’s downtown LA district and Roybal-Allard’s Huntington Park district only become slightly more Latino if you compact them. Shifting them doesn’t much matter, because you end up with heavily Latino 70%+ no matter how you slice and dice it, and they are still heavily Dem, and again, where the lines are precisely has no political effect elsewhere.
CA-32 & CA-38: If you put compact districts in East LA (Chu & Napolitano) they will indeed be much less Latino (in my final map CA-32 (Chu) drops from 62% to 43% Latino while CA-38 (Napolitano) drops from 70% to 52% Latino. However, if you take it as a requirement of the VRA that they must be bumped up, then you simply take them from the neighboring heavily Dem districts above, and you still end up with 4 heavily Dem districts, just with less neat boundaries.
CA-35 & CA-37: These districts are not majority Latino, though they are certainly majority-minority. A compact CA-35 (Waters) district in Inglewood actually becomes more black and a compact CA-37 (Richardson) district in Compton becomes majority Latino.
CA-33 & CA-28: If you put compact districts in Hollywood and West LA (Santa Monica, Culver City, Beverly Hills) then one of them will no longer be majority-minority. However, the solution is again to create choppy lines with the neighboring districts noted above, and yet again, you end up with a set of heavily Dem districts regardless. (You didn’t mention Berman’s 28th, but it is majority Latino now).
CA-43: The San Bernardino based district represented by Baca remains majority Latino even if you compact it, and 60%+ Dem regardless.
Now, here’s where things get interesting:
Jim Costa’s CA-20 district will mainly be competing for voters with Denham’s CA-19 and Nunes’ CA-21 district. If you even out the lines, then you will end up with something like a 55% McCain district and two swing districts. If you push the Latinos into CA-20 for VRA reasons, then you will end up with something much as is the case now: a 55-60% Obama district, a slightly GOP district, and a more heavily GOP district. If the VRA has any effect in this area, it will almost surely be to the Dems advantage, for the obvious reason of concentrating Latino voters where they would otherwise be more spread out. The Central Valley districts are the most uncertain for this and other reasons.
CA-39 & CA-47: Between the two Sanchez’s and Campbell (CA-48) you will end up with two Dem seats and a GOP seat, regardless. The only real issue is whether you distort the lines to create a majority Latino district (versus a majority-minority, but not majority-Latino, district) and whether you put a 2nd majority Latino district in this area by crossing county lines into LA County, or instead put another majority Latino district on the other side of LA, with a heavily-Latino (but not majority Latino) district in Irvine/Costa Mesa/Newport Beach.
6) The only plausible way that Calvert & Miller could be saved would be through a gerrymander. If you draw compact seats based in Riverside city and the Inland Empire parts of San Bernardino (Chino, etc) they will be Democratic seats (close to 60% Dem in the case of Riverside; around 53-55% Dem in San Bernardino, depending on which county lines you cross).
And, let me close with a general statement about the VRA. It’s a virtual certainty that at least 4 serious VRA lawsuits will be filed over this cycle’s redistricting: Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and California. In my view, what we may well be seeing is the swan song of the VRA in terms of redistricting. At least one of these cases is likely to be taken up by the Supreme Court, and there is little doubt that the current composition of the court is hostile to taking account of race in districting. The Supreme Court came very close to striking down all consideration of race in the 1993 Shaw v Reno case, with Sandra Day O’Connor clearly the one that pulled back. Anthony Kennedy has always expressed great hostility to the consideration of race in redistricting (and virtually anything else) and there’s surely no one that thinks Alito will be more in favor of racial gerrymanders than was O’Connor.
There’s an excellent chance that the Supreme Court will reject VRA challenges per se, and that it may very well go even further to ban any consideration of race in drawing up districts. Since one of these cases is already working through the courts (Florida) and the North Carolina GOP has all but served notice they expect to have their maps challenged and hope for a swift ruling, it should become clear sooner rather than later which way the wind is blowing on that, and there’s a decent chance this will be before the California maps need to be passed.
As I see it, Stark will get the cut, the population growth in it has been almost non-existent. The 13th district can be easily divided up between Honda and McNerney, with Honda getting a plurality Asian district. That’s the cleanest way of doing it. Cardoza might have the option of moving into a Stockon anchored seat and being fairly safe there. That is if Costa doesn’t have Merced added to his district to keep the Hispanic percentage up, in which case we’d see a primary between the two.
There is little difficulty drawing VRA districts, so there isn’t much harm for Democrats on that front. Just by making Dreier and Miller’s districts compact, you can get districts that have good percentages for minorities.
The Republicans stand to lose at least 4 seats, Calvert, Dreier, Gallegly and Miller will no longer have safe seats. Capps can win a more compact seat, she did it three times previously and the new incarnation of the district will probably look like the one she initially ran in. The Republicans don’t have much of a bench there, other than Abel Maldonado, whose brand isn’t that high anymore. The seat that gets shifted will definitely be in the Inland Empire, in particular, Riverside County. Bono Mack would get a safe seat and a new Dem leaning seat would have her 2010 opponent Steve Pougnet’s name on it.
And now that we have a top two primary system, we will see lots of same party battles. If Miller gets drawn in with Royce, which is a possibility, we’d see a general election between the two.
but he’ll be 80 this year…