Both political parties will try to develop strategies to draw district lines that favor the re-election of their current office-holders.
Any such gains, however, by either political party, will be short-lived, said Mark Johnson, senior partner with Patriot Campaign Consulting firm in Illinois. Johnson believes Republican and Democrat operatives have a knack for "neutralizing" each other's advantages.
"The census really does shake up the political landscape all around the country," Johnson said. "In reality, the Republicans have the upper hand ... but whatever is gained is short term. Given we have two major political parties, they end up finding ways to neutralize each other."
For instance, he explained, the GOP could benefit from the new census numbers, as states considered Republican strongholds such as Arizona, Texas, and Georgia get additional seats in the U.S. House and the legislatures in each of those states decide the boundary lines of the redrawn congressional districts. By dominating the process of carving out the new districts, Republicans could lay out geographic boundaries favorable to their candidates.
With two extra representatives allotted for Texas, for example, the Republican-controlled state legislature could manipulate the district boundaries to water down a Democrat-dominated area.
Democrats could employ several strategies of their own, however, according to Jack Pitney, associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California. Democrats could cause "mischief," he said, by "pitting Republicans against Republicans" in states where they maintain control of the redistricting process.
"It's entirely possible, if they want to, that the Democrats" could redraw the district boundary lines so that two Republican incumbents would have to battle each other for re-election, Pitney said. "The Democrats could force the Republicans to waste a lot of money in the primary campaigns."
Incumbent battles have been the unfortunate byproduct of redistricting changes in the past. Both Illinois and Massachusetts, for example, have seen seated representatives fight each other for re-election after their districts were united after census years, and 2002 races will likely feature more of the same, analysts said.
"What happens when there's two incumbents [campaigning against each other] just depends on the party politics," said Dr. Peter Schramm, executive director for the John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs.
By most accounts, the races between incumbents have been hard-fought and borderline nasty. But, Schramm said, even redistricting that pits incumbents against each other can be achieved amicably, if the political parties' operatives help the process.
"They can try to find one of them, the one who lost, something else, maybe a job in the governor's office, or something like that," he said.
Historically, said Pitney, the political party that controls the White House loses congressional seats during the midterm elections. But that may not be the case in 2002, he said, citing the clear advantage the GOP now possesses with the census figures.
"I think Republicans have a great opportunity," Pitney said. "There's a potential for great gains. Overall, when you look at the configurations, Republicans are in better shape than they were in 1990."
Still, the opportunity to manipulate voting precincts is no surefire way to guarantee political success and, in fact, could create a host of potential legal headaches.
Gerrymandering, the process by which states draw "districts with odd shapes to create an unfair advantage" for the controlling political party, can be judged illegal if there's proof that the Constitution's equal protection rights of constituents were violated.
It's considered illegal, for instance, if state legislators redistrict precinct lines based solely on minority populations.
But the rules become hazy when politicians elect to place boundaries based entirely on partisanship. In other words, if Republicans in Texas decide to redistrict so that GOP voters in certain precincts maintain an 80 percent majority, then Democrats could, by law, press forth a case in court accusing gerrymandering, Pitney said.
But how the courts would rule is anybody's guess, said Johnson, since the courts have given no decisive answer in past cases involving gerrymandering allegations.
"Technically, it's not legal," he said. "But anything that's done politically has to be reviewed. The problem is nothing would be done unless someone challenges it, and the Supreme Court hasn't really done much on that. They've really muddied the waters on what is gerrymandering" by issuing opposite rulings in past separate cases that involved the same issues.
The ideal for the controlling party, Johnson said, is to create a redistricting plan that allows for a 60 percent majority, which allows incumbents a comfortable edge and defrays accusations of gerrymandering.
"You want a fair mix," he said, "but you also want to protect your incumbent. Both [Democrats and Republicans] want a 60-40 advantage built in for them. That way, each party knows they can actually have a chance ... to challenge that person in power."
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