MEMORANDUM TO DEMOCRATIC LEADERS & ACTIVISTS
FROM: Michael Sargeant, DLCC Executive Director
SUBJECT: Redistricting Now

Overview

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) is the national party organization that represents state lawmakers from across the country. Our mission is to build and maintain winning, state-of-the-art campaign committees through partnerships with legislative leaders, professional staff, and supporters.

The DLCC has been helping Democrats make gains at the state level since its inception in 1994. In this pre-redistricting year, the DLCC plans to spend $20 million on targeted legislative chambers. The DLCC builds strategic, accountable legislative programs in our targeted states through work with legislative leadership and caucus directors.

Democrats have been winning races consistently at the state legislative level for years. That’s why President Bush’s political gurus are lining up to game the system again. Republican leaders are highlighting the importance of this election and called on the Grand Old Party to use redistricting to reassemble Republican majorities in Congress.

Redistricting Implications

After the 2010 election, lawmakers in a majority of states will meet to draw the lines for both congressional and legislative districts. Having a say in this process is the only way that we can ensure a Democratic agenda gets traction in the future. Of the legislatures with the power to draw congressional maps, 23 chambers in 17 states are within five seats of changing hands. These 17 states will draw 198 Congressional Districts.

The bottom line: The results of the 2010 state legislative elections will define how key reforms and policies are decided for the next decade.

History has taught us that redistricting will have a near instant impact on the makeup of Congress.

In 2002, the first election after the last round of redistricting, 17 congressional seats changed hands—many analysts believe redistricting accounts for 15 of those losses. Because Republicans controlled a majority of the nation’s state houses after the 2000 election, the GOP was able to make substantial gains in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Legislatures in the Crosshairs

Democrats are ready to win in 2010. Already this year, we have gained seats in special elections in Republican-leaning areas, despite shifts in the national political landscape. But the hard work of consolidating the gains our lawmakers have made since 2003 is still ahead of us. Ten chambers where we hold majorities have tight contests this year:

• Alabama Senate (20D, 15R)
• Colorado Senate (21D, 14R)
• Indiana House (52D, 48R)
• Nevada Senate (12D, 9R)
• New Hampshire Senate (14D, 10R)
• New York Senate (32D, 29R, 1 vacancy)
• Ohio House (53D, 46R)
• Pennsylvania House (104D, 98R, 1 vacancy)
• Wisconsin Assembly (52D, 46R, 1I)
• Wisconsin Senate (18D, 15R)

We also have our eye on the Alabama House, Michigan House and the North Carolina Senate and House. Despite comfortable Democratic margins in those chambers, Republicans are taking those states seriously. But the Bush team is on the defensive in 4 states. We have a real shot of gaining majorities in:

• Michigan Senate (16D, 22R)
• Kentucky Senate (17D, 20R, 1I)
• Tennessee House (48D, 50R, 1I)
• Texas House (73D, 77R)

Mobilizing for the Fight

In 2010, the DLCC is running the largest Democratic redistricting mobilization in history to ensure that our state legislative candidates have the resources needed to win against well-heeled Republican special interests. To make this possible, we have established the DLCC’s Redistricting Fund to deploy resources to races that will have the greatest impact on reapportionment.

If and when Democrats are successful in our targeted state legislative races, the Democratic Party will have an impact on the redrawing of enough congressional districts across the country to affect the partisan makeup of Congress for the next decade. Of all the contests on the ballot this fall, state legislative races may be the least conspicuous; they also may be more important to the long-term health of the Democratic Party than all the rest combined.

Last night, a helpful post on redistricting went up on DailyKos. askew provides historical context, an overview of the Democratic playing field, and a call to action, all in one little paragraph:

In 2001-2... Because the Republicans controlled so many state houses during the restricting process, they were able to create gerrymandered districts that resulted in historic gains for the Republicans in the 2002 midterms. The Democratic Party is determined to not let that happen again. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) (help elect state Reps/Sens), The National Democratic Redistricting Trust (legal team to fight redistricting) and Foundation for the Future (a 527 funded primarily by unions to provide data to the Democratic Party on how to draw maps to favor Democrats). However, they will need our help to GOTV and raise money for the 2010 midterms.

