Effects of Districting Systems on Republican Representation in Southern State Legislatures

Authors

  • Malcolm E. Jewell
  • David A. Breaux

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.1995.16.0.1-14

Abstract

An analysis of voting patterns in the lower houses of legislatures in nine southern and border states from 1968 to 1986 shows that the Republican party has benefitted from the use of single-member districting. The Republican ratio of seats to votes has been consistently higher in single-member than in multimember districts, though the magnitude of that difference varies considerably from state to state. The Republican seats/votes ratio in particular types of districts varies from state to state, however, depending on several other variables such as the size of the Republican vote and those factors that affect the slope of the regression between votes and seats.

References

Bullock, Charles S. III, and Ronald Keith Gaddie. 1993. Changing from Multimember to Single-member Districts: Partisan, Racial, and Gender Consequences. State and Local Government Review 25:155-63.

Grofman, Bernard. 1981. Alternatives to Single-member Plurality Districts: Legal and Empirical Issues. Policy Studies Journal 9:875-898. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.1981.tb00992.x

Grofman, Bernard, and Lisa Handley. 1991. The Impact of the Voting Rights Act on Black Representation in Southern State Legislatures. Legislative Studies Quarterly 16:111-128 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/439970

Grofman, Bernard, Michael Migalski, and Nicholas Noviello. 1986. Effects of Multimember Districts on Black Representation in State Legislatures. Review o f Black Political Economy 14:65-78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02903792

Jewell, Malcolm E. 1980. The Consequences of Legislative Districting in Four Southern States. Paper presented at the Citadel Symposium on Southern Politics, Charleston, SC.

___________. 1982. The Consequences of Single and Multimember Districting. In Bernard Grofman, Arend Lijphart, Robert McKay, and Howard Scarrow eds., Representation and Redistricting. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Jewell, Malcolm E., and David A. Breaux. 1990. Patterns of Electoral Competition in Southern State Legislative Elections. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA.

Niemi, Richard G., Jeffrey S. Hill, and Bernard Grofman. 1985. The Impact of Multimember Districts on Party Representation in U.S. State Legislatures. Legislative Studies Quarterly 10:441-455. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/440068

Niemi, Richard G., Simon Jackman, and Laura R. Winsky. 1991. Candidacies and Competitiveness in Multimember Districts. Legislative Studies Quarterly 16:91-110. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/439969

Rosenthal, Alan. 1981. Legislative Life: People, Process, and Performance in the States. New York: Harper and Row.

Walker, Roland. 1976. One Man-One Vote: In Pursuit of an Elusive Ideal. Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 3:453-484.

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Published

1995-04-01

Issue

Vol. 16: Spring 1995

Section

Articles

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