Impotent GOP: State Republicans rolled on redistricting

New legislative district maps approved by a District Court judge are an appropriate representation of the organizational impotence and lack of leadership within Nevada’s Republican Party.

The GOP has long struggled to match the state Democratic Party’s fundraising, candidate recruitment and unity on policy matters. Now Republicans will be at such a demographic disadvantage over the next decade that they might lose what little influence they have left in the Legislative Building.

The new district maps, created by a panel of special masters appointed by Carson City District Judge James Russell, give Democrats a voter-registration advantage in 29 of 42 Assembly races and 16 of 21 Senate seats. In a majority of the 63 total districts, Democrats enjoy such large voter-registration advantages that their candidates are all but guaranteed election victories year after year.

Democrats have controlled both houses of the Legislature for the past two sessions; that isn’t likely to change. Now, however, the Democratic Party has a path to permanent two-thirds supermajorities. If Democrats achieve that margin in both houses, lawmakers will be able to raise taxes and enact whatever laws they wish by overriding any gubernatorial veto. The GOP minority will have no voice at all, even if a Republican sits in the governor’s mansion.

A balance of power has long prevailed in Carson City, and it has served Nevada well for generations. Neither party had the ability to rule unchecked. That’s appropriate, considering that even today, no one party has a majority of the state’s registered voters. Forty-two percent of active Nevada voters are Democrats, 36 percent are Republicans, 16 percent are nonpartisans and 6 percent are with other parties.

Republicans have themselves to blame for the redistricting debacle. GOP lawmakers and Gov. Brian Sandoval should have made sure the Legislature completed the decennial task instead of allowing the courts to take over. They could have tied it to votes on the state budget. They were too willing to cede control of a process they could have steered.

The state party itself appears to need another makeover. Did it not understand the stakes of the redistricting battle? Did it not understand the importance of creating more competitive districts?

The Republican Party retains a reasonable chance of taking control of the state Senate in next year’s election — Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities at 11-10, and they’ll be defending most of their seats in 2012. But in the 2014 elections and beyond, the numbers embedded in the new district maps will take over.

If the GOP is relegated to perennial minority status, promising conservatives won’t want to waste their time running for legislative office, especially in the Assembly. Their farm system for county, state and federal offices will be depleted.

The only question now is whether business leaders and advocates of limited government can whip the party into shape quickly enough — primarily through voter registration drives and fundraising — to ensure its relevancy beyond next year.