This morning, Alex Burns’ Morning Score gave us a nice little plug:

COMING SOON – THE DLCC’S MAP: The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, charged with waging state House and Senate campaigns this fall ahead of the next round of redistricting, is preparing to release a memo to Democratic stakeholders outlining the most urgent targets for the party this fall. “Of the legislatures with the power to draw congressional maps, 23 chambers in 17 states are within five seats of changing hands. These 17 states will draw 198 Congressional Districts,” DLCC executive director Michael Sargeant writes. “The bottom line: The results of the 2010 state legislative elections will define how key reforms and policies are decided for the next decade.” The DLCC’s top defensive targets: the Alabama Senate, Colorado Senate, Indiana House, Nevada Senate, New Hampshire Senate, New York Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House and both chambers in Wisconsin. And its picks for offense: the Michigan Senate, Kentucky Senate, Tennessee House and Texas House.

Tune into this space next Monday for the memo to which he refers.

With questions beginning to fly concerning specific states, the DLCC is pleased to present, via RedistrictingFacts.com, a state-by-state breakdown of how redistricting actually works in each.

For example, did you know that an Independent Redistricting Commission administers the redistricting of both state legislative and congressional districts in Arizona? Check out the website to learn how the Commission members are appointed!

Were you aware that Governors have no veto authority over the maps drawn by the state legislatures in Connecticut and North Carolina?

Have you heard about the various states in which state Supreme Courts have some authority over the redistricting process?

Learn about all these things and more at http://redistrictingfacts.com/redistricting-by-state/!

As Mark Twain might say, the reports of Democratic state legislators’ deaths are greatly exaggerated.

And by “deaths” I mean “defeats.” Every week it seems new articles and columns pop up describing how Republicans are going to make massive gains in state legislative chambers and, consequently, dominate the redistricting process in key states this fall. One observer went so far as to describe Democrats as “victims of their own success,” referring to the inevitability of Republicans eroding the gains Democrats have achieved in statehouses since the last redistricting.

Don’t buy into the hype.

The “wave election” narrative that’s being pushed by Republicans encourages observers to forget that the DLCC’s fortunes are not necessarily tied to those of the other party committees. (Although the DCCC's fortunes for the next ten years are inextricably tied to the DLCC's success this cycle.)

History supports this assessment. Democrats were making gains in state legislatures while Democrats on the national level struggled mightily. In the 2004 election, Democrats lost seats in the U.S. House and Senate while George W. Bush handily won reelection. Meanwhile, in the statehouses, Democrats picked up majority control in a net of six legislative chambers- and this was only the second election cycle after the 2000 redistricting, described by conservatives as the GOP’s “best in 50 years.”

In a non-presidential election year, it is reasonable to expect national politics to play even less of a roll in local, down-ballot races than they did six years ago.

The Democratic candidates for state legislatures have succeeded in both hostile and friendly political climates for several reasons. We worked with Democratic candidates to enable them to run technically and strategically adept races while also localizing the context of their elections. Strong candidate recruitment, district-specific polling and research, candidate-specific field efforts, and localized messages have been key in Democratic victories.

The DLCC continues to build and maintain winning, state-of-the-art campaign committees through partnerships with legislative leaders, professional staff, and supporters. We create strategic, accountable legislative programs in states through work with legislative leadership and caucus directors.

This is how we’ve won, and this is how we’ll continue to win.

So don’t you dare bury us yet.

The American Prospect’s Paul Waldman posted an insightful column on redistricting today. It’s satisfying to see someone else acknowledging that state legislative races are incredibly important this fall.

As Washington wonders whether the shudder-inducing words "Speaker of the House John Boehner" will soon be on lips across the country, the implications of the fall elections for our political geography has gone largely without notice. Elections for control of state legislatures will also be taking place, and though most people know little if anything about who represents them in state capitols, this year it matters a great deal: We just completed a census, and legislatures in most states will be redrawing the boundaries of congressional districts in 2011.

Waldman also explains why and how Democrats are girding for the fight of our political lives.

