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 Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa.
Previous diary on Alabama, Arizona, and Arkansas
Previous diary on California, Colorado, and Connecticut
Previous diary on Florida, Georgia, and Hawaii
The rest below the fold…
Idaho
Districts: 2
Who’s in charge? Nonpartisan commission
Is that important? Nope
Idaho competes with Hawaii for the prize of least interesting congressional redistricting process of the decade. The commission will move some precincts around to achieve population equality, and Reps. Labrador and Simpson will likely stay in office with huge majorities throughout the 2010s.
Illinois
Districts: 18, down from 19 in 2002
Who’s in charge? Democrats
Is that important? Extremely
This will be the first time in a long while that Democrats control redistricting in Illinois, and as their only obvious major gerrymandering opportunity of the decade, they will milk the state for every seat it’s worth. In such a blue state with an 11-8 Republican majority in its congressional delegation, big swings should not be difficult. They will likely eliminate a GOP seat in the Chicago area (my guess: force Bob Dold and Joe Walsh together in a more Republican North Shore district), though there’s been some discussion of eliminating a downstate district instead (say, Bobby Schilling’s or Aaron Schock’s). That is only the beginning. Lessening the minority percentages by just a little in the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 7th could ruin suburban Republicans like Adam Kinzinger and Peter Roskam, while liberal urban districts like the 9th and 5th could easily stretch westward to lessen GOP fortunes in nearby seats. In using Dave’s application, I found it possible to create an ethnically diverse, heavily Democratic 11th District for Kinzinger simply by lowering the African-American percentages for Rush and Jackson to the 52-53% range.
I think the Democrats will seek to gain perhaps three seats, for an 11-7 Democratic edge. Given the necessity of VRA protection in those four Chicago seats, any more would be pushing their luck. The most likely Republican casualties are Dold, Walsh, Kinzinger, Roskam, and Schilling, though at least one of them will likely be strengthened by the new gerrymander.
Indiana
Districts: 9
Who’s in charge? Republicans
Is that important? Yes
The bad news for Democrats is that Joe Donnelly is almost certainly toast — split up South Bend and Michigan City between two districts and he will be running in a much more GOP-friendly seat than the current Obama-supporting 2nd District. The silver lining is that Republicans can’t make things much worse for them otherwise. Democratic vote concentration in Lake County and Indianapolis will ensure solid vote sink districts for Pete Visclosky and Andre Carson, and Gov. Mitch Daniels has urged his party not to go crazy with boundary lines (this probably applies more to legislative districts, since only the 2nd will be significantly politically altered in this case).
Iowa
Districts: 4, down from 5 in 2002
Who’s in charge? Nonpartisan commission, with legislative approval
Is that important? Yes
Since the commission will not want to combine two Democrats (Braley and Loebsack) or two Republicans (King and Latham), it is almost sure that Tom Latham will face Leonard Boswell in a politically competitive Des Moines/Ames district. Latham has generally overperformed GOP baseline in his district while Boswell has had a number of tough races over the years and will be 78 next year. I could see the latter retiring if forced to run against Latham. But time will tell. Boswell’s tenacity — winning races since 1996 that, more often than not, have been relatively close — may ultimately pay off.
Illinois will be a interesting gerrymander. The Democrat districts in Chicago have to add a lot of people. I’m not sure how much can be gained in this state when you remove a GOP district. Such a move in theory would strengthen other Republican districts. I wonder what the target is? Do Dems go for a 11-7 map? I’m thinking in this case the VRA hurts a gerrymander of Illinois.
The goal will be to remove Republican gains in 2010. A map of 13-5 can be done fairly simply. Roskam is one they should leave in, because his district can be used to neutralize DuPage County.
The Iowa commission is required by law to disregard incumbent residence when drawing up districts. As I recall, they had no problem tossing Jim Leach and Jim Nussle into the same district in 2001. Why would they have a problem setting two Democrats and/or two Republicans in the same district this time around?
