THE NEW POLITICAL PARITY.

• Author: Hansen, Karen
• Position: 2000 election

IT TOOK AN EXCRUCIATING AMOUNT OF TIME TO DECIPHER WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SAID WHEN THEY VOTED NOV. 7. BUT WHEN THE FINAL TALLY WAS MADE, STATE LEGISLATURES ARE MORE COMPETITIVE THAN ANY TIME IN RECENT MEMORY.

When Americans tuned in to watch election returns Nov. 7, little did they expect to witness the unprecedented series of events that makes this election one for the history books--a president elected by a narrow electoral majority, a Congress that for only the second time this century is so closely divided and state legislatures poised to redraw the lines that will affect the party in power for the first decade of the new century.

Even as Americans put history on hold in one of the tightest presidential elections ever, the votes they cast in state legislative races brought the partisan balance closer than at any time in the past 50 years. The political landscape of the states in 2001 will reflect as even a match as has been seen in the last half century.

"We now truly have American political parity," says pollster Frank Luntz, "an equal number of Republicans and Democrats. That showed itself in the House, the Senate and the presidency."

But is this new political parity the result of a deeply divided electorate? CNN political analyst William Schneider doesn't think so. "You got the impression from looking at the electoral map and the results in Congress that Americans were deeply polarized. But that simply wasn't the case," Schneider says. "You could have very nearly a 50-50 split in the Senate, a narrow majority in the House just got narrower. The presidential vote could hardly be more closely divided than it is.

"But when I looked at the exit polling there wasn't much evidence that the people were deeply divided--not nearly as much as they were over Nixon and McGovern or Johnson and Goldwater."

Like a baseball game that goes into extra innings, the presidential race hung in the balance for a nerve-wracking several days. And--just as in the national elections--there were few home runs for either party in state legislative contests. Going into the election, Democrats controlled 19 legislatures, Republicans held 17, and 13 were split (Nebraska is nonpartisan.) On Nov. 8, Democrats held 16, Republicans still controlled 17, and in 16 others control was split. (At the time of this story, Washington was undeclared.)

DEAD CENTER

The astounding ambivalence of voters in the presidential election, that ultimately hinged on the recount of a mere 1,800 votes and absentee ballots in Florida, was mirrored in congressional races which gave Democrats a net gain of six seats, A scant 1 percent of state legislative seats went to the other party. In this case, the Republicans. Nationally, the GOP picked up a net of some 70 seats in state chambers.

"Everything is dead center," says Luntz. "It is a balanced election; it is a central election...