Roll Call recently profiled the national strategies of the Democratic and Republican Parties heading into 2011 redistricting. What they found is that both parties are pouring enormous resources into their efforts and relying increasingly on organizations outside the traditional DNC/RNC structure.

Here’s what Roll Call had to say about each of the lead organizations:

• National Democratic Redistricting Trust (D): “’We’re putting together a national legal advisory board along with state-by-state legal teams in cooperation with Congressional delegations and state delegations,’ said Brian Smoot, the trust’s executive director and a former DCCC political director. ‘And we will be undertaking legal research and drafting strategic memos for each state.’”
  
  

• Foundation for the Future (D): “(…) will continue to lead the analytical component of redistricting for the Democrats. The coalition, which includes the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, the National Committee for an Effective Congress and other Democratic groups, seeks to provide Democratic caucuses in each state with data, mapmaking software and demographic projections.”
  
  

• Making America’s Promise Secure (R): "MAPS, with the help of national Republican data and technology firm Intel360, is looking to take on the laborious and expensive process of analyzing the data. (…) MAPS is also seeking to lead the Republicans’ legal strategy by incorporating many of the party’s attorneys with experience on redistricting, including Ben Ginsberg, Mark Braden and Cleta Mitchell."

The increasing reliance on outside groups is one factor that’s expected to favor Democrats in the actual redistricting process, and it might be one of the last changes to our political system triggered by the McCain/Feingold Act:

Traditionally, the Republican National Committee centralized the GOP effort while Democrats relied on a coalition of outside groups. But passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002 left Republicans scrambling to reconfigure their traditional strategy, since the RNC used to fund the redistricting tasks with soft money. Democrats, meanwhile, because they had not relied on soft money to fund their redistricting efforts in the past, have been viewed as better positioned ahead of the 2011-2012 redraw.

Ultimately, early positioning is just one of many advantages each side will have in the upcoming redistricting battle. The most important factor will be which side controls each state’s legislature, especially in the 36 states where the legislature is primarily responsible for drawing Congressional districts.

The DLCC is working closely with Foundation for the Future and the National Democratic Redistricting Trust to ensure we are ready for 2010.