About reapportionment and redistricting

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The problem with political reporters is that they are, well, reporters. Their job is to take a snapshot in time and to describe the picture. It is superficial, there is no depth of understanding the picture they describe. And their reference point is always backwards looking – "this is similar to" analysis, rather than an informed forward looking analysis – "one of these things is not like the other." That is something political scientists do.

This is the problem I have with recent reporting on census data and redistricting. This New York Times report is representative of much of the political reporting on this topic that I have read in recent weeks. Redistricting Looms Large in Congress:

The political jockeying over how to draw new Congressional districts began in earnest this week after new census data showed almost a dozen seats shifting to the South and West, leaving Republicans poised to build on their gains from November’s midterm elections and forcing several northern Democratic incumbents to begin plotting to save their jobs.

* * *

Republicans, meanwhile, are preparing for the more enviable task of drawing up new Congressional districts in states where they are strong. Their victories in statehouse elections gave them control of redistricting in five of the eight states that are gaining seats, including the two biggest winners, Texas, which is adding four, and Florida, which is adding two.

* * *

The most likely immediate impact of the coming redistricting, political analysts [read Republican analysts] said, is that Republicans will be able to use their new power in the nation’s statehouses and governor’s mansions to draw new districts that will help the party strengthen its hold on the 63 seats in Congress that it picked up in November. . . Republicans will have the upper hand, giving them the opportunity to add Republican voters to many districts where the party’s candidates won by narrow margins this year, making it easier for them to be re-elected.

Republicans and their stenographers in the corporate media are peeing their pants with excitement over the new and improved "permanent GOP majority" that Karl Rove promised them. Only this superficial, backwards looking analysis is completely wrong. "You mean the corporate media got the story wrong?" You're stunned, I'm sure.

Political scientists look at the same data and say "one of these things is not like the other." You see, their job is to project future trends from the actual scientific data. Reid Wilson, writing at the National Journal has the best analysis I have come across so far. Don't Believe the Reapportionment Hype (emphasis mine):

[A]lthough the media says the population shifts indicate a change in the partisan balance of power, the real story is far more complex. No one should believe that Democrats have had their heads handed to them this decade.

Instead, the reapportionment process foretells a changing dynamic of American politics, one in which minority voters will play an increasingly important and influential role. The eight states that will gain House seats this year appear to give Republicans an advantage, but, in truth, the redistricting playing field is far more level.

Eight states–Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington state–will gain representation when the 113th Congress convenes in 2013, figures released on Tuesday by the Census Bureau showed. On its face, those states appear to give Republicans an advantage; they hold complete control of redistricting in all but Arizona and Washington, where bipartisan commissions will draw the new lines.

The outsized growth of those eight states, however, has come largely from dramatic increases in minority populations, particularly among Hispanic voters. Although exact data on race collected by the 2010 census won't be available for a few months, trends and the American Community Survey, conducted by the Census Bureau, demonstrate that those predisposed toward voting for Democrats have constituted the bulk of the new population boosts.

In six of the eight states, minorities now make up more than a quarter of the population. The 2000 census showed that Hispanics and African-Americans constituted 28 percent of the population in Arizona, 31 percent in Florida, 33 percent in Georgia, and a whopping 43 percent in Texas. That growth has continued; the ACS estimated that those groups now make up more than 33 percent of Arizona's population, 36 percent of Florida's, 37 percent of Georgia's, and 47 percent of Texas's. The 2010 census will certainly show those numbers growing again.

Legislators drawing boundaries will have to account for these minority populations, thanks to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. That provision requires certain states and jurisdictions to "preclear" district boundaries with the Justice Department in order to allow for majority-minority districts. Section 5 applies to Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas (it also applies to Louisiana, which is losing a seat this year). This means that those states will have to ensure that their burgeoning Hispanic and African-American populations will have the chance to be districted together in largely Democratic areas. Although such districts already exist, larger minority populations in many cases mean that Republican-held districts will include more voters predisposed toward voting for Democrats.

* * *

But it's also true that characterizing the nation's eight big-growth states as Republican misses a broader change in American politics: Minority voters and changing demographic trends mean that those states are less reliably GOP than they have been. Washington state is solidly blue, resisting even the 2010 wave toward the Republicans. Florida and Nevada are perennial battlegrounds. President Obama's 2008 campaign saw fleeting signs of hope even in Arizona, the home state of his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain. In 2012, Arizona will certainly top Democratic target lists. And with the exploding Hispanic population, some Republican strategists are worrying about their chances for maintaining their grip on Texas's Electoral College votes over the long run.

The history of reapportionment and redistricting also demonstrates that partisan control of a state's district boundaries means less than the controlling party might hope.

* * *

Republican success in the 2010 midterms extended so dramatically to state legislatures that the party now controls the redistricting process for 196 seats, four times the number of seats over which Democrats have complete control. But courts have shown an aversion to blatantly partisan gerrymandering not sanctioned by the Voting Rights Act, and if independent voters have proven anything in the last three election cycles, it is that their partisan loyalties are fickle.

In other words, reapportionment by itself is no guarantee that one party or another will reap major rewards. Instead, partisan results depend on data focusing on where minority populations have moved, and this information has yet to be released by the Census Bureau. Legislators themselves, who may hope to bolster their party's majority in Congress, will have to use their pens carefully. Draw a district that has only a small partisan advantage and run the risk of allowing a wave election to sweep a Democrat in office.

* * *

[R]umors of a massive Republican sweep are misleading. In fact, in the long run, the voters who guaranteed Sun Belt states their new congressional seats will likely turn those states, slowly but surely, into promising Democratic targets.

History shows that the story of redistricting starts, not ends, with census, reapportionment, and redistricting.

There is a scene in the movie The Graduate in which Benjamin receives a word of advice about the future:

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

For political scientists the future is also about one word: "demographics."

Check out how difficult it is to draw your own districts, courtesy of an excellent game crafted for the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center: The ReDistricting Game.