Thursday, April 15, 2004 12:00AM EDT

N.C.'s deadlock

By JOHN QUINTERNO

CHAPEL HILL -- The legal wrangling over the General Assembly's attempts at drawing legislative districts has masked a fundamental aspect of all the plans that have been adopted, litigated or court ordered -- the decline of competitive legislative races.

In the course of a decade (1992-2002) demographic and political changes helped the Republican Party achieve parity with the Democratic Party in the General Assembly. In that decade the GOP doubled its presence in the 50-member Senate, from 11 seats to 22 seats. The number of Republicans in the 120-member House grew from 42 to 60, resulting in the current divided control of the chamber.

As required by law, the General Assembly redrew legislative district following the 2000 U.S. Census. These maps, crafted in 2001, were declared unconstitutional by a state court in response to a Republican lawsuit, so the 2002 elections were held under temporary court-ordered districts. Last November the General Assembly drew new districts, but their future is unclear due to Republican legal challenges.

Media coverage of redistricting has focused primarily on the legal maneuvering and associated partisan discord and intra-party squabbling. Yet these issues mask the fact that all three redistricting plans -- the invalidated 2001 plan, the court-ordered 2002 plan and the legislatively adopted 2003 plan -- address the reality of political parity in the same way: by reducing the number of competitive legislative races.

NCFREE, a nonpartisan, pro-business research organization based in Raleigh, divides legislative districts into five types: strong Democratic districts have Democratic voter registrations exceeding 55 percent; leaning Democratic districts have Democratic registrations between 50 and 55 percent; leaning Republican districts have GOP registrations between 30 and 35 percent; and strong Republican districts have GOP registrations exceeding 35 percent. Swing districts have voter registration profiles that do not clearly advantage either party.

Using NCFREE's categories to compare the Senate districts adopted in 2003 to those in effect between 1992 and 2000 shows a decline in the number of competitive elections. The 2003 plan reduces the number of swing seats from 14 to four, eliminates one leaning Democratic district and creates more districts that strongly favor a particular party. Compared to 2000, the number of strong Democratic districts has increased by eight, while the number of strong Republican seats has grown by three.

The result: a closely divided Senate with 24 strong and leaning Democratic districts and 22 strong and leaning Republican ones.

A similar dynamic has occurred in the House. Compared to the districts in effect between 1992 and 2000, the 2003 plan eliminates 18 swing seats and creates more strong and leaning districts. Democrats have gained nine strong districts and one leaning district, while the GOP has picked up five strong and three leaning Republican seats. Overall, the House contains more Republican than Democratic districts -- 55 strong and leaning Republican districts versus 51 strong and leaning Democratic districts.

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This closely divided legislature reflects the closely divided electorate. The two parties have grown roughly equal in strength, and neither commands the support of a majority of voters. The current redistricting plan responds to this reality by creating closely divided legislative chambers where control hinges on a few highly contested seats.

Two trends illustrate the importance of a few contested seats. First, the number of uncontested legislative races has grown. In 2002, 11 Senate (22 percent) and 57 House (48 percent) seats were uncontested by the other major party. Second, a few seats consume the bulk of financial resources. The June 2003 issue of N.C. DataNet, a political newsletter edited by UNC-Chapel Hill political scientist Thad Beyle, reported that seven Senate races accounted for 51.2 percent of the total two-party campaign expenditures in 2002, while 16 House races accounted for 50.2 percent of the total two-party campaign expenditures in that chamber.

Regardless of how the ongoing legal challenges to the legislative districts are resolved, the basic outcome will be the same. The two parties will continue to be represented almost equally in both chambers of the General Assembly because the number of districts in each chamber that clearly favor one party are roughly equal. Control of each chamber therefore will rest on a few close seats that will consume the bulk of political, financial and media resources.

(John Quinterno is assistant director of the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill.)