Redistricting Isn't To Blame For Partisanship

By Eric McGhee
San Francisco Chronicle
October 12, 2008

In the past few months, Californians watched the state Legislature struggle to pass the annual budget. With Democrats and Republicans unable to find common ground, the impasse over this critical legislation became the longest on record. The Legislature is deeply split by party, and the consequences are plain to see.

How did we reach this point? If you believe much of the public discussion, the districts are to blame. In 2001, the legislators drew themselves safe seats: Democratic districts became more Democratic, and Republican districts more Republican. By removing any realistic chance of losing in the fall campaign, legislators supposedly freed themselves to represent the most extreme voices within their own party. Many say the result has been party polarization.

This argument is popular because it seems to make so much sense. Legislators are partisan and so are their districts. One had to cause the other, right?

Not quite. A closer look suggests that the 2001 redistricting had little, if any, effect on the partisanship of the state Legislature - because the legislators were already partisan to begin with.

In "Redistricting and Legislative Partisanship," a report published by the Public Policy Institute of California, I looked at legislators' voting records on a variety of issues - economic, environmental, social, plus overall party loyalty - and found that the parties were equally divided before and after the 2001 redistricting. Not only did legislators fail to respond to their new safe districts, they also weren't necessarily good at representing the old, competitive ones. Plenty of legislators from supposedly competitive districts have voted like strong partisans. Legislators' party labels predict their votes at least as well as the complexion of their districts.

To a surprising degree, moderation in today's Legislature seems to be a personal decision. Moderates who retire or lose re-election are replaced by another moderate in the same district only about a quarter of the time. In fact, only four Assembly districts and three Senate districts were always represented by moderates in the last three legislatures before the 2001 redistricting. Everyone knows the handful of famous moderates who come from competitive districts, but nobody talks about all the legislators who come from the same kind of district but behave like loyal partisans.

These results are surprising, but they make more sense in a broader context. There are forces at work besides redistricting that might encourage legislators to be partisan.

First, voters are more polarized in the sense that they sort themselves better into the parties based on their own political views. That means the people who show up to vote in each party's primary are likely to be more ideologically pure than they used to be, and to demand that purity from their nominees.

Second, interest groups are more powerful and involved than ever, both during and between campaigns. They tend to be fairly inflexible about the issues they consider important, and to press legislators to take a similarly inflexible stand.

Party leaders in the Legislature can play a role, too, by shaping the agenda and punishing wayward legislators who refuse to toe the party line. In practice, this power is limited - party leaders are, after all, elected by the legislators they lead - but there is leeway to push-and-pull outcomes at the margins.

Finally, politics is likely to attract legislators who are partisan in the first place, and partisan legislators will probably be lifted up the party hierarchy, while those with moderate views might be welcomed to the party but not promoted as quickly.

If redistricting will not increase bipartisanship, what will? Allowing voters to cast ballots in the opposing party's primary might help, by breaking up the ideological purity of each party's nominating base. Stronger caps on donations might also make a difference by limiting interest group influence on political campaigns. But the most effective agent for change would also be the most difficult to achieve: a strong, concerted effort to mobilize moderate voters and involve them in politics.

One thing is fairly certain: Redistricting did not make the legislators more partisan. If we want to change the way things are done in Sacramento, we should look beyond the redistricting process to do it.

Eric McGhee is a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.