4th district map to get OK today

Deseret Morning News ^ | 12.4.06 | Lisa Riley Roche and Bob Bernick Jr.

[Dr. Zzyzx]

Even though there's no guarantee Utah will get a fourth congressional seat anytime soon, lawmakers are meeting today in special session to approve a new redistricting map for the state.

"We're doing our part to keep the momentum going on this important issue," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s spokesman, Mike Mower, said.

The governor called the Legislature into special session to come up with a map in time for the lame-duck Congress to take action. But congressional action is becoming increasingly unlikely given the amount of other issues Congress has to tackle in the coming days. Still, Huntsman has said a pending bill in Congress linking Utah's fourth seat to full House voting privileges for Washington, D.C., is the state's best chance to gain additional representation in the U.S. House before the 2010 Census.

So, lawmakers reluctantly agreed to draft a new map that divides the state into four congressional districts by quickly putting together a redistricting committee and holding public hearings throughout the state last week. Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, co-chairman of the redistricting committee, said while some other legislators may want to change the resulting committee proposal, known as Plan L, he believes it will pass with strong bipartisan support.

The 2001 Legislature passed a four-seat plan just in case the U.S. Supreme Court, in a challenge by Utah, gave the state another U.S. House member. But the high court turned down Utah's petition. Bramble said Plan L is "by far" a better plan than the four-seat plan adopted in 2001.

"We're not starting from zero. We have a plan we don't like," Bramble said. "We've proven we can do better than that with the commitment from Republicans and Democrats to find common ground."

The Legislature should adopt Plan L on Monday, Bramble said, because if lawmakers don't take action, then there's no chance the lame-duck session of Congress will take up the issue later in the week.

Bramble said it's not clear what will happen once the Legislature acts. "We're getting mixed signals. We don't control what they do back there. What we do control is whether we have in statute a plan we think is the best we can do."

Members of the congressional committee considering the bill that would give Utah a fourth seat have made it clear they wanted to see a new redistricting map. The 2001 map was widely seen as unfair to the state's lone Democrat in Congress, Rep. Jim Matheson. If Congress doesn't act this year, there's some question whether the new, Democrat-controlled U.S. House and Senate convening in January would be willing to consider a fourth seat for Utah. The chances of the state seeing a fourth seat anytime soon would be hurt further if the new Congress had to wait for Utah lawmakers to hash out a redistricting plan during their general session that begins in mid-January.

There will likely be several amendments to Plan L or new redistricting maps debated at Monday's special session, which starts at 10:30 a.m. on Capitol Hill. Already, Rep. Ben Ferry, R-Corinne, has put forth a redrawn Plan L that puts rural Morgan County into Matheson's redrawn 2nd District, which is not primarily Salt Lake County. And Sen. Mike Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, will have amendments that keep his hometown entirely in a single district, not split as in Plan L. Yet to be determined is exactly how a fourth seat would be filled. The governor has said there would have to be a special election early next year for all four seats because of all the boundary changes.

The governor has said figuring out the details of that election — which Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert has said could cost $6 million —can wait. However, he has asked lawmakers during the special session to consider making technical fixes to two previously passed bills.

[AuH2ORepublican]

The GOP didn't even try to take that seat; I guess the party preferred to concentrate on the governorship and open Senate seat. The first I heard of the GOP talking about the MD-03 was on the week prior to the election, and obviously it was merely disinformation to see if the Democrats would get distracted from the gubernatorial and Senate races.

[HostileTerritory]

I do remember the debate in the first Clinton term, and I think the political situation has changed so much that Democrats would jump at the chance to add D.C. to their electoral family. Back when you had seemingly permanent Democrat majorities in the House, and both chambers included many Democrats from districts with little in common with D.C., it's not surprising that they didn't want to go to the mat for the District.

Admitting D.C. as a state wouldn't require an amendment, and once that was done, who's going to stand up to defend the anomaly of the 3 extra EVs?

Your idea of New Columbia is a neat thought experiment, but I don't think it has any potential as a serious compromise, no offense. D.C. would rather continue to fight for statehood; they aren't about to give up the goal of self-government in order to be 15% of the population of a new state. Maryland won't do it and neither will any of the jurisdictions in either state, which have nothing more in common with D.C. than a federal preference for Democrats.

[HostileTerritory]

Didn't you talk about the calculus of a Republican win in MD-3 a few weeks before the election?

Anyway, I agree that the Republicans never took it seriously and that 33% is misleadingly low. That said, Cardin was known to be abandoning the seat very early in the cycle, before anyone knew the election cycle was going to tilt so strongly 'RAT, so it's surprising they didn't even make a feint toward contesting the seat if it's as competitive as some would argue.

