Congressional redistricting protects incumbents more than ever

Chuck Raasch
The Sun
March 3, 2002

Critics of campaign reform that the Senate may take up in the coming weeks say it's an incumbent-protection act in disguise.

That point is debatable, but another point may be less so: Reapportionment of congressional districts this time around has become a giant exercise in incumbent protection.

With the exception of a few isolated cases (a Georgia primary between two Republican congressmen, for instance), it has become very clear that in a macro sense, the redrawing of congressional lines since the 2000 census has been a lot about protecting the status quo. Analysts who follow it say Republicans may gain advantage in only a handful of seats because of the process.

The status quo has hijacked the process because of a confluence of factors, including technology and tight margins in Congress.

As the process moves along to a conclusion in states as disparate as Florida and Minnesota, it has become apparent that political parties and their strategists often have fought hardest to keep the folks already in office.

Across the country, the exercise may produce little or no change in the overall prospects of either Republicans or Democrats. Echoing other national observers, Florida Republican Chairman Al Cardenas said he expects that nationally, only about 35 or 40 races for the House will be truly competitive this year.

The result?

"It seems to me like you're going to have an incredible amount of money going into these 35 or 40 seats, which will determine the majority in Congress," Cardenas said. "I wouldn't be surprised to see a total $15 (million), $18 million spent for congressional seats, both sides, on congressional campaigns. That's where the majority is going to be decided."

A lot of this incredible narrowing of the field and concentration of big money in a few elections will be because of redistricting.

Political handicapper Stuart Rothenberg, who follows congressional races in his Rothenberg Political Report, said he has had trouble finding any vulnerable incumbents around the country, and a main reason is because of redistricting. He said Democrats and Republicans each went into the process knowing that holding their own was the first task in a House now under Republican control by just 11 seats.

"Why this year, why did we have it this time when in other years there was not this incumbent protection?" Rothenberg said. "I think it's because the House is so narrow right now, so evenly divided, that I think both parties said, 'When we start our approach (to redistricting) state by state, the first thing we need to do is protect our incumbents.'

"But when you protect incumbents, you invariably protect the other guys, too."

Rothenberg said no one should be surprised that one of the most competitive states this year in congressional races appears to be Iowa, one of a handful of states where an independent commission with state legislative oversight redraws the lines.

And, as Rothenberg pointed out, advances in technology in the past decade have allowed redistricting professionals to do their work faster, more precisely and more transparently than ever before. It takes out the guesswork.

In other words, political science is more precise than ever. And the more professionals wield these precision tools to protect incumbents, the more of an insiders' game it becomes.

Raasch is a political writer for Gannett News Service.