New Poll On New York Marriage Law

There is a new poll which asks Americans nationwide whether the legalization of marriage equality in New York state on July 24th is a positive or negative development. The results show that it depends on whether you are conservative Republican (and/or white evangelical Protestant) or not. If you are, you generally oppose it, if you're not you think it's a positive development.

Democrats and Republicans react in opposite ways to the new law, each facing stark internal divisions that may present challenges to building a winning coalition in 2012. Among Democrats, the divide is between the liberal base and those with conservative or moderate stripes. Liberal Democrats view the law positively by an overwhelming 74 to 25 percent margin. A smaller 54 percent majority of moderate and conservative Democrats say the same. Among African Americans, another loyal segment of the Democratic party coalition, more than six in 10 say the law is a negative development, while roughly one in three see it positively. Republicans broadly reject the law by a 2 to 1 margin, but alignment with the tea party movement complicates political calculations concerning the issue. More than seven in 10 Republicans who support the Tea Party movement view the New York law as a negative development.

This partisan divide in the electorate about marriage equality has been a frequent topic at this blog. Many people believe that the tipping point in favor of marriage equality becoming the law of the land has already reached.

Recently, researches at my alma mater have produced a model of conversion which indicates that when just 10% of a population has an implacable, unalterable position that view will eventually become the majority position, given enough time.

Understanding Redistricting, Part 1

It matters how you draw the lines

Dante Atkins of Daily Kos has a very useful article on the importance of redistricting for progressives.

In most states, the decennial maps for congressional districts are redrawn and approved by state legislatures. Why does this matter? Because partisan state legislatures are likely to divvy up the districts in a way that benefits their party. How does this work in practice? At its most elementary, let's hypothesize a state with a population of nine people: five Democrats and four Republicans. And from those nine people, the Census Bureau required creating three districts with an equal number of people. If the state legislature were controlled by Democrats, they might make a map that carves the state in a way that has a majority of Democratic seats. But if Republicans were to control the legislature—something that happens from time to time in Democratic-voting states such as Minnesota—they just might pass a map with different districts that gives the GOP a majority of the seats. 

The 2010 elections will have long-lasting consequences for control of the House of Representatives. The problem isn't just that Republicans won so many seats; the larger problem is that they won them at exactly the right time. Incumbent representatives are hard to defeat, but unseating freshmen is generally an easier task. Unfortunately, having a wave election in a redistricting year allows the new majority party to take advantage of the redistricting process to shore up vulnerable members, usually by taking some friendlier territory from a safer, better-known incumbent—serving essentially to "lock in" that majority for the rest of the decade. In addition, less scrupulous legislators can use the redistricting process to consolidate the districts of opponents to force their members into either retirement or a bruising primary fight and removing them from their seats regardless—a process playing out right now to eliminate Democratic seats in states like North Carolina and Michigan. The GOP has also shown its willingness to use redistricting to ward off potential political disadvantages at the state legislative level as well: for example, Wisconsin Republicans are redrawing the state senate lines in a hurry before the recall elections, even though doing so right now would create a bureaucratic nightmare. Clearly, the GOP is willing to use redistricting as a political weapon in spite of any resulting collateral damage.

While most states have this concern, California no longer does. In 2008, voters passed Proposition 11, which created a so-called Citizens Redistricting Commission that removed the authority to draw legislative lines from the state legislature and put it into the hands of a supposedly non-partisan commission (in 2010, a second proposition was passed that put the authority to draw boundaries for congressional districts as well into the hands of this same body). The Democratic Party opposed this measure for obvious reasons: As Democrats have a substantial majority of seats, they control the redistricting process and could use it to maximize Democratic seats while ensuring no contentious primary battles among the state's delegation. (Full disclosure: I serve on the executive board of the California Democratic Party.)Furthermore, the commission's mandated structure is hardly representative of California's population: despite the fact that California is an overwhelmingly Democratic state, the commission is required to have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans serving, with absolutely no guarantee of geographic or ethnic diversity.

The commission has had other problems, such as missed deadlines and cancellation of draft maps—and right now, the current maps are likely to face suits, especially from organizations in the Latino community who feel that the maps dilute their community's voting power and are thus illegal under the Voting Rights Act. Nevertheless, among Democrats the mood of uncertainty at the congressional level has yielded to a cautious optimism, as the commission's draft maps (should they hold) will likely result in Democratic gains of multiple seats, and defeat or retirement of several longtime Republican members.