Suchergebnisse

Introduction : why redistricting is important -- Population equality : how equal must districts be? -- Minorities and redistricting -- The populations are equal and minorities have not been discriminated against, now what? -- Partisan gerrymandering : all's fair in love, war, and redistricting saith the U.S. Supreme Court, but others beg to differ -- Gerrymandering in Georgia : a case study -- Looking to the future.

The presidential election season came to an early end in Georgia. Because the state was universally acknowledged as being safe for President Bush, the parties did not contest its Electoral College votes. The focus of the 2004 election cycle in Georgia came further down the ballot. The election marked the first time that Georgia elected a second Republican senator. The state had one of only three instances in which a House incumbent whose congressional seat had not been redistricted lost. Even more dramatically, Republicans took control of both chambers of the state legislature for the first time in more than 130 years.

Various interpretations are being given to the 1994 elections. Aside from President Clinton's unpopularity and an expanding Republican base, some Republicans running in the U.S. House and state legislative contests benefitted from redistricting decisions made two or three years earlier. A number of observers agree with an unsigned observation in The New Republic that "The racial gerrymandering of 1990 was key to this year's Republican victory" (Anonymous 1994, 12). At a minimum, the Faustian agreement between Republicans and black Democrats contributed to the continuing implosion of the Democratic party in the South.

This paper analyzes growing Republicanism from the perspective of officeholding at the county level. Using data from a 1991 survey, we show that Republicans currently hold somewhat less than 10 percent of all county offices. Their greatest success has come in those posts offering a wider range of responsibilities. Republican county success is associated with the frequency of Republican majorities in statewide elections. Further, more Republican county officials are found in the Atlanta area, in counties experiencing more growth and, for some offices, in more affluent counties and those in which blacks constitute a higher proportion of the registered voters. The significance of the expanding corps of Republican officeholders is the potential for a more experienced cadre of candidates for higher offices than typically put forward in the past

Davison and Krassa (1991) are correct in their observations about the shifts in the partisan loyalties of southern blacks and whites over the last generation. Their suggestion that party lines may, in time, reinforce racial lines remains premature and cannot be substantiated by the time period of their analysis. It is possible, however, that by the beginning of the next century, the general thrust of their suggestions may have come to pass. While Davison and Krassa and I (and a number of other analysts of southern politics, such as Carmines and Stimson 1989; Campbell, 1977) have come to similar conclusions about partisan realignment, we travel different paths. I am not convinced of the Davison- Krassa "white flight" explanation for the shift in partisan allegiance among white southerners. There are several factors that leave me doubtful.

Incumbent politicians are understandably nervous when electoral rules are altered. In the case of the U.S. House of Representatives, members are well aware that a change in decade is accompanied by the near certainty that their own district lines will be redrawn. These incumbents know that changes resulting from the reallocation of congressional seats among states and the shift of population within states could have a shattering effect on their careers: their districts could be eliminated; they could be thrown into a district with another House incumbent; their district lines could be radically redrawn, destroying their traditional bases of support.Incumbents' unease is transformed into serious worry by one additional fact:de jurecontrol of redistricting is out of their hands. State legislatures and governors, the Justice Department (for those states falling under the Voting Rights Act) and ultimately the courts determine the fate of incumbents.Of course, the ostensible purpose of congressional redistricting in accordance with the decennial census is to ensure that congressional representation reflects the changes in the geographical distribution of the nation's population and thus to ensure that the members of the House from each state represent approximately the same number of citizens. Putting that principle into practice creates opportunities for the parties to increase their strength in the House but it also causes tremendous uncertainty among incumbents.Looking at political science research on the effects of redistricting on the fortunes of incumbents, one might wonder why they worry. In 1972 I reported findings of my study on incumbents who lost their elections after redistricting.