After the 2000 census, Republicans controlled most of the country's state legislatures and used them mercilessly. For instance, Republicans in Pennsylvania drew the lines so that they ended up holding 12 of the state's 19 congressional districts, despite the fact that it was (and remains) a Democratic-leaning swing state. The GOP managed similar outcomes in Florida and Ohio. In the time since, however, Democrats have invested heavily in preparing for the next round of redistricting, creating a spate of organizations most Americans have never heard of. There's the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which helps Democrats in states get elected, with an eye toward maintaining as many of those precious majorities as possible; the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, which is preparing to fight legal battles over redistricting; and the Foundation for the Future, which is assembling the data necessary to arm Democratic map-drawers.

Meanwhile, Mother Jones’ Suzy Khimm provides her readers with a helpful reminder that, even though the Department of Justice has closed the book on their investigation of Tom DeLay, he’s certainly not out of the legal woods.

DeLay still faces criminal money laundering and conspiracy charges for funneling money into 2002 state legislative races in Texas. The criminal case is up for a hearing next week.

The scheme was part of DeLay's 2003 effort to redraw the state's Congressional map to favor Republicans, as state legislators must approve redistricting changes. As the AP reminds us, DeLay and his two co-defendants are accused of funneling $190,000 in corporate money through the Republican National Committee, then back to state legislative candidates, in violation of state law. …

Both cases against the man-formerly-known-as-the-Hammer have spent years churning through the system, but the timing of DeLay's Texas case seems particularly apt, as the next round of redistricting will happen nationwide in 2011, to reflect population changes recorded in the 2010 Census.

A lot of Texas Republicans seem to be in trouble these days. We’re surely keeping our eye on them, even as we fight for majorities in legislative chambers all across the country.

Mother Jones featured a post today on the importance of this fall’s governors’ races.

Congressional campaigns have dominated 2010 election coverage, given the Democrats' precarious grip on majorities in both Houses. But the New York Times explains how much is at stake beyond Capitol Hill. Both parties have poured millions of dollars into governors' races across the country, given the redrawing of congressional and state legislative districts that will happen in every state next year.

True, both parties are devoting significant resources to gubernatorial races. True, redistricting will occur in every state next year.

Governors typically play a key role in overseeing the redistricting process, along with state legislatures...

Actually, state legislatures are the ones playing the “key role.”

Thirty-six states give their legislatures control over congressional redistricting (some states employ independent commissions or other measures). These 36 legislatures will draw the maps for 384 (most likely, pending final Census results) of the 435 congressional seats.

Governors generally have an important role to play (except where they have no veto authority over redistricting, like in Connecticut and North Carolina). In many states, congressional district maps must be approved by the governor before they can go into effect. In other states, governors appoint or are members of redistricting commissions or boards. (You can find a state-by-state breakdown of who does what when it comes to redistricting here.)

A governor may accept or reject a map based on its benefit to his or her party, but governors are not subject to district boundaries, so they have little stake in the new legislative or congressional districts beyond the general welfare of their party. Redistricting often just becomes part of the regular legislative bargaining that takes place between the governor and the legislature.

State legislators, however, not only have greater control over the drawing of congressional district boundaries, but they also have greater interest in the result. Congressional district maps are often a part of a legislative package that includes the new maps of state legislative districts. Additionally, state legislators are generally more likely to run for congressional seats they create than are statewide officeholders.

The lines these state legislators draw will affect the partisan makeup of Congress for the next 10 years. If the Republicans boast success on the state legislative level this fall, they’ll have the chance to gerrymander their way into an artificial congressional majority for the next decade. Progressive policies will stall in the House as a Republican Speaker refuses to allow Democratic legislation to come up for votes.

So, yes, congressional races are significant this year, just like they are in every even-numbered year. And gubernatorial contests are important and exciting.

But, while state legislative races may be the least conspicuous on many ballots this fall, these elections could be more significant than all the rest combined.

Texas residents enjoy one of the most informative and data-laden redistricting websites of any state in America, maintained by the Texas Legislative Council. The site contains detailed descriptions of the redistricting process in Texas; the state and federal requirements for various types of districts; and an interactive “DistrictViewer” capable of comparing actual and proposed maps down to the street level.

But the information we found most interesting was an archive of congressional redistricting plans from Texas statehood until today.

