THE STATE ELECTION : ’82 Redistricting Aids Congress Delegation’s Reelection, Seniority

Thanks to the magic of creative map making, incumbents of both parties easily swept back into office in Tuesday’s California congressional elections, but the gerrymandering also could enhance the state’s clout in Congress by guaranteeing seniority to veteran lawmakers.

“Having stability means that the California delegation will have more of an opportunity to place Californians in positions of leadership where we can do more for the state,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), one of the masterminds of a 1982 redistricting scheme that carved the state into safe partisan enclaves.

That controversial remap, attacked by Republicans largely because it locked in more Democratic than GOP seats, knocked the drama and surprise--and fairness, according to some critics--out of House election battles, as it ended decades of high turnover in the makeup of the state’s congressional delegation.

In 1984, only one of the state’s 45 congressional seats changed party hands. This year not a single district switched, and no race was even close. When the polls closed, Democrats still controlled the same 27 House seats they held before the election while Republicans held on to 18 seats. The only new faces were three Republicans who replaced a trio of retiring GOP lawmakers.

Even the race that was expected to be the state’s tightest--an expensive and heated Orange County battle between incumbent Republican Robert K. Dornan and Democratic challenger Richard Robinson for the 38th District seat--was not even close. Dornan snagged 55% of the vote to 42% for Robinson, a state assemblyman.

Waxman said the 38th District seat had been designed to keep a Democrat in power, but said the election results showed that party loyalties of voters in the area had shifted significantly in recent years. “The reality is that Orange County is so solidly Republican that it’s going to be very difficult to win these kinds of elections for Democrats anymore,” he said.

Waxman, who was instrumental in getting Robinson to run, acknowledged that the election results showed that it “probably” will be difficult to dislodge Dornan from the seat in future elections.

Though the gerrymandering phenomenon has stripped congressional contests of much of their excitement, it is also expected to result in heated battles for control of the state Assembly in coming years as Republicans and Democrats vie to position themselves for control of the Legislature after the 1990 Census. That survey will form the basis of the next redistricting scheme, which will be drawn up by whatever party controls the Assembly at the time.

Waxman said he and other architects of the 1982 redistricting plan designed it to minimize volatility and enhance the influence of California congressmen by enabling them to hold on to office longer. As evidence that the strategy was beginning to pay off, Waxman noted that Democrats are expected to elect Rep. Tony Coelho of Merced to the post of majority whip, the No. 3 leadership post in the House and the most powerful position ever held by a California House member.

Poised to Rise

Other veteran California Democrats are also poised to rise to powerful positions in the House. Los Angeles Democrat Augustus F. Hawkins is already chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, while Rep. Julian C. Dixon of Culver City heads the Ethics Committee.

Waxman already holds an important subcommittee chairmanship on the Energy and Commerce Committee, while Sacramento Democrat Vic Fazio heads an appropriations subcommittee. Both are rising in influence and power on the full committees. Meanwhile, Martinez Democrat George Miller is next in line to chair the House Interior Committee when its current head, Arizona Democrat Morris Udall, steps down some day.

Fazio said the growing influence of the California delegation also comes at the expense of lawmakers from outside the West, where party discipline is breaking down and voters are increasingly turning veterans out of office.

“The disintegration of one-party districts in other parts of the country is a factor helping us here,” he explained. “There was a time when if you came from Massachusetts, Texas or Louisiana, you had a seat as long as you wanted. That’s no longer true.”

Southerners and Easterners have long capitalized on their seniority to keep control of most leadership positions in the House. But when the 100th Congress convenes in January, the three top leadership positions are all expected to be held by members from west of the Mississippi River.

In addition to California’s Coelho, Texas Democrat James K. Wright is expected to become House Speaker succeeding the retiring Rep. Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. of Massachusetts, and Rep. Thomas Foley of Washington, the current Democratic whip, is expected to replace Wright as majority leader.