Lesson 45: Congressional Elections and Apportionment
In this lesson, we will look at some of the factors involved in winning
Congressional elections. We will also look at how the number of seats each
state is given in the House of Representatives changes through Reapportionment.
Finally, we will look at the practice of Gerrymandering when it comes to
redrawing the boundaries of congressional districts.
To get a seat in the Senate, the campaign is going to
cost about $10.5 million. For a seat in the House, the campaign will cost about
$1.7 million. To stay in office, it becomes a continual task raising funds for
the next campaign.
Candidates running for office in the same year as the president hope to
get swept in by a strong presidential figure in what is known as the coattail
effect. There are times when this has not happened. Furthermore, a common trend
in the last 70 years is the president's party loses seats in the House during
the upcoming midterms.
Most incumbents are safe in winning reelection. There are
challengers who succeed in getting elected, but a huge percentage of incumbents
up for reelection keep their seat.
The number of representatives allocated to each state changes regularly through
Reapportionment, which is done after every census. Since House Representatives
are based on a state's population, the amount of representatives a state is
allowed to have rises and falls with the population.
Congressional districts also change through a process known as Redistricting,
the redrawing of the boundaries of the congressional districts within each
state. Districts are supposed to have the same population, so population shifts
call for redistricting. Unfortunately, it has been used as a tool to distribute
populations unequally and render certain district votes less effective.
When it comes to redistricting,
Gerrymandering is the drawing of legislative district boundary lines for the
purpose of obtaining partisan advantage. A district is said to be gerrymandered
when its shape is altered substantially to determine which party will win it.
To combat gerrymandering, redistricting was placed in
the hands of a commission that
is independent or non-partisan. It was challenged, but the Supreme Court upheld
the practice.
There are two tactics to gerrymandering. The first is Packing,
which is packing as many voters as possible of the opposing party into a single
district.
The other is Cracking,
which is splitting the opposing party’s voters into many different districts.