|
|
|
HAYS —
This week one of the most contentious processes in politics began in Kansas: redrawing the lines of our U.S. House, State House, State Senate, and State Board of Education districts. After each census, every state must redraw its legislative boundaries to ensure a roughly equal population. An equal population can often hide big inequalities between districts, though, which is often the point.
There is great power in redistricting. Voter registration data and sophisticated mapping software allows districts to be drawn with specific levels of party identification, age ranges, and voting histories. Research has shown that it is possible to pack districts with party loyalists and make competitive districts safe with the change of a few neighborhoods. The widespread available of the software means alternative proposals will be numerous, too.
For Kansas, the toughest fight will be over the state Senate’s boundaries. Every member of the state legislature will have a stake in the redistricting process, since every district boundary could change, exposing some candidates to more competition, shielding others, and in some cases making districts disappear altogether.
For the 2012 redistricting round, Kansas’ issues will run east-west. The eastern part of the state’s growth has offset declines on the western side of the state, meaning that districts and therefore power will shift eastward. Drawing a line north to south down the middle of the state would show thirteen Senate districts west of the state’s midpoint, leaving 27 to the east. If one or two more districts get taken away from the west, there will be a nearly 3-1 advantage in the state senate for the eastern part of the state.
Democrats have their own fearful moments to come, too. The process is controlled by the Republican-controlled legislature, with House Speaker Mike O’Neal putting himself in charge of the committee that will initially redraw the district lines. With strong GOP majorities winning in 2010, O’Neal may decide to push for a plan that would pack more Republican voters into Democratic state senate districts in an effort to complete the conservative makeover begun in last year’s election. O’Neal’s decision will be a controversial one, as a sitting House speaker drawing district maps for the other chamber of the legislature looks like a power play.
Within the GOP is where the core of the fight will happen. The 2000 redistricting session was largely a fight between the center-right and polar-alliance Republicans.
Conservatives were happier putting more Democrats in office at the expense of moderate Republicans, resulting in a remap that pitted strong Democratic candidates against weaker Republican foes. Since the Kansas Senate was where the more conservative elements of the House Republicans’ agenda went to die in 2011, Republicans will surely want to pack the Senate with further-right partisans, and the new district map will undoubtedly reflect that goal.
This week one of the most contentious processes in politics began in Kansas: redrawing the lines of our U.S. House, State House, State Senate, and State Board of Education districts. After each census, every state must redraw its legislative boundaries to ensure a roughly equal population. An equal population can often hide big inequalities between districts, though, which is often the point.
There is great power in redistricting. Voter registration data and sophisticated mapping software allows districts to be drawn with specific levels of party identification, age ranges, and voting histories. Research has shown that it is possible to pack districts with party loyalists and make competitive districts safe with the change of a few neighborhoods. The widespread available of the software means alternative proposals will be numerous, too.
For Kansas, the toughest fight will be over the state Senate’s boundaries. Every member of the state legislature will have a stake in the redistricting process, since every district boundary could change, exposing some candidates to more competition, shielding others, and in some cases making districts disappear altogether.
For the 2012 redistricting round, Kansas’ issues will run east-west. The eastern part of the state’s growth has offset declines on the western side of the state, meaning that districts and therefore power will shift eastward. Drawing a line north to south down the middle of the state would show thirteen Senate districts west of the state’s midpoint, leaving 27 to the east. If one or two more districts get taken away from the west, there will be a nearly 3-1 advantage in the state senate for the eastern part of the state.
Democrats have their own fearful moments to come, too. The process is controlled by the Republican-controlled legislature, with House Speaker Mike O’Neal putting himself in charge of the committee that will initially redraw the district lines. With strong GOP majorities winning in 2010, O’Neal may decide to push for a plan that would pack more Republican voters into Democratic state senate districts in an effort to complete the conservative makeover begun in last year’s election. O’Neal’s decision will be a controversial one, as a sitting House speaker drawing district maps for the other chamber of the legislature looks like a power play.
Within the GOP is where the core of the fight will happen. The 2000 redistricting session was largely a fight between the center-right and polar-alliance Republicans.
Conservatives were happier putting more Democrats in office at the expense of moderate Republicans, resulting in a remap that pitted strong Democratic candidates against weaker Republican foes. Since the Kansas Senate was where the more conservative elements of the House Republicans’ agenda went to die in 2011, Republicans will surely want to pack the Senate with further-right partisans, and the new district map will undoubtedly reflect that goal.
The only certainty is that redistricting will be as contentious a fight in the 2012 legislative session as the budget has been for the last few years. Every constituent group will have a chance to be angered, because the process is a twisty one with numerous stops. The legislature is responsible for drawing and passing redistricting plans, and the Governor has the opportunity to veto. After passing the legislature and governor, Attorney General Schmidt must submit the plan to the Kansas Supreme Court within fifteen days. Over the next thirty days, the Court reviews the plan to ensure that one party is not unfairly hurt or advantaged and that the districts are roughly equal in population.
The Supreme Court can then either approve the plan or nullify it. If the plan invalidates the plan, the legislature has fifteen more days to propose a new plan, which must again go back to the Court. At each step in the process, deals will be made and feelings will be hurt. The competitiveness of elections for the state legislature will be determined for the next decade.
Redistricting isn’t the most exciting thing to follow for most people, but the elections they influence are. The research clearly tells us that the best way to ensure safe or competitive legislative districts is to design them that way.
Chapman Rackaway is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Fort Hays State University.
