The second pattern includes five cities and counties in which the LEC proved dominant.
Like the areas in the first pattern, the LEC plan was never fundamentally challenged. Unlike those areas, the areas in the second pattern faced real choices, and the choices made in the LEC plan conferred significant advantages on the local executive’s party. Another way of saying this is that there were viable alternatives that would have been significantly better for the other camp. However, these alternatives were either not proposed or proposed but not supported by the party leader in the lottery stage. As argued above, party leaders were only predisposed to support alternative plans that were not opposed by any of the major stakeholders within the camp. In these LEC dominant cases, all significant alternatives ran afoul of this condition. In every case, it is possible to point to some stakeholder whose interests would have been seriously compromised by the alternate plan and who would have protested vigorously. As a result the camp was never able to come to an internal consensus on an alternate plan that differed fundamentally from the LEC plan. While most of these cases eventually did end up with a lottery, there were no substantive challenges to the LEC plan. Rather, the alternate plans were rough copies of the LEC plan with only one or two very minor changes. Table 1 shows the percentage of the total population that would have been shifted to another district in the other plan in the lottery. In each case in this category, it is less than 4% of the total population. Generally, the changes had almost no partisan impact. In short, regardless of the lottery result, the winning plan was either the LEC plan or almost identical to the LEC plan.
The LEC dominant pattern was most likely to appear in bigger cities and counties. Even though only five of the fifteen cities and counties with at least two seats fell into this pattern, these five held more seats (32) than the other ten combined (31). The size and complexity of these areas meant that they were less likely to have focal points that might reduce the redistricting process to a trivial choice or a choice that could easily be resolved. Moreover, that very size and complexity worked against the local opposition party. With more stakeholders, the chances that at least one fared relatively well under the LEC plan were high. Redrawing one line could require redrawing most or all of the lines, and negotiating new lines among so many stakeholders was extremely difficult. Size empowered the LEC.
Cities and counties in the LEC dominant category did not end up with open partisan conflict. To be sure, most of these cases ended up in the lottery, and the two camps argued
loudly about the merits of their respective plans. However, these fights were more superficial than substantive, as there simply was not much difference between the alternatives. Like the cases in the consensus category, the use of big building blocks played a role in reducing conflict. Unlike in those cases, the two non-partisan election commissions also played an important role. The LECs generally proposed plans that were advantageous to their side, but not egregiously so. Historical legacies were generally respected, and populations were relatively even among districts. These moderately partisan plans made it harder for the local opposition to form a consensus on an alternative plan. As a result, the opposition simply did not propose an alternative, and open partisan warfare was avoided.
Source: Data compiled by author from newspaper reports and Central Election Commission.
Figure 2 Map of Taichung County
The LEC dominant pattern is nicely illustrated by Taichung County, which had five seats (see Figure 2). The local executive in Taichung County was from the KMT, so it is reasonable to expect advantages for the blue camp in the LEC plan. Two are particularly evident. First, the LEC plan gave the blue camp a clear partisan advantage in each of the five districts. As will be seen, it would have been possible to formulate a plan in which there was at least one tossup district, so the LEC plan was clearly better for the blue camp.
Second, the LEC plan mitigated conflict between the KMT’s two local factions. The LEC plan had a very small D1 (-11.2%) and a very large D2 (+8.8%). This disparity could easily have been mitigated by switching Shalu and Wuqi townships between the two districts.15 However,
15 This would have left D1 3.6% below and D2 1.2% above the average. This change was mooted at a
Chien plan districts township borders LEC plan D1 LEC plan D2 LEC plan D3 LEC plan D4 LEC plan D5 Daan Dajia
Waipu Qingshui
Wuqi Shalu
Taiping Dali
this switch would have caused problems within the KMT’s local factions. Under the LEC plan, Yen Chin-piao, a Shalu-based independent allied with the blue camp and a member of the Black faction, was in the same district (D2) as another Black faction incumbent. The switch would have put him into a district (D1) with a Red faction legislator. From the blue camp’s perspective, negotiating a compromise between two Black faction members over who would be the nominee probably looked much easier (see Table 3).
Table 3 Taichung County Redistricting Plans
Population +/- Blue Camp Green Camp
LEC Plan
D1 269,533 -11.2 60.5 38.8
D2 342,056 12.7 61.0 38.2
D3 342,400 12.9 56.9 42.1
D4 266,769 -12.1 52.5 46.6
D5 296,154 -2.4 55.0 44.1
Chien Plan
D1 323,891 6.8 60.5 38.8
D2 284,364 -6.3 62.5 36.9
D3 315,723 4.1 54.8 44.0
D4 272,774 -10.1 59.1 40.1
D5 320,160 5.5 50.4 48.6
Source: Data compiled by author from newspaper reports and Central Election Commission.
