From the Baton Rouge Advocate.

A legislative redistricting expert warned lawmakers Thursday of politics that could interfere with the drawing of new election district lines that meet constitutional muster.“Significant interest groups and individuals are going to be coming to you trying to affect how the process works,” Senate Secretary Glenn Koepp told about 20 lawmakers gathered for what has been billed as a “Redistricting 101” class.

“You are going to be asked to vote against the wishes of your friends, your colleagues, even some of your (political) party members,” he said.

Eighty percent of redistricting — a redrawing of election district lines to adjust for population shifts — is the technical, legal side of the process, Koepp said.

That was the subject of the training session.

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From the San Angelo Standard Times.

As an indicator of what may be coming, state demographer Karl Eschbach said Texas increased in population from 2000 to 2008 by about 3.475 million, an increase of 16.7 percent, but most of that growth has occurred in major metropolitan areas such as San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and Austin, he said.“All of rural Texas is going to lose. That’s the bottom line,” said Rep. Delwin Jones of the 83rd District, R-Lubbock, chair of the House Redistricting Committee.

Jones said on average, the 150 House districts will need to increase their population by 24,000 and the 31 Senate districts by 120,000 to absorb the population growth.

“West Texas hasn’t generally kept pace,” Eschbach said about the population growth. “If you’re not growing at the same pace of the state, you have to expand geographically those districts.”

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Via the Dayton Daily News:

A plan to have a bipartisan board determine the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts has been approved by the Ohio Senate.The Senate approved the plan Wednesday by a vote of 21-12, with Republicans voting for it and Democrats against it.

The plan, by state Sen. Jon Husted, would take the power of drawing legislative districts away from whichever party controls the state Apportionment Board and give it to a seven-member bipartisan board. A five-vote supermajority would be required to pass a new redistricting plan.

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From Chuck Todd’s first read:

As today’s New York Times indicates, the president isn’t being shy about getting involved in key political races, even if it means taking sides in a Democratic primary or, in the case of embattled/unpopular New York Governor David Paterson, suggest to him that he not run. Obama’s not just the Commander-in-Chief, leader of the free world etc.., he’s also the head of the Democratic Party. Because these next set of elected governors (in 2009 and 2010) will be in office when the next round of redistricting/reapportionment takes place, it raises the stakes even higher than usual. All of this may explain why the White House — whose chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, himself has spent years getting Dems elected to the House — is taking such an interest in governor’s races.In the case of New York, the state may lose another House seat once the census is completed, making the redistricting process very important if they want to protect some newly elected Democrats sitting in swing/GOP leaning districts. So that’s why governors matter so much more this cycle than the last two combined. How important are governor races to the White House?

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From the Houston Chronicle:

One of the biggest problems for the Democrats right now is that they have only one major candidate for a down-ballot executive office race: Barbara Ann Radnofsky for attorney general.Winning down the ballot could be important for Democrats because if redistricting fails in the Legislature, legislative districts will be drawn by the Legislative Redistricting Board — consisting of the lieutenant governor, House speaker, attorney general, land commissioner and the comptroller.

Republicans showed in 2003 that the board could be used to create a partisan advantage in the Texas House that could then be used in the Legislature to create highly partisan congressional districts. If Democrats surrender seats on the board, they could be surrendering the shape of the congressional delegation for a decade.

Republican pollster Mike Baselice said it won’t matter what Democrats do because the state electorate is not ready to switch parties. He said the Republican voting advantage has dropped from nine percentage points to five based on last year’s elections, but that still spells victory for the GOP.

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