This, Episode 8 of my never-ending redistricting series, is a diary of firsts. It is the first time I have covered three states instead of the customary two (the reason being that I was pairing a larger state with a smaller one, and this diary covers three mid-sized states), and the first time I have covered a state not expected to either gain or lose seats in the next reapportionment (Indiana, which should hold even at 9 seats).
Previous efforts:
Diary 1: Massachusetts and Texas
Diary 2: Michigan and Nevada
Diary 3: Iowa and Ohio
Diary 4: Georgia and New Jersey
Diary 5: Florida and Louisiana
Diary 6: Pennsylvania and Utah
Diary 7: Illinois and South Carolina
Jump below!
First, why these three states? Well, they are three states of contrast. Number-crunchers anticipate that Oregon will gain a seat, Missouri lose one, and Indiana hold even after the 2010 Census and resulting reapportionment. (I should note that Oregon and Missouri are both on the fringes; a slowdown of Midwest-West migration in the next year could easily keep both at their current sizes, preventing Oregon from hitting 6 seats and saving Missouri from dropping its 9th spot). Further, the map in Oregon is likely to be drawn by Democrats, in Indiana by Republicans, and in Missouri through bipartisan negotiation (Republicans dominate the legislature, but the Governor is Democrat Jay Nixon, and his veto authority should force a relatively incumbent-friendly map).
First, Indiana
As if the redistricting process weren’t already enough of an ego-driven, virulently partisan power grab in most states, Indiana makes it worse; even though the Democrats run the state House, Republicans are almost assured to ram through a GOP-friendly gerrymander. This is because Indiana gives the legislature two ways to go about drawing maps: the chambers can work together to pass a consensus map (since the Senate is in GOP hands and the House under Dem control, this would likely mean incumbent protection), or if one party has both the governor’s mansion and one chamber of the legislature, that party has the power to draw the maps regardless of who runs the other chamber. This is a unique provision, from what I can tell, and not one of which I particularly approve (why have two chambers if one of them can bypass the other by dealing with its own party’s governor?). But at least you can’t accuse the Republicans alone of abusing it; Democrats rammed through their own map in 2001, which a large part of why Joe Donnelly and Brad Ellsworth are now in Congress. Since GOP leaders in the Senate are unlikely to want a feel-good compromise after seeing the Dems get their way last round, I’m counting on the most aggressive possible GOP map in the state.
The good news is this: the Democrats have three marginal districts, and because of trends in the state, I believe the Republicans can only dismantle two. Who are the unlucky two? As I see things, they are Donnelly and Baron Hill. (I don’t remember which poster here on SwingStateProject originally suggested such a situation to me, but whoever you are, I now think you’re 100% right!)
“What?”, the astute SSP junkie is thinking. “Obama won IN-02 easily and tied in IN-09…why wouldn’t they go after Ellsworth, whose district McCain won by a modest margin?”
The answer is two-pronged: first, wrecking Donnelly’s seat is not that hard, even if Northern Indiana does lean Democratic nowadays. Dem votes can easily be packed into Pete Visclosky’s already-safe and very slow-growing district, leaving the 2nd District a lot more Republican and small town/rural-dominated. But in Southern Indiana, there is enough Democratic support between the 8th and 9th Districts that both cannot reasonably be cracked. Between Obama nearly winning the 9th, and doing respectably in the 8th, an effective gerrymander will ruin Dem chances in one seat while packing blue-leaning counties into the other. The reason for solidifying Ellsworth and targeting Hill? Ellsworth has a proven track record of hugely over-performing the Democratic base vote, while Hill’s bipartisan popularity is less established. That, and many of the Dem-friendly cities in the region (Terre Haute, Evansville, Bloomington) fit better geographically in the 8th. I believe Republicans see Ellsworth as more capable of surviving an unfriendly map than Hill, which is why they will do the unthinkable by effectively ceding (for the next few cycles, anyway, or as long as Indiana remains a closely-divided state) the famed Bloody 8th to the Democrats.
