1. The Legislative Branch
Congressional Elections
AP Government
Mrs. Lacks

2. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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)

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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)

11. 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

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

13. 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.

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

15. 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

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

18. The Redistricting Game