I don't know what makes a 45% Bush seat (2004) as uncompetitive as this one turned out to be. But I don't know Anne Arundel County.

[AuH2ORepublican]

You're right, I did write about MD-03 after the NRCC mentioned the seat as one that could go our way---it actually made the claim the day before the election, not the week before, making it's claim even more risible.

This is what I wrote on November 6:

"President Bush got 45%, not 48%, in the MD-03 in 2004; I'm not sure about what Ehrlich got in 2002, but I think it was probably between 51%-54%. Still, I think Ehrlich and Steele have an excellent chance of winning tomorrow, and if they do so Ehrlich will have carried the MD-03 while Steele would have come close (he's running against the district's current Congressman, so it would be very difficult for him to carry it). The RATs are running Senator Sarbanes's son, who has name ID but not much else, and I have long thought that this race should be on the radar screen (actually, the district has been on my radar screen since the Democrats approved that grotesque gerrymander in 2001 and put too many Republicans into the district). I'm glad to hear that the NRCC has not given up on it."

I was wrong about how Ehrlich and Steele would do in the election, and about the competitiveness of the MD-03 race. I assumed that the NRCC wouldn't have mentioned it as a possibly upset unless the race was close, but obviously that was not the case. As I wrote today, I think the GOP was trying to confuse MD Democrats, maybe trick them into conducting a last-minute poll in the MD-03 instead of getting out the vote in Montco, PG and Baltimore City.

For the record, I think that the Democrats made a mistake when they drew the MD-08 to be so heavily Democrat and left the Cardin, Ruppersberger and Hoyer districts as no more Democrat than the state as a whole. The Democrats could have probably drawn 7 districts that were more heavily Democrat than the state while drawing one ultra-GOP CD in northern MD, but they couldn't have made the MD-08 give Bush only 33% in 2000. I don't think it was necessary to draw a 67% Dem MD-08 to defeat Morella; splitting Montco into several districts, drwaing in voters whom Morella had never represented, would have done the trick.

[Redmen4ever]

Didn't need to correct me on the 3 electors ("On the other hand, eliminating the special 3 electors for the district would require a Constitutional Amendment, so that the pact might be made conditional on that."). I really don't think it would a problem to pass the amendment.

As to whether the Democrats would want to retrocede, on the one hand, this wasn't much of an issue in the past, so things could change. But, Maryland doesn't want DC, because it's a financial sink hole, and might have to be offered an inducement. And, as far as Democrats are concerned, if they can get an extra Congress-entity out of DC without retrocession, why would they have to bother with retrocession? They already have the 2 Senators who would be involved. The Democrats have to get it into their heads that we're not giving them a Congress-entity without accepting the responsibility of self-government, then they might take the offer.

[HostileTerritory]

Thanks for the post. I agree, they pushed way too hard to get rid of Morella. They could have made MD-6 more competitive than it is if they had tried to defeat her on the merits and not by drowning her in Democrats.

[AuH2ORepublican]

They couldn't defeat Morella on the merits in Montco, but throw in some voters from other counties and she'd be toast. Morella was like Charlie Stenholm in West Texas---his district was already like 65% Republican, and the way to beat him, as DeLay new, was not to throw more Republicans at him, but *different* Republicans. TX Redistricters split Stenholm's CD in two and he really had no chance against Neugebauer.

[HostileTerritory]

Maybe I'm biased because I live in New England, but I think she wouldn't have made it through this year. 2002 and 2004, absolutely. But no one saw Jim Leach losing.

[AntiGuv]

MD-08 really isn't all that contorted of a district.

The Dems didn't so much go out of their way to get Morrella as they stopped short of trying to get Bartlett. The MD-08 district had to lose precincts in the 2000 round of redistricting and whether they took the southwest half of MontCo or the southeast half they would've ended up with a more heavily Dem district than the MD-08 district of the Nineties. Now, if it weren't for Morrella the Dems could've tried being more adventurous and went after Bartlett, but as it were MD-08 is a fairly regular district in terms of geography.

The real contortions were with MD-02 and MD-03, and that, of course, was to ensure that the Ehrlich seat would also go Dem:

I personally rather doubt the Dems could wring another seat out of Maryland. I don't see how you get either MD-06 or MD-01 to majority Dem without making one of the six Dem seats a very difficult hold.