Here’s what I see in the cards:
District 1 – Pete Visclosky (D-Merrillville) — with all of Lake and Porter Counties, and nearly half of LaPorte, this is a quintessential Democratic seat along the lakeshore.
District 2 – Joe Donnelly (D-Granger) — outside of Dem-leaning St. Joseph County being intact, there’s little for Donnelly to like about this district. The Obama vote is still probably in the mid-40s here, but no doubt this is would be a Republican seat in most election cycles. Donnelly should take a serious look at statewide office if he gets dealt a hand like this.
District 3 – Mark Souder (R-Fort Wayne) — solid GOP seat centered on Allen County.
District 4 – Steve Buyer (R-Monticello) — I thought of diluting this hyper-GOP district a bit to hurt Ellsworth but realized that the lines would start to get bizarre and that, as mentioned in the intro, there are too many Democrats in western and southern Indiana to be cracked up without influencing at least one district.
District 5 – Dan Burton (R-Indianapolis) — I think the current lines in this district are silly and prefer my more compact version, still safely Republican but not so “stretchy”.
District 6 – Mike Pence (R-Columbus) — to help the odious Pence just a tad (he doesn’t need much), I gave Obama-supporting Madison County to Burton to split up the swingy/moderately Dem-friendly Anderson/Muncie/Richmond area between two GOP districts.
District 7 – André Carson (D-Indianapolis) — entirely within Marion County, as before, and still strongly Democratic.
District 8 – Brad Ellsworth (D-Evansville) — all Ellsworth seems to need to win easily is the combined electoral power of Terre Haute and Evansville, so putting on my bizarro world GOP thinking cap, knowing that it would be easier to dislodge Hill, I attempted to give Ellsworth an actual Democratic seat, one that would have voted for Obama. The coup de grâce, both for packing the 8th with Democrats and for cracking the 9th, was the addition of Monroe County (Bloomington) with its Obama-crazed college students. For a Republican mapmaker, making Ellsworth Congressman-for-life is a small price to pay for winning back the 9th (possibly with Mr. Déjà Vu himself, Mike Sodrel).
District 9 – Baron Hill (D-Seymour) — He is likely toast as these lines are drawn, since his tougher battles (2002, 2004, 2006) were all made or broken by Dem GOTV in Bloomington. While the district lacked Bloomington back in its 1990s iteration, southeast Indiana was also very accustomed to Lee Hamilton back then, and Hill was clearly the beneficiary of some lingering Hamilton popularity both in 1998 and 2000. As for this take on the 9th, a couple of its Ohio River counties are traditionally Democratic, but the district is more rural and conservative than ever before, so conditions would be just right for Sodrel to finally triumph after losing three of his last four races against the venerable Hill. With a district this unfriendly, Hill might also consider statewide office. He ran respectably against Dan Coats in 1990…and Richard Lugar will be 80 years old in 2012. I’m just saying!
While this map is bad from a Dem standpoint, its worst possible scenario is a 6-3 GOP edge, not as bad as the 7-2 delegation seen between 2004 and 2006. Back then we fretted about the real possibility of 8-1, given Julia Carson’s repeated underwhelming performance in the 7th…thanks to Indianapolis turning deep blue and most of southern Indiana moving into swing territory (with some clear Democratic strongholds), 6-3 seems bad in the context of Indiana circa 2009. So, from a broad perspective, Obama genuinely changed the game for the Democratic Party in Hoosierland. And who knows…by 2012, maybe even this unfriendly version of the 2nd District could be held.
Missouri
With a GOP legislature and a Dem Governor, this is an entirely different story. The Show Me State should shed a seat if projections are accurate, but actually surprised demographers a bit by growing sufficiently between 2007 and 2008 to regain a notional loss from 2006. So it wouldn’t be too odd if Missouri rebounded enough before the 2010 Census to barely hang on to that 9th seat, possibly depriving a state like Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, or Texas from adding another.
The real question for me was which districts to combine. With power balanced between the parties, it was obvious that one Republican and one Democrat had to face off in a “fair fight” district, leading to an obvious solution: a suburban St. Louis seat forcing Todd Akin (R) and Russ Carnahan (D) together. I tried to draw a district that would be as close to 50-50 as possible for this purpose, knowing the legislature won’t draw anything too friendly for Carnahan’s south-of-the-city base, and that Gov. Nixon would balk at a map too heavy in Akin’s northern suburbs.