The maps show Texas’ early days as a two-district state (a jarring image for those used to seeing a 32-district congressional powerhouse). There are historical quirks like Texas’ temporary 19th Century claim to Greene County, which spent several years with no House representation at all and later became part of Oklahoma.

The archive also clearly demonstrates the impact of Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), which established the redistricting principle that all congressional districts must be approximately equal in population. As was common in many urbanizing Southern states prior to Wesberry, the archive shows that Texas redistricted only once between 1917 and 1957. And the 1965 redistricting plan was the first in which several urban counties were split into more than one congressional district. (The 1957 plan only divided Harris County in half, whereas 5 counties were divided in 1965.)

And of course, there’s the infamous DeLay-mander of 2003, the maps for which are more commonly available.

All-in-all, this is a wonderful resource for those interested in political history. If combined with county-level election results, it might be interesting to see how some of these districts voted in presidential elections – recent or otherwise.

This week, Congress.org responded to a reader’s question regarding redistricting.

The “nonpartisan news and information Web site” addressed the following inquiry:

"When a state's seats are cut after the census, how do they decide which representative is out of a job?"

Congress.org’s Frances Symes responds (emphases added):

After the census, and after the reapportionment has taken place, deciding how many House seats each state will have, the states step in to draw the district lines.

Because the Supreme Court in the 1960s interpreted the Constitution to require that each U.S. House district have equal numbers of people, any state with more than one district is likely to be required to adjust its district lines after each census to limit the variation in population between congressional districts.

Redistricting plans are drawn up and passed by the state legislatures and approved by the governors. In this way, the party that controls the state legislature essentially controls the redistricting.
…
While many political experts disagree about the importance of redistricting to the outcome of House elections, it is clear that it can be crucial in determining the make up of a state's delegation in the House, and thus the make up of Congress itself.

Certain areas within each state show a long-term preference for one party over the other.

Because these voting habits are well known to political experts in each state it is possible to create a district that is almost certain to favor candidates of one party of another. There are many ways to adjust districts to make them more or less friendly to members of a certain party.

In case you’re wondering about Republicans’ version of “friendly to members of a certain party,” allow me to refer you to the infamous 2003 Texas “DeLay-mander.” Gaining and maintaining majorities in state legislative chambers gives Democrats a seat at the redistricting table, so to speak. This will help prevent the GOP from gerrymandering itself into artificial majorities on both the state and federal levels for the next decade.

Symes goes on to posit the query,

So, what happens to an incumbent whose district disappears?

He or she has to run in a new district (which may or may not include part of his or her old district), possibly against another incumbent.

As redistricting nears, this issue is gaining some urgency. Some states, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, are predicted to lose congressional seats to other, more rapidly-growing states, such as Texas and Georgia. Once the congressional district boundaries are redrawn in the states losing seats in 2011, not all of those members of Congress will have a district to represent or a seat to run for in 2012.

With so much of the national pundit focus on the 2010 congressional elections, few are pausing to consider that some of these districts currently of so much concern to the makeup of the 112th Congress soon will simply cease to exist.

Progressives are definitely starting to ratchet up the talk about the importance of redistricting to the long-term wellbeing of the Democratic Party.

But conservatives get it, too. As David Bass asserts in yesterday’s American Spectator,

The most far-reaching effect of the 2010 midterm elections could be felt at the state level. By casting their ballots in … hundreds of legislative races, voters will decide whether Democrats or Republicans dominate the redrawing of state and federal political borders for the new decade -- a process known as redistricting. And the results could be even more far-reaching for Democrats than the outcome of the midterm elections.

That's not hyperbole. Given the country's closely divided electorate, the political fortunes of each party chiefly hinge on how redistricting pans out. That, in turn, hinges on how well Democrats and Republicans fare at the state level. The reason: in most states, legislators are responsible for creating … redistricting plans that reflect population shifts documented in the census.
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The hands that redraw district borders are some of the most powerful in politics. Aside from a handful of state and federal requirements, lawmakers can finagle district lines however they choose. Legislative and congressional districts must be contiguous -- meaning all parts touch and none are detached -- and each must have an equal number of residents. The federal Voting Rights Act also ties legislators' hands by requiring them to draw some districts to grant minorities greater electoral power.