[Torie]

The Dems made the Morella seat substantially more Dem by playing with the bounderies at the margin, where the precinct behavior varied hugely. The map masks it all. The Dems with some insanely erose map, could have bagged the Gilchrist east shore district, and left Morella in place until she lost because she was Republican, like in 2006, but there was no practical way, as you suggest, to dislodge the the Republicans from the Bartlett district, without discommoding other Dems, like Cardin, and creating some more "erosity." Far west Maryland is very heavily GOP and geographically rather distant.

[HostileTerritory]

What I want to know is why the Democrats didn't trade some of the Baltimore Co. precincts of MD-3 for some of the Anne Arundel Co. precincts of MD-2. I don't know how those precincts vote, but the results look awful. There must have been some way to create slightly more compact districts without upsetting the partisan balance. Was it all because Cardin and Ruppersburger both come from Baltimore or Baltimore Co.?

[HostileTerritory]

Ping to my #51 for precinct analysis, but only if you have the time and knowledge readily available. I've always wondered why this map had to look so awful.

[AuH2ORepublican]

The MD-08, as redrawn in 2002, added black precincts in PG County and lost GOP and marginal precincts in northern Montco. The 2000 Bush percentage was reduced from 36% to 31%, and that, along with the fact that the PG voters didn't know Morella and in any event were less likely to split the ballot, allowed Van Hollen to win 52%-47% in 2002.

My point is that the Democrats could have defeated Morella in a district that gave Bush 38% or so had they made the MD-08 less of a Montco CD. For example, had they connected Hagerstown and Frederick through a narrow corridor to western and southern Montco, the CD probably would have given Bush 38% or so but would be extremely difficult for Morella to carry, since 40% or so of the voters would be new to her and she wouldn't be able to outperform the GOP presidential candidate by her usual 15%+; Van Hollen or another Montco Democrat would have probably won it in 2002 and, if Morella pulled off a miracle that year and in 2004, certainly in 2006. That would free up Montco precincts to be appended to white parts of PG and part of Ann Arundel and give Hoyer a lilly-white but solid Democrat CD, which in turn would free up black voters in Hoyer's PG precincts and in South MD to draw a third black-majority CD. The Dems should have drawn (i) a black majority CD for Cummings in western Baltimore, the black suburbs west of the city, and areas with decent-sized black populations in Howard and western Ann Arundel Counties; (ii) a black-majority CD for Wynn in west and south PG, parts of Montco with decent-sized black populations, and all of Charles (30%+ black), St. Mary's (14% black), Somerset (40%+ black) and Worcester (15% black) Counties; and (iii) an open black-majority CD that takes in black parts of PG not in Wynn's CD, all of Calvert, Dorchester and Wicomico Counties, some Democrat portions of Talbot, Caroline, Queen Anne's and Ann Arundel Counties, and heavily black Eastern Baltimore. Those black-majority CDs would include several GOP areas, but the CDs would still give the GOP between 30%-35% in presidential elections.

In addition to the three black-majority CDs and the aforementioned Hoyer and Van Hollen CDs, they could draw CDs for each of Cardin and Ruppersberger by giving Cardin white central Baltimore, the Jewish suburbs north and west of the city, and the less Democratic close-in suburbs in Baltco, as well as part of Ann Arundel, and by giving Ruppersberger the Democrat Baltco suburbs not in Cummings's or Cardin's district, plus most of Howard County and Democrat parts of Harford, Cecil and Kent Counties.

That would leave one single hyper-Republican district stretching from the Panhandle to parts of Talbot and Caroline Counties, but excluding Hagerstown and Frederick cities and Democrat portions of Baltco, Harford, Cecil and Kent. Before you say that "you can't pack enough Republicans into one MD district to make the other 7 comfortably Democrat, think about this: A hyper-GOP district like the one I described would probably have cast 275,000 votes and given Bush 64% in 2000. That would mean that Bush would have gotten a paltry 36% in 2000 in the rest of MD. I think none of the 7 Democrat CDs would have goven Bush as much as 40% (his statewide percentage) in 2000; under the Democrat plan with 6 Dem districts, 3 of them saw Bush get 41% in 2000.

[johnpannell]

Thanks, I thought NC was growing and would not lose a seat but rather gain a seat or two. Is there something wrong with the economy in NC? In order to lose a seat a state must decrease in population by 600,000 people.

There's 435 seats in the House. The size of the House hasn't been expanded in decades. If you give one to Utah, that means another state loses a seat.

After the 2000 census when this all started North Carolina and Utah were closest to the "cusp" in gaining or losing a seat. At one to Utah and it would most likely come from North Carolina... Unless Congress decides to add a 436th seat to the House.