The Legislative Branch Congressional Elections AP Government Mrs. Lacks

Congressional Elections Congressional unfavorable ratings have always been much lower than that of Presidents, including Nixon and GWB November 2013: 9% approval Avg Presidential approval: 54% Obama lowest: 31% overall Presidential lowest: 27% - Nixon At the same time, typically 96% of incumbents in the House win re-election; 92% of incumbents in the Senate win re-election

Congressional Elections Why unfavorable? Most Americans go negative if their economic situation hasn’t improved since an election Most Americans can’t name their representative and senators

Congressional Elections Why do they get re-elected if so unfavorable? Incumbents have name recognition; challenger is normally unknown Challengers have to spend a tremendous amount of money to simply develop name recognition

Incumbency Advantages Franking privilege: allows those already in office to mail newsletters informing their constituents of their accomplishments Self-generated report cards – always favorable Tax payer pays for this at no cost to Congressman Challenger doesn’t have this luxury (direct mailing is expensive)

Incumbency Advantages Each Congressman has a staff; a challenger probably cannot afford to hire and keep a dedicated staff (relies on volunteers, or people sent from their party) Incumbents get more support from Political Action Committees (PACs), the financial muscle of interest groups

Favorability & Elections Other reasons why incumbents almost always win (until they decide to retire) Absence of term limits (22nd Amendment places term limits only on the President) Seniority lends itself to committee leadership positions.. the longer you serve, the more likely one is to be able to influence legislation for your state or district

Favorability & Elections safe seat: incumbent runs with no challenger (opposition party doesn’t even put up a candidate because incumbent is so popular) Open election: all candidates are new or running for the first time Marginal seat: winner wins by slight margin (usually happens in open elections) Sophomore surge: having at least one term in

Congressional Districts District lines are drawn by state assemblies Each district has on average 600,000 people in it There are many exceptions (Montana’s one district at large has 900,000 people; Wyoming has just over 500,000 people with one representative) California’s two senators represent 37 million people, Wyoming’s two senators represent 563,000 people)

Reapportionment Reapportionment: Redistribution of 435 seats in the House on the basis of changes in the state populations. Reps per state determined by pop. Census conducted every 10 yrs. Census shows populations changes and seats are allotted based upon new numbers

Redistricting Redistricting: When seats change, district boundaries must change. Party controlling state legislature redraws district boundaries.

Gerrymandering Gerrymandering: drawing district lines a specific way for a specific purpose Minority-Majority Districts: Congressional districts designed to make it easier for minority citizen to elect minority representatives.

Origins of Term 19th century MA Governor Elbridge Gerry redrew lines himself with some having such strange shapes

Gerrymandering Sup Ct called gerrymandering unconstitutional Why? Justices said that a black man can represent a white man and vice versa Ex. We have a black President when only 12% of the US is black

Effects of Gerrymandering Party in power, STAYS in power Safe seats are created Odd-shaped districts “Majority-Minority” districts created by racial gerrymandering

The Redistricting Game http://www.redistrictinggame.org/