State races will weigh on US Congress for a decade

Choices down the ballot have huge impact on redistricting

Politicians often claim that whatever election is coming up is the most important in our lifetime.

But this time, it’s not just campaign hyperbole. Races on the ballot this year – often far down the ballot – could define the national political landscape for the next decade or more.

Governors and state lawmakers elected in 2018 and 2020 will redo the congressional maps in 2021 – the single greatest factor in determining who will control Congress in the decade to come.

The tea party revolution of 2010 ushered Republicans into control of statehouses across the country, allowing the GOP to draw much of the map that ex-

“Democrats have been in the wilderness the past decade because they fell asleep on redistricting in 2010.” David Daley, a senior fellow at Fair Vote and author of a book about the last redistricting

ists to this day – and to control the U.S. House for most of the past decade.

“Democrats have been in the wilderness the past decade because they fell asleep on redistricting in 2010,” said David Daley, a senior fellow at Fair Vote and author of a book about the last redistricting.

That means they’ll have to start even earlier this time around.

“The key elections having influence on that process are almost entirely this year,” Daley said. “In many ways, it’s going to be over after Election Day 2018.”

Enter Eric Holder. The former Obama attorney general heads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a one-stop shop for Democratic groups to coordinate their strategy.

Its mission: Win a more favorable playing field for Democrats by ensuring a complete count in the 2020 census, removing barriers to voting, supporting ballot initiatives for redistricting reform, electing Democrats and challenging Republican-drawn districts in court.

There’s no comparable group on the Republican side.

The 2018 battle for control over the next redistricting is being fought on at least four fronts:

Governors’ mansions

States use different methods of drawing congressional districts. Thirtyfour put the state legislature in charge. In 32 of those states, the governor has veto power.

Thirty-six states will elect governors this year. Most of them will serve fouryear terms, so they’ll still be in office when the maps are to be redrawn.

The 20 states in which the governor elected this year will have significant influence over congressional map drawing include some of the most gerrymandered states in the union: Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

State courtrooms

With the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the U.S. Supreme Court – already reluctant to weigh into partisan gerrymandering cases – could be still more hostile to redistricting challenges.

But there could be another path: state courts.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in January struck down a Republicandrawn map, and at least 25 other state constitutions require elections to be “free and equal” or “free and open,” according to Bernard Grofman and Jonathan Cervas, political scientists at the University of California, Irvine.

“So you’re likely to see more litigation at the state level,” Cervas said.

Ballot initiatives

Four states – Colorado, Michigan, Missouri and Utah – have redistricting initiatives on the ballot.

They’re part of a growing grassroots movement to take redistricting out of the hands of state legislatures – or, at least, to curb their more partisan impulses by requiring a super-majority of lawmakers to agree on any new map.

State legislatures

In most state legislatures, members of the lower chamber are elected to twoyear terms, so there will be another election before redistricting in 2021. But for the upper chamber, terms are typically four years.

That gives Democrats a chance to become competitive in some states with big wins down the ballot in 2018.