Beyond that, the majority party has a wide degree of latitude and the capacity to shut out the minority from the process.

Bass nailed it. The hands that redraw district borders are some of the most powerful in politics. And the majority of the people with those “hands” are in-cycle and face state legislative elections this fall.

Bass goes on to pay Democrats a little compliment, though, echoing a point made by Politico’s Ken Vogel several weeks ago:

Democrats appear to have a better redistricting apparatus on the ground to prime for inevitable legal challenges… Liberals don't want a repeat of the last round of redistricting, which led the GOP to historic gains in the 2002 midterms.

He’s right—we don’t. The 2001 Republican redistricting helped the GOP buck the trend of the sitting President’s party losing seats in Congress in the 2002 midterm elections.

But we remembered. And we learned. And we’re girding for the fight of our political lives. Redistricting is too important to the future of the Democratic Party and progressive policies to do any less.

The Netroots Nation 2010 conference provided a great opportunity to explain to the progressive online community, as well as some more “traditional” media outlets, what’s truly at stake in this fall’s state legislative elections.

As Executive Director Michael Sargeant put it to Charlie Mahtesian of Politico,

“With redistricting coming up, the future of the Democratic Party will largely be decided upon the results of the elections this November.”

Paul Rosenberg of Open Left certainly understood the long-term implications of this fall’s elections and the subsequent redistricting:

Arguably the most important, most overlooked aspect of the upcoming elections is the control of state legislatures, who play a crucial role in redistricting for next decades. I'll be writing more about this in the days and weeks ahead. But for now, I'll just say that it's typical of the broader need to focus on institutional forms of power. We can tell if we're making real progress when we stop being obsessively focused on the shiny surface of things, and instead find ourselves naturally at home with the deeper structures that shape the moment-by-moment flow, even if they do not determine the exact nature of moment-by-moment events.

MSNBC.com’s Tom Curry noted that, while we welcome opportunities to work together, the DLCC is unwilling to tip its hand in terms of strategy.

Michael Sargeant, the executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, who spoke at a Netroots Nation panel discussion Friday, pointed to Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, and Ohio as battleground states for state legislative races.
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One Netroots Nation attendee asked Sargeant if he could give activists a list of the ten seats in each state that could tip the balance in each legislature from Democrat to Republican.

“State bloggers and people interested in financing these campaigns could then have those targeted seats ready to go -- especially when we have an infrastructure on line that can really rally people at a moment’s notice,” he told Sargeant.

But Sargeant was unwilling to reveal the entire DLCC target list.

“There’s so little news coverage of a lot of these campaigns,” he noted, and in some cases he prefers to keep it that way. He doesn’t want publicity for sleeper races where Democrats have a chance to pick up a seat.

“We’re going to spend, with your help, a lot of money and use a lot of resources to win these races – but we don’t want the Republicans to actually notice,” he said. “We have to work through with our leaders with what they’re comfortable actually talking about,” he told the Netroots Nation questioner.

“Both sides – Democratic and Republican – don’t want the other side to know all their strategies,” Sargeant told me later. “I may have a target list for what races I think are important in Indiana, for example; I imagine my Republican counterpart would probably have a different list. Sometimes it’s very public which races overlap, and sometimes maybe there are a couple of sleeper races.”

The Netroots community is already an important part of the fight to win and maintain majorities in state legislatures. We were pleased to have the opportunity to meet so many great writers and reporters face-to-face, and we’re excited about working with progressive bloggers as we fight for “the future of the Democratic Party.”

Sum of Change and Five Steps Forward Media provided live streaming coverage of many of the panels and presentations at Netroots Nation last week.

Their coverage includes a complete video of our Redistricting Panel, which featured State Senator Steven Horsford, a DLCC Board Member and the Majority Leader of the Nevada Senate; Executive Director Bill Burke of the Foundation for the Future; and our own Michael Sargeant, Executive Director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

You can watch the video below or at USTREAM:

We'd like to thank all of our participants for generously providing their time, and we'd also like to thank the Netroots community for helping us shine a light on this critically important issue.