I n “Don’t Blame Redistricting for Un-competitive Elections ” in this issue of PS: Political Science and Politics,

~2006! argue that redistricting is not re-sponsible for the decline in the number of competitive districts, defined as a district with a near balance of partisan-ship. Further, the authors claim that non-partisan redistricting institutions are not correlated with the number of com-petitive districts. The relationship be-tween redistricting institutions and competitive districts is of importance not only to academics who study redis-tricting and elections, but also to policy makers and reformers who advocate re-districting reform. If these claims are true, then policymakers are expending much misguided effort to enact redis-tricting reform to treat the greater problem of the decline of electoral com-petition in recent U.S. congressional elections. Contrary to the authors ’ claims, other scholars theorize ~Owen and Grofman 1988! and find ~Swain, Borrelli, and Reed 1998; Cain, MacDonald, McDonald 2004! that redistricting tends to reduce the number of competitive congressional districts. Furthermore, the authors claim that nine non-partisan redistricting insti-tutions existed in 2001, whereas Mc-Donald ~2004! identifies only two such institutions, in Arizona and Iowa. Abramowitz, Alexander, and Gunning’s findings are a consequence of measure-ment issues. More valid measures of dis-trict competitiveness and redistricting institutions find that redistricting does have an effect on the number of competi-tive congressional districts and, as a case study of redistricting institutions in Ari-zona illustrates, the choice of redistrict-ing institutions and criteria does indeed affect the number of competitive districts