Gerrymander
I've been doing some research on CA's other problem (OK, one of the other problems) -- the Gerrymander. A few quick notes:
- In 2002, the closest Congressional election (Gerry Condit's open seat) had a spread of 7.9%.
- Fully 50 of the 53 Congressional seats had spreads in excess of 20%.
- The average 2-party spread per seat was a whopping 39%.
- The overall 2-party vote was 54-46. [Note: In computing this I lump G's with D's and L's with R's. Actual split 53.5 - 42.5 - 3.5(L) - 0.5]
- The seat split was 62%-38, which is not horribly out-of-line.
Now maybe that's an aberation. So let's look at the Assembly.
- Same overall 2-party vote (54-46)
- The average district spread was 38%.
- There *were* 3 close races (out of 80) (less that 5% spread)
- 71 out of 80 seats were won by spreads of 20% or more.
- The seat split here was 60%-40%
Classic case of an incumbent protection gerrymander -- nearly every seat a safe one. Not so much a partisan gerrymander, as the seat split pretty fairly follows the vote split.
Note: Since only half of Senate seats are up each year, the Senate distribution is even odder -- the Democrats won 16 out of 20 seats -- 5 unopposed. Apparently, choosing which seats go first after a remap is an advantage, especially if parties have swapped seats and the new Democrat seat goes into the first block and the old Democrat seat is a holdover. But it makes analysis of the Seante remap impossible after one election, other than to expect the Republicans will gain state Senate seats in 2004.
What does this all mean? More after the recall election.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at October 6, 2003 01:05 AM
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