2011 Is Not that Far Away….
Using the 2010 Census Results, Congress will begin its normal (except when Delay is concerned) ten Year cyle of redistricting.
“Of the 50 states, 46 will be holding elections this November for either their state House, state Senate or both. And of those 46 states, 39 have more than one congressional district — meaning the lines will have to be redrawn early next decade to adjust to population changes.”
So, why think about this now? Simple, whoever is elected in this 2006 Election will be the incumbency. Whoever is the incumbent is the likely winner of the 2010 Races.There are people who believe this is not a good thing, that 98% of incumbents are reelected, but that is not for me to argue, right now. I have to work from the facts. Facts are, win now to have any further chances to improve this Country. Should the Republicans maintain their control, well, you may as well get Your passport now.
“The advantage is, if you get elected now, then you can try to figure out how to hold on,” said Martin Frost, a former House Democrat from Texas and a redistricting expert.
“We look at it as if the 2011 redistricting is starting right now . . . we cannot take this election cycle off,” said Michael Davies, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
“We are looking for places to win but also places we can put ourselves if not this time then in 2008 and 2010,” said Alex Johnson, executive director of the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, who added that redistricting is a “tremendous factor in planning our schedule.”
Both Johnson(R) and Davies(D) have marked States of Priority for Campaign concern.
* Outlook for 2006: Predictably, both parties are focusing most of their energies this year on state legislative chambers that currently are closely divided between the parties.
Davies and Johnson identified the same six states that are at or near the top of their priority lists.
They include Colorado, where Democrats in 2004 won narrow majorities in both the House and Senate; Maine, where Democrats maintain close leads in both chambers; Washington, where Democrats grabbed complete control in 2004 by taking a slim Senate lead from the Republicans; Tennessee, where the Republicans earned a split by gaining a one-seat Senate majority two years ago; and Oklahoma, where surging Republicans hope to match their state House control by taking over the state Senate.
Also on their lists are Iowa, where the Senate is tied and Republicans have a 51-49 state House edge, and Montana, where a strong Democratic year in 2004 gave the party slim control of the state Senate and an even split in the state House.
There are direct redistricting implications in the first four of those states, which have multiple congressional districts and which give their legislatures primary responsibility for drawing the maps. The legislature’s role is minimized, though, in Iowa, which delegates redistricting to a nonpartisan state agency in an effort to depoliticize the process. Montana, the nation’s seventh least populous state, has just one U.S. House seat and, thus, no congressional redistricting.
Other closely divided legislative bodies that are on the party strategists’ radar screen are both chambers in Republican-controlled Michigan and Democratic-controlled North Carolina; Nevada, Minnesota and Oregon, each of which have one chamber controlled by the Republicans and the other by the Democrats; and the Indiana House and New York Senate, both now under Republican control. All of these contests have future congressional redistricting implications.
For this Election cycle both Dems and Republicans will concentrate on immediate gains, but this very near future is already a primary concern.
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