This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 28, 2011 - The debate over how to transform Missouri's current nine congressional districts into eight seats might turn out to be more about place than party. In the American polity with its single member legislative districts, local geography often trumps national ideology.
The present partisan division is six Republicans and three Democrats. With the GOP having a veto proof majority in the state Senate and being just three votes short of two-thirds control in the state House of Representatives, partisanship would argue for a plan that retains six Republican districts and reduces the Democrats from three to two. But such an approach could have significant geographic consequences.
The prevailing strategy to accomplish that partisan objective is placing two sitting Democrats in a single district. After Republican Vicky Hartzler's 2010 win over Democrat incumbent Ike Skelton in the Fourth Congressional District, Emmanuel Cleaver from the Fifth Congressional District (Kansas City and its environs) is the sole Democrat outside the St. Louis region. There's no Democratic seat nearby. So if the partisan two-into-one playbook is to prevail, that means targeting the two adjacent Democratic districts in the St. Louis region: the First (William Lacy Clay Jr.) and the Third (Russ Carnahan).
That, however, would almost certainly leave the Missouri side of the St. Louis area with only two House members instead of the three it has controlled for decades. That would mean 50 percent less clout in the U.S. House of Representatives: thinner representation on key committees, reduced leverage for federal contracts and fewer targeted investments (i.e., earmarks).
From a statewide geographic perspective, it would mean changing the urban-rural balance from four urban/five rural under the current nine district arrangement to three urban/five rural under a new eight district map. That is bad news for any urban policy agenda that would benefit the St. Louis and Kansas City areas.
Just 40 years ago, in the 1970s, there were three congressional districts wholly within the city of St. Louis and St. Louis County.
In succeeding decades, these three districts have gradually expanded so that they now contain Jefferson County and Ste. Genevieve County, most of St. Charles County, and all of Lincoln County. Nevertheless, the center of electoral gravity has remained toward the more urbanized segments.
To maintain its regional presence in the U.S. House of Representatives, the St. Louis area needs to advocate a redistricting plan in which all or most of three districts are within the metropolitan area.
Here's how that might play out. Missouri's 2010 population is 5,988,927. That means, on average, each of the new eight district should contain 748,616 people. Since the 1960s, the federal courts have applied a strict one person/one vote standard, insisting that deviations from the average be no more than 1 percent and that, even then, they must be justified. Appropriate rationales include avoiding splitting local government units between two or more districts and respecting "communities of interest."
Tripling 748,616 yields the population required for three districts. That's 2,245,848. The total population for the eight Missouri counties in the St. Louis metropolitan statistical area (Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, St. Charles, St. Louis County, St. Louis City, Warren, Washington) is 2,107,381. Adding six counties (Perry, Ste. Genevieve and St. Francois to the south; Gasconade and Montgomery to the west, and Pike to the north) contributes another 137,444. That raises the total to 2,244,825, well within the judicial margin of error. Each of these six jurisdictions has significant connections with the St. Louis regional economy, making the overall metropolitan area crucial to their present and future success.
Harnessing three congressional districts is not only good for the St. Louis region but also makes great sense for Missouri. The St. Louis area is by far the economic engine for the state. In an economy in which federal dollars constitute more than one-fifth of the flow, those funds help fuel that engine. Retaining three U.S. House members, whatever their party stripes, links the region's priorities with federal policies and keeps the engine humming. That's why the redistricting plan ultimately adopted might have geography prevailing.
Terry Jones is professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and author of "Fragmented by Design: Why St. Louis Has So Many Governments."