| May 2012 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
There is a situation that is not yet widely discussed, in which redistricting groups together localities that traditionally vote for one political party or the other, such that the outcome of most votes in those districts is often predictable.
This is a major force in American politics today. It gives control to fringe elements in both parties. It accentuates conflict and reduces cooperation in government. It’s a factor in why the state of California (redistricted so as to favor Democrats) got so wildly into debt: whoever won a Democratic primary was sure of being elected to the state legislature. Candidates in most primaries moved to outflank each other on the left in order to win the nomination. The resulting state officials were extremists who felt sure of re-election.
From Frank del Olmo in the LA Times:
...reapportionment is arguably the most important thing the nation’s 50 state legislatures do. The lines they draw can affect every political decision those bodies make for the rest of the decade. They also affect the makeup of the U.S. House of Representatives because state legislatures draw the House’s district lines as well.Nowadays, using computers and detailed demographic data, political operatives can design districts that are virtually guaranteed to elect either a Democrat or a Republican, depending on how the lines are drawn. But most often incumbent politicians of both parties draw the new lines to protect themselves.
...However, those ultrasafe seats also helped create the political gridlock and nasty partisanship that now exist in Sacramento and that Schwarzenegger has repeatedly said he wants to change.
That’s because incumbents with safe districts face little pressure to compromise with members of the other party and may even feel the need to stick to their ideological guns lest they anger the extreme conservatives or liberals who elected them. Which means that the moderate middle, where most American voters come down on most issues, gets the least representation.
The governor would go a long way toward changing the current culture in Sacramento, and to some extent even in Washington, by following up on a statement he made often during his campaign: to take a fresh look at how the Legislature reapportions itself and perhaps give the job to an independent citizens commission.
Via a December 12, 2003 New Yorker article by Jeffrey Toobin (no link):
In Texas and elsewhere, redistricting has transformed American politics. The framers of the Constitution created the House of Representatives to be the branch of government most responsive to changes in the public mood, but gerrymandered districts mean that most of the four hundred and thirty-five members of Congress never face seriously contested general elections. In 2002, eighty-one incumbents ran unopposed by a major party candidate. There are now about four hundred safe seats in Congress, Richard Pildes, a professor of law at New York University, said. The level of competitiveness has plummeted to the point where it is hard to describe the House as involving competitive elections at all these days. The House isn’t just ossified; it’s polarized, too. Members of the House now effectively answer only to primary voters, who represent the extreme partisan edge of both parties. As a result, collaboration and compromise between the parties have almost disappeared. The Republican advantage in the House is modestjust two hundred and twenty-nine seats to two hundred and sixbut gerrymandering has made the lead close to insurmountable for the foreseeable future.
And from Tony Quinn in the LA Times:
A GOP gerrymander of Democratic districts in Texas will probably add six to eight Republicans to the House. Every other big state is so heavily gerrymandered that no other major changes are likely. This means the GOP majority in the House is expected to grow by at least half a dozen seats.
It’s easy to blame the party in power (Democrats in California, Republicans in Texas, etc.), but there’s a school of thought that those out of power have often agreed to this redistricting so as to make their own seats assured, abandoning the future of their party.
...most often incumbent politicians of both parties draw the new lines to protect themselves.
We certainly haven’t heard much beefing about redistricting coming from either party.
The question is, what are we going to do about it?