The other problem in Missouri was what to do with Ike Skelton’s (D) heavily Republican district spanning the rural areas between Kansas City and Columbia. I figured that a bipartisan plan means incumbent protection, and the Democrats know Skelton will be 81 when the 113th Congress convenes and is not far from retirement. I thus drew a swing district stretching from the close-in Kansas City suburbs to college town Columbia that would not only easily reelect Skelton, but provide a future Dem with a decent shot at holding the 4th District.
I do have one question, though, about this: Missouri redistricting authority was split in 2001, with a Democratic Governor and House, and a narrowly GOP-controlled Senate. Bipartisan plans almost always help incumbents; why on earth didn’t Skelton get a stronger district then? Perhaps mapmakers knew he would be around for the duration of the decade, and didn’t care to gerrymander more friendly territory for future insurance?
Anyway, other than eliminating a St. Louis seat and shoring up the 4th, this map doesn’t do a lot else of interest. As a result of Blaine Luetkemeyer’s inconvenient choice of residence in Miller County, and Ike Skelton’s wholesale capture of Boone County, the 6th is unaesthetic, but the other districts are reasonably shaped.
District 1 – William “Lacy” Clay, Jr. (D-St. Louis) — all of the city of St. Louis as well as 39% of St. Louis County. VRA-protected as a black-majority seat, so if my lines don’t fit those guidelines, ignore them and assume I preserved an African-American majority here.
District 2 – Todd Akin (R-Town and Country) vs. Russ Carnahan (D-St. Louis) — I realize Carnahan lives in St. Louis itself, but compactness suggests keeping the city whole in District 1, so he’d do well to move to the county. The remaining 61% of decidedly Democratic St. Louis County is here, along with 37% of Akin-friendly St. Charles, so clearly I was aiming for a swing seat either man could win.
District 3 – Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-St. Elizabeth) — the loss of Dem-leaning Boone County is counteracted by the addition of most of Jefferson County, but overall the district favors a Republican, ideally from the greater St. Louis area.
District 4 – Ike Skelton (D-Lexington) — you can’t imagine what it took to get a swing seat out of this territory without violating population equality laws! I don’t know why legislators didn’t try to protect the 4th for future Democrats back in 2001, but with Skelton’s exit from Capitol Hill just a cycle or two away, now is the time to dramatically reshape the 4th’s boundaries, whether the rurally inclined Armed Services chairman likes it or not. Between the competitive counties north of Kansas City and the Dem base in Columbia, this district could actually be held when Skelton retires, unlike the current Charlie Stenholm-like rural monstrosity he represents. If Skelton announces his retirement ahead of redistricting in 2011-12, there’s actually a good chance the district will be eliminated entirely, but without that foresight I had to attempt a genuine shoring-up.
District 5 – Emanuel Cleaver (D-Kansas City) — I’m proud that I was able to help “blueify” the 4th while respecting the ideal of compactness in putting Jackson County whole in the 5th. It would have been a lazy solution to split Kansas City itself between the districts, and so I did otherwise, while still moving the 4th’s PVI a good 10 points more Democratic.
District 6 – Sam Graves (R-Tarkio) — because Skelton picks up its Kansas City burbs, this is now a big blob of rural Missouri goodness, as heavily Republican as ever.
District 7 – Roy Blunt (R-Strafford) or his 2010 replacement — still the heavily evangelical southwest Missouri seat, the most conservative district in the state.
District 8 – Jo Ann Emerson (R-Cape Girardeau) — other than a couple exurban St. Louis-area counties, this district is dominated by small towns and is safely Republican.
So there would be four safe Republican seats, two safe Democratic seats, and two swing seats (one of them safe for an incumbent Democrat as long as he chooses to run). Believe it or not, this is probably the closest thing to a Dem-friendly map one could get from today’s Missouri legislature.
