First is a large percentage of military families maintain residency in their home states or states they were previously assigned to instead of where they are stationed. States allow exemptions for military personnel to do this.
It’s done for a few reasons. One is that it’s just easier. Two is that it lets them maintain residency and therefore pay taxes in states that don’t have a state income tax or that don’t tax military income. A whole lot of people who end up stationed where they can live in TN keep that TN residency through the rest of a career.
Same for Alaska. You will see Alaska plates WAY out of proportion in military towns. Why? Not only does Alaska not have a state income tax but every resident gets a check every year from the state Permenant Fund. All a military member must do is certify they spent at least 72 consecutive hours in the state the year before and they get a check for around $1500-2000. So no income tax an any year you can pull a long weekend vacation in the state a nice payout too.
Aside from that, Congress doesn’t get any real say in where the Army stations units, much less individual service members. They even have been divorced to a large degree on decisions what bases stay open or closed by the BRAC process.
The military is largely conservative, but because of these factors there isn’t much in the way it can be manipulated to affect vote totals.
Now, over the long term there have been trends that have moved more military members to red areas, but it’s mostly based on base closures that have closed bases that are in urban areas. As cities grow around bases many end up closing based on pressure from the local governments and citizens, reduced ability to train based on noise complaints and safety issues.
So as an example places like Fort Ord, NAS Alameda, George AFB, Mather AFB, Norton AFB, Presidio of San Francisco, Castle AFB, MCAS Tustin, NAS Moffet Field, Long Beach Naval Shipyard, Sacramento Army Depot, MCAS El Toro, Naval Station Treasure Island, Naval Supply Center Oakland, Naval Training Center San Diego, McClellan AFB, Oakland Army Base and some small ones all are bases only in California that closed between 1988 and 2000.
And that’s just CA, but I chose CA because they were one of the most significantly affected states.
That moved a lot of servicemembers out, their families, and also affected the number of military retirees who choose to settle there as many choose to retire near bases for access to the facilities. And a lot of veterans who get out (often medical reasons) who then work in civilian positions on the I would guess the typical military member/family/retiree population are about 75% GOP voters. For every servicemember position you see eliminating figure 3-4 more in family, retireees, civilian workers on base etc and all following that same political trend.
Now I am sure that has served to some degree to make California bluer over the last 3 decades. And as a result places the people relocated to more red. But to what degree I don’t know.
That said, I don’t think that was in any way driven by gerrymandering. Those changes are driven by attempts to lower costs to they will close bases in areas with higher costs of living and doing business. On top of that many bases were having the utility of them for training reduced by increased populations around them driving complaints about aircraft noise and safety, so closing a base that is of reduced utility is a first cut.
= new reply since forum marked as read
