Drawing the Lines

R. Seabrook Nicholas

Description

Radical redistricting plans, such as that pushed through by Texas governor Rick Perry in 2003, are frequently used for partisan purposes. Perry's plan sent twenty-one Republicans (and only eleven Democrats) to Congress in the 2004 elections. Such heavy-handed tactics strike many as contrary to basic democratic principles. In Drawing the Lines, Nicholas R. Seabrook uses a combination of political science methods and legal studies insights to investigate the effects of redistricting on U.S. House elections. He concludes that partisan gerrymandering poses far less of a threat to democratic accountability than conventional wisdom would suggest. Building on a large data set of the demographics of redrawn districts and subsequent congressional elections, Seabrook looks less at the who and how of gerrymandering and considers more closely the practical effects of partisan redistricting plans. He finds that the redrawing of districts often results in no detrimental effect for district-level competition. Short-term benefits in terms of capturing seats are sometimes achieved but long-term results are uncertain. By focusing on the end results rather than on the motivations of political actors, Seabrook seeks to recast the political debate about the importance of partisanship. He supports institutionalizing metrics for competitiveness that would prove more threatening to all incumbents no matter their party affiliation.

Sujets

• USA
• Election law
• History of the Americas
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 07 février 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501707797
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

DRAWING THE LINES

DRAWING THELINES Constraints on Partisan Gerrymandering in U.S. Politics

NiCHOlas R. SEabrOOk

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2017 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Seabrook, Nicholas R., author. Title: Drawing the lines : constraints on partisan gerrymandering in U.S. politics /  Nicholas R. Seabrook. Description: Ithaca ; London : Cornell University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016030014 (print) | LCCN 2016031135 (ebook) |  ISBN 9781501705311 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501707780 (Reflowable formats) | ISBN 9781501707797 (PDF ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Gerrymandering—United States. | Apportionment  (Election law)—United States. Classification: LCC JK1341 .S39 2017 (print) | LCC JK1341 (ebook) |  DDC 328.73/073455—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016030014

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Cover illustration: The Fifth U.S. Congressional District in the State of Florida. GIS shapefile data created by the United States Department of the Interior in 2013.

Contents

 Introduction: Perceptions and Misperceptions of Partisan Redistricting 1.  A Theory of Constrained Redistricting 2.  The Unrealized Precedent ofDavis v. Bandemer 3.  SecondOrder Challenges and the Rise of MidDecade Redistricting 4.  Winning the Future? Redistricting and Partisan Bias 5.  Redistricting, Electoral Responsiveness, and Democracy  Conclusion: Implications for Redistricting Reform

References Court Cases Index

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DRAWING THE LINES

INTRODUCTION Perceptions and Misperceptions of Partisan Redistricting

As the results of the 2002 election flashed across their television screens, Texas’s congressional Republicans could be forgiven for feeling a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the redistricting process in the United States. Their party had seen its share of the statewide vote in U.S. House elections increase from 49.8 percent in 1992 to 54.9 percent in 2002. Yet, even with this latest tenpoint victory over the Democrats in the popular vote, they had once again failed to convert their increasingly dominant electoral support into a Republican major ity in the state’s congressional delegation. A partisan gerrymander, passed in the wake of the 1990 Census and left largely intact by the district boundaries im plemented by the federal courts following the 2000 Census, had allowed the Democratic Party to maintain its overall majority in the Texas delegation for more than a decade. The Democrats won twentyone of Texas’s thirty seats in Congress in 1992, and managed to retain control of nineteen in 1994 and seven teen from 1996 to 2000, despite averaging just 45.8 percent of the twoparty vote in these elections. In 2003, the Texas Republicans, armed for the first time with control of both houses of the state legislature and the governorship, undertook an unprecedented middecade redrawing of the state’s congressional boundaries. Though many Republicans in the state government were opposed to the idea of redrawing the district boundaries middecade, the effort was initiated under considerable pressure from Republicans in Congress, most notably House majority leader Tom DeLay (Kang 2005). When Governor Rick Perry called a special session of the legislature to draw up the new map, fiftynine Democrats in the Texas House, many of whom fled

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