Welcome to this week’s edition of REDMAP Rundown, a synopsis of redistricting news brought to you by the RSLC’s REDistricting MAjority Project (REDMAP). This weekly update gives you the latest on what those in the Beltway, and across the country, are saying about the impending reapportionment and redistricting process.
In this week’s REDMAP Rundown: Republicans riding the wave, Oregon’s positioning, Holding the pen in Oklahoma, Growth in Texas, Interference in Mississippi and Cali’s new ideas.
“President Obama won every state that touches the Great Lakes as he marched toward the presidency, while Democrats picked up 10 Republican-held House seats in the region. But in politics, timing is everything, and now the GOP looks poised to make new gains in key races that could give Republicans a long-term toehold in a region that has trended away from them for the last decade,” reports The Hotline. “The often overlooked state legislative landscape is in as much turmoil as federal races are this year. And with state legislators set to take up decennial redistricting over the next two years, Republicans have chosen exactly the right time to surf the electoral wave. … This year, the wave could wash over Great Lakes states and push half a dozen chambers into the GOP column. Republicans need to pick up just three seats to wrest control of the Indiana House; they need only four to take over the lower chamber in Ohio; two seats are all it would take to win the Wisconsin Senate; and four seats are necessary to win back the Wisconsin House. … ‘If it touches a Great Lake, it’s a good state for Republicans this year,’ [REDMAP Executive Director Chris] Jankowski said.”
“Republicans can take control of the 30-member Oregon State Senate if they are able to net four seats in the midterm elections,” according to this week’s Townhall.com spotlight. “Even if they don’t win the upper chamber, getting closer to parity with the Democrats in the senate would give the Republicans a strong negotiating position with a friendly Governor. In the 60-member Oregon House of Representatives, a GOP takeover is seven seats away. Because Democrats currently have a super-majority, with slightly more than three-fifths of the seats on their side of the aisle, they don’t even need the Republicans to show up to pass bills at will. Republicans are well positioned to not only end the Democrat super-majority, but also to retake the majority that Oregon Democrats captured during the 2006 mid-term elections.”
“Members were named Thursday to a House of Representatives Committee assigned to work on redrawing [Oklahoma] House and federal legislative districts using data from the 2010 census. The Legislature, controlled by Republicans for the first time during the redistricting process, will take on the task next year of coming up with three sets of districts — one for the congressional seats, another for the state House and a third for the state Senate. It must be done every 10 years, by law, after the official U.S. Census Bureau figures are available.”
KFOX-TV reports, “Politicians across Texas gathered in El Paso on Monday for a hearing about redrawing the district lines in the state, a move that could cost El Paso a seat in the Texas House of Representatives. The House Redistricting Committee listened to concerns, but Rep. Joe Pickett who is a member of the committee, said nothing will be decided until the official numbers come out in February 2011 or April 2011. … He said since the state is growing, Texas may gain three or four seats in the U.S. Congress.”
“Both [Mississippi] lead legislators in the effort to redraw the state’s congressional and legislative districts say they want to accomplish the feat without judicial interference. For them to accomplish their goal, they must get redistricting plans approved by a majority of both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature.”
“California voters have become all too familiar with the ferociously partisan, once-a-decade drawing of political boundaries. Even so, the 2010 election holds something new. Two wildly different measures targeting redistricting are on the ballot and an independent commission is poised to craft legislative districts for the first time.”
The RSLC is the only national organization whose mission is to elect down ballot state-level Republican office-holders. To sign up for the REDMAP Rundown, or for more information or media inquiries, please contact Adam Temple at 571.480.4891.