As President Obama’s second term winds down and Hillary Clinton’s likely presidential campaign winds up, it feels like the 2016 election is drawing even more attention than the upcoming midterm races.
But there’s another election increasingly on the minds of Democratic lawmakers, party operatives, big money donors, and progressive activists: 2020. That’s the year voters will elect state lawmakers who will redraw congressional and state legislative districts all over the country.
Last week, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee announced it would commit at least $70 million to Advantage 2020, a program aimed at targeting legislative chambers in key states over the next four election cycles with the specific aim of influencing redistricting. The plan calls on Democrats to invest resources not just in state chambers the party has a shot at winning this November, but in legislatures where they might have a chance at slowly eroding a GOP majority over time thanks to demographic trends.
Michael Sergeant, executive director of the DLCC, told reporters in announcing the new program. Republicans “don’t feel like they’re accountable to anybody because they feel like they have drawn the lines and the maps in such a way that they don’t have to actually answer to the voters,” Sargent said.
The project is part of a broader effort by Democrats to pull the party out of the rubble left behind by the 2010 election, when Republicans made massive gains at the state level that allowed them to gerrymander Congressional maps in critical states after the new census.
In addition to the DLCC’s plan, new Democratic outside groups like the General Majority PAC, which spent $9 million defending New Jersey Democrats’ control of the state senate in 2013, are gearing up to play in other state races with an eye towards 2020. Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, who has pledged tens of millions of dollars toward helping Democrats win Senate and governors races this year, is looking into expanding his group NextGen’s reach into state legislatures as well.
The increasing focus on redistricting is partly a reflection of the bleak governing environment for Democrats nationally. The gridlock produced by the obstructionist Republican Congress and Democratic White House has ground policymaking to a halt, even in areas with some degree of bipartisan overlap like immigration and tax reform. While Washington has been paralyzed, Republicans’ dominance in state legislatures has triggered a renaissance of conservative policymaking across the country. Both of these trends have been exacerbated by the GOP’s tremendous success gerrymandering state and Congressional districts to help protect their majorities.
At the annual progressive conference Netroots Nation in Detroit earlier this summer, several speakers identified redrawing state and Congressional maps as a top priority. Markos Moulitsas, the Daily Kos founder who helped launch Netroots, has been urging activists to focus their attention on 2020 for months and this year’s conference included a panel by the DLCC previewing its redistricting plan.
“You can’t wait until 2020 or 2022 to start talking about it,” Tom Bonier, a Democratic consultant at Clarity Campaign Labs and redistricting veteran helping run the Advantage 2020 project, told activists. “It starts now and it’s going to be won or lost based on what we do now.”
Michigan progressives know better than anyone how big a difference the issue can make. After 2010, Republicans took complete control of the state government there and used it to redraw the state’s Congressional and state legislative districts in the party’s favor. While President Obama won Michigan by 9.5 points in 2012, voters there elected 9 Republican members of Congress to just 5 Democrats. The next month Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed “right to work” legislation into law in a state that’s historically been a bastion for organized labor.
“Who here gets up in the morning and is excited about redistricting?” Ryan Bates, the executive director of Michigan United, asked the audience at a panel of state activists. “It’s a game changer,” Bates continued. “We are screwed in the legislature if we keep having these maps.”
Melanie McElroy, the executive director of Common Cause Michigan, called redistricting “the fundamental reform that folks across the progressive spectrum need to focus on.”
The fantasy scenario for Democrats, if all goes right, might look something like this: President Hillary Clinton, capitalizing on a solid first term, a still-divided GOP, and the usual advantages of incumbency, leads her party to a decisive victory in 2020. Riding her performance, Democrats down the ticket take over a number of key state legislatures and governor’s seats. Now with far greater control over the redistricting process, they put the House back into play.
The emphasis here is on “fantasy” scenario. For Democrats to regain the ability to pass major progressive legislation anytime soon, they need a smart plan, a lot of money and a lucky streak that won’t quit.