Notes: Total population=1,516,912; average district population=303,382. The last two columns show the percentage of the vote won by all Blue and Green Camp candidates, respectively, in the 2004 legislative elections.
The LEC plan was approved by the CEC. In fact, the KMT-dominated LEC may have acted strategically to avoid giving the DPP-leaning CEC any excuse to overturn its plan. In an early version of the LEC plan, Taiping and Dali townships were combined to form D3, even though their combined population was 16.8% above the mean. However, the LEC eventually decided not to challenge the guideline instructing that all deviations should be less than 15%. In the plan that that the LEC submitted to the CEC, around 12,000 people were shifted out of Dali and into D2, bringing the population of D3 down to only 12.9% above the mean.
The LEC plan met with opposition in the legislature. There were two alternative plans proposed. Notably, neither of these plans involved switching Shalu and Wuqi townships between
public hearing, but it was opposed by Yen Chin-piao.
D1 and D2, even though that seemed to be an obvious proposal for the green camp. In fact, there is a good reason that the green camp might not be able to agree on that alternative. The DPP had an incumbent based in D1, but not in D2. Moreover, the green camp was much stronger in Wuqi, where it won 40.6% of the vote in 2004, than in Shalu, where it only won 32.8%. The incumbent in D1 would have almost certainly have vigorously opposed this switch if it had been proposed.
A former DPP legislator, Chien Chao-tung, supported by supported by incumbent PFP legislator Feng Ting-kuo, proposed a fundamentally different plan. Chien and Feng, both based in Dali, faced the same problem in the person of KMT legislator Chiang Lien-fu, a very strong politician from Taiping. Feng did not want to compete with Chiang for the nomination, and Chien did not want to face Chiang in the general election. Chien’s plan would have resolved this problem by putting Taiping and Dali into different districts. Under Chien’s plan, Chiang would have shifted to another district (D4), and Chien and Feng would have had a chance to face each other in the Dali district (D3). This change required a substantial change in every other district as well.16 From the DPP’s point of view, this plan also would have had the advantage of creating a district (D5) in which the two camps had nearly even levels of support. Despite this, Chien’s plan was never seriously considered. Perhaps it is not surprising that Feng was unable to convince Speaker Wang to oppose the LEC plan since the LEC plan generally was beneficial to the blue camp. However, green camp politicians were also unable to unite behind this alternative.
It is quite easy to point to politicians who would have been losers. Three of the four incumbent DPP legislators would have been worse off under Chien’s plan.17 Moreover, it lumped together unorthodox groupings of townships. Of the traditional seven county assembly districts,18 five were split up, and one of the others was combined with a township connected only by a few mountain roads. Not only would this have thrown the DPP’s mobilization networks into disarray, ambitious county assembly members hoping to move up to the legislature in the future would
16 Compared with the LEC plan, 46.9% of the population would have moved to a new district in Chien’s plan.
17 Comparing his best districts in the LEC plan and Chien’s plan, Tsai Chi-chang’s 2004 vote share declined from 15.8% to 14.0%. Kuo Chun-ming went from 9.3% to 8.6%, and he would have been put in the district that was divided by mountains. Hsieh Hsin-ni went from 12.0% to 10.4%, and her best two townships, Taiping and Dali, would have been split up. The only winner was Wu Fu-quei, whose vote share would have increased from 15.0% to 18.2%. Wu would also have been a winner in the sense that his best district was the tossup district created in the Chien plan.
18 One of the county assembly districts was split in 2002 due to its large population.
have found their supporters scattered into separate legislative districts. In short, most green camp politicians in the county would have found something to dislike about their new district.
The second proposal was much more modest. This change would have put Dali back together again, moving the 12,000 Dali residents shifted to D2 to meet the 15% guideline back into D3. This would have had almost no partisan impact and affected a mere 0.8% of the total population of Taichung County. In other words, this change would have been nearly irrelevant.
In the end, neither the Speaker nor the Premier decided to support this change all the way to the lottery, but this proposal is typical of the minimal changes that did make it to the lottery in the other LEC dominant cases.
In sum, the complexity of Taichung County meant that the LEC’s position as first mover was a tremendous advantage. Once the LEC proposed a plan, the other side was not able to agree on a fundamentally different alternative. As a result, the LEC was able to secure significant partisan advantages for the local governing party.