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Roles reversed in 2011 redistricting

January 30, 2011 —

The partisan composition of legislative districts served as one of the forces that enabled Democrats to extend their dominance of the South.  Until 2000, Democratic legislatures carried out the decennial redistricting across the region with only occasional interference from Republican governors. As majority parties have done for generations, Democrats designed districts to their advantage.  Republicans often had to compete in districts stacked against them which added to the usual challenge of dislodging an incumbent. 

For the first time, following the 2000 census Republicans had majorities in both legislative chambers and a Republican governor in a Southern state. The elections gave the  GOP control over the redistricting process in Florida and Virginia. Especially in the Sunshine State, Republicans enhanced their congressional holdings, winning the two new seats accorded the state and displacing a five-term Democratic congresswoman. 

Democrats who had the upper hand in most of the rest of the region took care of themselves with extraordinary shapes in Georgia and Tennessee.  In Texas where the parties shared control, judges drew the congressional map while a GOP-dominated commission designed the state legislative districts after the divided legislature deadlocked.

In 2011, the relative dominance of the parties has reversed from a decade earlier.  Republicans will draw the maps for the upcoming decade in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.  Democrats have complete control over the process in Arkansas.  Each party can check the other in Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia. 

The opportunity to draw new maps may prove most helpful to Republicans in some state legislatures.  Republicans gained majorities in the Alabama, North Carolina, and Tennessee legislatures with maps drawn by Democrats.  The new districts designed by Republicans may position the GOP to dominate these legislatures for the next decade. 

While Republicans have unprecedented opportunities, they face limits on what more they can achieve in some states, especially in terms of congressional delegations.  For example, after turning out four Democratic incumbents in 2010, Republicans hold 19 of Florida’s 25 House seats.  Winning 76% of the congressional seats in a state that has been up for grabs in presidential contests for almost a generation is a remarkable feat.  In Texas, where three Democratic incumbents lost in 2010, Republicans now hold 23 of 32 seats.  The Lone Star State is the big winner of the latest reapportionment as it gains four seats.  Since Latino growth largely accounts for the state’s dramatic population increase, some of the new districts will likely be heavily Hispanic and tilt toward the Democrats. 

Rather than trying to expand the number of congressional Republicans from the South, GOP mapmakers may focus on making recent gains more secure.  The temptation to pad the number of Republican seats is there – the GOP has complete control of the process in every Southern state gaining US House seats. But the GOP gains in 2010 will likely encourge securing gains, rather than seeking to add to them. The 2010 elections saw Republicans replace Democrats in 22 districts while losing only the heavily African-American New Orleans district.  Some of these recent gains came in transformed districts where the bulk of the electorate had become Republican but continued to vote for the conservative Democratic incumbent.  But other gains came in districts that remain competitive.  In early handicapping of the 2012 elections, Larry Sabato identifies five of the GOP gains as marginal. Republicans in Georgia, Florida, Texas and Virginia will likely give top priority to adding GOP voters to make some of the seats gained in 2010. 

In shifting Democratic and Republican voters across district lines, Republican lawmakers may find they have allies in the US Department of Justice. Every state from the old Confederacy except for Arkansas and Tennessee must secure approval from federal authorities before implementing new statewide districting plans.  When reviewing maps, DOJ attorneys have consistently sought to increase the numbers of minority legislators.  Minority legislators usually come from districts that are heavily minority in racial makeup.  Republicans fully support initiatives to increase minority concentrations in selected districts since each time the minority percentage in one district increases, a concomitant decrease in minorities occurs in one or more adjacent districts.  As nearby districts become whiter, they become more likely to elect Republicans.  

 Georgia’s Legislative Black Caucus recognized the trade-offs involved in maximizing black concentrations and supported Democratic initiatives to disperse some of the black population in the 2001 plans in an effort to bolster prospects for some white Democrats.  DOJ fought those efforts.  Republicans doing redistricting and DOJ will again be on the same page in 2011. 

Charles S. Bullock, III is the Richard Russell Professor of Political Science and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Georgia.  Ronald Keith Gaddie is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma and co-editor of the Social Science Quarterly.  They are co-authors of the award-winning Triumph of Voting Rights in the South.  Both have extensive experience in redistricting litigation and Bullock is author of Redistricting: The Most Political Activity in America.