Finally, Oregon
While Democrats must defend the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature in 2010, observers tend to agree that they have the upper hand to retain the monopoly heading into redistricting, giving them the opportunity to decide how to configure the state’s likely new seat. The only problem is that Dem strength is already more or less maximized, with a lopsided 4-1 delegation in a 57-40 Obama state.
Is it realistic to try for 5-1, or should Democrats aim to protect what they have and concede a likely 4-2 split? I initially thought that the latter solution was inescapable, but upon crunching the numbers myself, concluded that it was possible (if risky) to carve five Dem-leaning seats and one ultra-Republican district.
Under my plan, one of the five seats could, however, easily switch to the GOP in an unfriendly election cycle. In a downright terrible year like 1994, two easily would. But in a generic stalemate election year, a 1998 or 2000 sort of situation, and certainly in a Democratic wave year like 2006 or 2008, 5-1 would be the expected outcome.
I weakened both Portland incumbents, David Wu and Earl Blumenauer, to help Kurt Schrader and allow for the creation of a new Dem (or swing, at worst) seat based in Washington County. As notanothersonofabush pointed out, diluting Blumenauer’s district may not have been the greatest idea considering his staunchly liberal voting record, but with a strong Portland base mostly intact, he should be okay under my map.
While Greg Walden would probably choose to run in the über-Republican 2nd I drew, I did choose to mess with him a bit too by putting his home, in heavily Democratic Hood River County, in Blumenauer’s 3rd. All in a day’s work…
District 1 – David Wu (D-Portland) — The 37% of Multnomah County included dominates, with 50% of Marion County serving as a secondary population anchor. I wanted to give Wu as diluted a Dem-leaning district as possible given the need to milk every last precinct in Oregon redistricting.
District 2 – Greg Walden (R-Hood River) — Move, Congressman, and get yourself life tenure in Congress under my plan. Medford/Ashland is the only obvious source of Democratic strength anywhere in this vast rural seat.
District 3 – Earl Blumenauer (D-Portland) — I’m actually a little worried about Blumenauer, one of my personal favorites in Congress, in this map. With 31% of Multnomah along with Hood River and Wasco Counties, he should have enough of a Dem base to win, but might he be too progressive for this district? Splitting Portland three ways was meant to “spread the love” and help Schrader, while splitting the more conservative areas around Salem was meant to do the opposite (“share the pain” to lessen its influence), but have I diluted Democratic numbers out of Multnomah too much to give them power in all three districts?
District 4 – Pete DeFazio (D-Springfield) — Lane County is intact and the conservative reaches of southern Oregon are gone; even the solid liberal that seeks to succeed DeFazio some years down the road will be safe here.
District 5 – Kurt Schrader (D-Canby) — oddly, I probably made it safer than Blumenauer’s district by drawing a district for Schrader that stretches from Lincoln County/Corvallis to Portland. Knowing what I know now, I might not have gone so out of my way to shore up the 5th and instead work to prevent extreme dilution of the 3rd and its Portland base.
And the new District 6 – Washington County and 27% of Clackamas — this is designed to elect a moderate Washington County Democrat; it should be the swingiest of the five Dem seats, but with a narrow yet distinct lean akin to the 3rd’s. Oregonians will be more familiar with the local bench than I.
At the very least, this admittedly flawed map creates five districts that voted for Obama and one that packs McCain votes. But Obama performance does not necessarily equate to Democratic performance at the congressional level. The 3rd, and especially the 6th, could be disposed to a charismatic, moderate Republican in certain cases. The good news is that the entire West Coast from Puget Sound to San Diego has been trending liberal for the past 20 or so years and is getting less and less tolerant of even the most likable Republican candidates. Thus time is working against the viability of GOP candidates in traditional “swing districts” in a state like Oregon, and assuming Democrats retain control of the redistricting process, they will have an unprecedented chance to get aggressive in the Beaver State (even if the legislature deadlocks with the governor on forming a plan, the Secretary of State, Democrat Kate Brown, is authorized to draw her own map). So before too long, even my arguably marginal 3rd and 6th Districts should be out of reach for GOP contenders.
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