The redistricting commission is supposed to take only four considerations into account, in this order:
Population equality
Contiguousness
Respect of county and city unity
Compactness
Anyway, so far as I can figure, the following whole-counties map best equalizes the district populations according to these criteria, so I would guess that the initial proposed map will be very similar:
The incumbents would be in the following districts (unless/until they move):
IA-01: Braley; Loebsack
IA-02: Vacant
IA-03: Boswell; Latham
IA-04: King
Here are the 2008 Obama/McCain numbers:
IA-01: 227131 Obama to 156148 McCain (59.3% Obama to 40.7% McCain)
IA-02: 220755 Obama to 159698 McCain (58.0% Obama to 42.0% McCain)
IA-03: 205568 Obama to 172425 McCain (54.4% Obama to 45.6% McCain)
IA-04: 175486 Obama to 194108 McCain (47.5% Obama to 52.5% McCain)
Your assessment of Indiana is spot-on, IMO. Donnelly can be screwed just by removing Michigan City and giving him Kosciusko County (and/or more of Elkhart County) instead. That’s subtle enough that Daniels should go for it.
I doubt very much that cracking Marion County will happen, and the chances of cracking Lake County are even slimmer. Neither of those gerrymanders has political upside for the GOP – they’d antagonize not only minority groups and Democrats but also a lot of the RW crazy groups unhappy to be represented by a Democrat (especially, in CD7’s case, a black Democrat) in what would still be a Dem-leaning district.
As for Illinois, if I were Dems my first move would be to draw Schock in with Shimkus – he may strike us all as the idiot that he is (giving nukes to Taiwan, hello?), but far too many GOPers see him as a “rising star” with future leadership potential stamped all over him. Best to get rid of him first, then knock off as many freshmen as possible. I agree with previous commenters – best strategy is to use CD6 as an exburban Chicago catch-all to weaken all of the other adjacent districts. (CDs 8, 10, 11 and 14). They can do what they will with CD13, and probably leave CD17 the way it is – that district went red because Hare sucked at campaigning, not because it wanted to elect an R. There are just so many swing districts held by R’s in IL that could tilt D with minor manipulations of the map – especially with Obama on the top of the ballot.
There is one slightly interesting aspect to Idaho redistricting. ID-02 will need to pick up population and Raúl Labrador lives very close to the line in Ada County. It’s quite possible his current residence will end up in Mike Simpson’s district.
It cannot be said enough, removing a suburban district is not going to happen. Illinois population has shifted internally. Downstate has shrunk, barring a few exceptions, Cook has shrunk slightly (Chicago has maintained population while some primarily south and west suburban areas have shrunk and the north suburbs have grown modestly), the collar counties have grown dramatically.
Kendall doubled in population, Will has jumped 35% (after jumping 40% 1990-2000), McHenry and Kane have seen 25%+ growth. Lake and Grundy have seen double digit growth. DuPage is more established and has seen only modest growth around 3%.
Illinois as a state has grown ~4% since 2000. Because Illinois is losing a seat, even areas with growth similar to the the statewide growth will lose seats. You would be hard pressed to find an area in downstate Illinois that has seen population growth that outpaces statewide growth (McLean is an example, driven by growth in the college town Bloomington-Normal).
Currently six districts (11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19) have territory in downstate Illinois, two more (14, 16) have territory outside the Chicago metro area in NW Illinois. Losing a suburban district won’t happen.
I’ll also argue that 11-7 is too conservative. There are eight Democratic seats in Illinois currently. All of those incumbents won with 65%+ of the vote, in 2010. Those eight aren’t going anywhere.
The 8th and the 10th can be strengthened by changing them from a N/S orientation to a E/W orientation. This makes the 8th CD Lake County plus a few thousand people in Cook or McHenry. The 10th then is all in Cook County.
That gives you ten Democratic seats. Strengthening the 17th will be easy. Any Democrats in the area go into the 17th, any Republican areas can get dumped. We’re at eleven Democratic seats. Drawing at least one Democratic seat from the Chicago exurbs (Aurora, Elgin, Joliet) will be relatively simple.
That’s twelve, likely thirteen D seats in Illinois fairly easily. A map like that doesn’t use Democratic areas in Rockford, Decatur, Danville, Springfield Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington-Normal and Putnam County, Bureau County, and LaSalle County. These could be cobbled together into potentially another Democratic seat.
Twelve to thirteen should be the goal. One, it’s a waste of material. Two, it then accounts for roughly 1/5 of the seats Dems need to take back the House in 2012.
he plans to run again in 2012, period.
A lot of Democrats in IA-03 aren’t happy about it, and there is speculation that former first lady Christie Vilsack or someone else may challenge Boswell in the Democratic primary.
Speaking of IA-03, Latham is taking an unusually high profile (for him) on the health care reform issue. I think he is trying to build a reputation with a view to running in a Polk County-centered district.