State Legislatures and Redistricting

[Dan the Roman]

Although Maine currently redistricts after years ending in a 2, might they change the law to do it early this time? First and foremost, Maine Republicans will want to protect their own majorities and could do so with gerrymandering. Secondly, it makes a single electoral vote a tossup or even R-leaning for 2012 and ensures it for 2016 and 2020. Finally, it's easy for them to justify as "synchronising with other states".

There was also a bipartisan bill introduced to do so.

That said, Maine very rarely crosses town lines in districting. Any effort to gerrymander, especially given some of the bizzareness of the 2010 result would be risky and might backfire immensely. Really the only thing that could be done is to move Lewiston/Auburn to the second congressional district. House districts are too small to gerrymander.

[Dan the Roman]

Reports of the NY Republican demise are greatly exaggerated.  If they can win back the suburbs, they will retain control of the State Senate through the decade.  That rebuilding process began in 2009 and continued to grow in 2010. 

They needed a heavily gerrymandered map and a Republican wave year to get above parity and hold onto 32-30. The next map, even if drawn by Republicans to continue to crack Long Island's minority communities and upstate Democratic districts, will be hampered by the law change making it impossible to county downstate prisoners as residents of underpopulated northern Republican districts. The Democrats aren't holding any untenable districts that I know of, considering that Aubertine and the guy on Suffolk County lost, while the Republican in Buffalo is in a weak position and there are Republicans representing places like Rochester and central Nassau who would be in tough shape even if the suburbs started voting like it was 1988 again.

We'll see what happens next year when we have new maps (likely drawn by Republicans, although with difficulty) and a Presidential election year.

Assuming the Democrat incumbent keeps her narrow lead in SD-37, Democrats hold seats in the Bronx/NYC northern suburbs that can easily go over to the Republicans if redrawn correctly (cramming minority areas of Westchester into a Democratic stronghold district and making a seat or two for Republicans out of the residual).  If I'm not mistaken, two of those seats had two Republican incumbents last time the lines were drawn to try to keep both in power (including one that contained much of the Bronx before the incumbent Republican was indicted).  Westchester and Rockland have enough Republicans that they should be able to elect at least one more Republican to the NYS Senate, if not two.

The GOP is not going to get free-reign to draw a gerrymandered w NY senate map. Everyone here is making the same mistake they are making with Virginia. Overrating the strength of a doomed majority in one chamber when the rest of the process is controlled by the other party. I told everyone here that the map with a GOP 34-28 majority would look vastly different than one with a 32-30 one, especially if in the best year for the GOP in decades they could only manage a majority at all by 400 or so votes, and with one senator in a 70% Obama district. Because there is virtually no chance of the GOP holding the chamber on anything resembling the current lines in 2012(ditto for the Dems in the VA senate) the Democrats have the ability to send the map to the courts and then revisit the issue in 2013.

Therefore like in VA, what is going to happen is that there are going to be incumbent protection maps which contrary to the above does not include a GOP gerrymander in the Senate. The current 32(or 31 Republicans) will all be strengthened, but the present 30-31 Democrats will be made safe. And there is a limit to how much the some of the current Republicans can be strengthened, so the result will be a chamber the GOP is almost guaranteed to lose in the next decade.

What the GOP will however get from this will be the promise not to re-do the Congressional or Senate boundaries when that does occur. And because the Democrats in the NYS and NYA dont give a damn about congress that is where the concessions will be.

But the idea that any Democrats are going to be targeted in any possible Senate map is as absurd as the Democrats in the VA senate getting away with drawing the GOP leadership in that chamber out of their seats.

[Dan the Roman]

Traditionally, each house of the legislature draws its own maps in Virginia, so there may be a Democratic gerrymander for the Senate and a Republican one for the House.

The Democrats will get a decent map, but even with one, I suspect their odds of holding on in 2011 are not good. And that in itself, is an argument not to torpedo the whole process in pursuit of said map. If the Republicans emerge feeling cheated, they are likely to be in a position to do something about it next year. Furthermore, like the Democrats in NY, the GOP wins(except on congressional districts, and only marginal there) if things are forced into the courts for one cycle.

[Dan the Roman]

Here is a spreadsheet of the 2010 post-election state legislature lineup by party:

http://members.cox.net/rbt48/weather/Presidential_Elections/2010_State_Legislatures_post_election.pdf

Comments and corrections gladly welcomed.

77 Republicans, 73 Democrats and 1 Independent were elected to the Maine House of Representatives this year, but one Democrat (soon to be second-term Rep. Michael J. Willette of Presque Isle in House District 5 who is already counted and listed as a Republican here (his son Alexander (R-Mapleton), who was elected to the House in a neighboring district, apparently convinced him to switch parties)) announced he was switching parties a little over a week after his reelection (he got to vote for the Republican nominee for Speaker even though he couldn't have had his 15 day elligibilty period to vote in a Republican primary or municipal caucus, etc. finished by then), so, counting that switch, your table is correct for Maine (there were one Senate and three House recounts (all Republican requests that could only have increased their majority) but the leading Democrats hung on in all of those).

Why's the 0 for Independents and Others in the South Dakota Senate in boldface though?  At first I thought it was to represent a Republican Lt. Governor (does South Dakota even have one?), but then I saw that the Republicans have (or will have at least) an overwhelming (30 to 5!) majority in that chamber.

I didn't realize that Alex's father was a Democratic rep. Wow, learn something everyday.