Could redistricting put Hulshof out of work?

Paper: Columbia Daily Tribune (MO)

Date: June 22, 2007

Missouri Congressional Districts

Sources: U.S. House of Representatives; Missouri Secretary of State's Office

Predicting the electoral outcome of next year's election cycle is tough enough. Trying to take a guess on the 2010 election cycle is downright impossible.

Yet that's what it would take to know whether Missouri will lose a U.S. congressional seat. Some have suggested that Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Columbia, might be redistricted out of a job after the 2010 U.S. census.

The determining factor could be the result of state legislative elections 3½ years into the future, making a prediction about which of the nine U.S. representatives in Missouri will be out of work downright mindboggling.

And any change wouldn't likely occur until at least 2011. After the 2000 census, for example, the Missouri General Assembly didn't give final approval for new congressional boundaries until mid-May 2001.

Every 10 years, the U.S. Census measures populations in each of the 50 states, and such data can determine whether a growing state gains representation in Congress or a slow-going state's representation declines.

Polidata, a Virginia-based agency, tabbed the Show Me State as one of the prime contenders to lose a congressional seat after the 2010 census. If that happens, it would be up to the Missouri General Assembly to draw a new map, and two sitting members of Congress might face an election - with the loser being forced out of the Capitol.

And the 2010 election itself makes it difficult to predict how the map would be redrawn. That year features an unprecedented number of open seats in the Missouri House - enough to fundamentally change the political composition of the legislature.

Regardless of which party prevails, redistricting would unleash a mad scramble to change the map in a party's favor.

"Anytime you redistrict, the goal is, of course, is to pick up seats," said Jack Cardetti, spokesman for the Missouri Democratic Party. "And that is often done not by changing the districts you currently hold, but by changing your opponent's districts. And so one of the goals always is to more tightly pack the other party into their current district."

David Webber, a University of Missouri-Columbia professor of political science, said that if Republicans maintain control of the legislature, they could go after Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-St. Louis, by drawing his area into Rep. Lacy Clay's district.

Envisioning a redistricting scenario if the Democrats were in charge is more complicated, Webber said. Efforts to pit Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Columbia, against Reps. Todd Akin, R-Town and Country, or Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, could be difficult. Webber said Hulshof is too far away from either district to create a single district that would force the six-term lawmaker into a battle.

Things get even more uncertain if any of the nine legislators decides to resign before 2010 - leaving a seat in the hands of a congressional member without seniority. "If it was a new member in the Ninth District or a Democrat, perhaps, then it would have made it easier than dealing with Hulshof," Webber said.

Neither party seems to know what the future Missouri congressional delegation will look like. "That's too speculative to even talk about at this time," Missouri Republican Party spokesman Paul Sloca said.

Cardetti agreed. "In politics, four years is a lifetime," he said. "And so what is now Democratic could be Republican, and what is now Republican could be Democratic."

Reach Jason Rosenbaum at (573) 815-1724 or jrosenbaum@tribmail.com.

Author: JASON ROSENBAUMof the Tribune's staff