The Hidden Price of Redistricting

It’s a bad habit, but both the GOP and the Dems do it when they have the power: redistricting to maximize the power of the party and the incumbent (if he/she is a member of the party in power). Squeeze all your opponents into a single Congressional district (or as few as you can muster), even if you have to redraw the map so it looks like an amoeba on acid – twist, turn and encircle, but round them up where they are limited and minimized. Give yourself a comfortable majority in as many districts as you can, and hope that you can lock these artificial borders long enough to sway all the relevant legislation you want in your direction. In the last few Congressional elections, the GOP has redefined the House to fit this pattern well, but rest assured the Democrats have done and will do this if given the chance.

The obvious problem of this restructuring – politely referred to as Gerrymandering – is that the United States often is not so clearly delineated into partisan enclaves where such twisted redistricting is implemented. So such machinations effectively distort the body politic, giving more voice than is actually justified to one party or another. Such efforts can give a well-structured minority the voice of a majority… or at least the power to block legislation they oppose.

The less obvious problem is what causes the logjam we call the House of Representatives, more reflective of the votes within the Gerrymandered district. It is how we got the “sequestration” bill in the first place and why there is so much intransigence among the GOP: their districts are so overwhelmingly one-sided in a conservative bent that their constituents often don’t care if the nation ceases to function (they like smaller government) when if falls off a fiscal cliff. There are pockets of strong isolationists, powerful anti-gun control factions and groups who will oppose taxes, regulations, and social programs… because. Thus for an elected conservative, cooperating to get a fiscal cliff reprieve just doesn’t get you reelected, and what’s best for the country takes second place to that harsh political reality.

Nate Silver, writing for the December 27^th New York Times, explains the hard numbers behind this destructive movement: “In 1992, there were 103 members of the House of Representatives elected from what might be called swing districts: those in which the margin in the presidential race was within five percentage points of the national result. But based on an analysis of this year’s presidential returns, I estimate that there are only 35 such Congressional districts remaining, barely a third of the total 20 years ago.

“Instead, the number of landslide districts — those in which the presidential vote margin deviated by at least 20 percentage points from the national result — has roughly doubled. In 1992, there were 123 such districts (65 of them strongly Democratic and 58 strongly Republican). Today, there are 242 of them (of these, 117 favor Democrats and 125 Republicans)… So why is compromise so hard in the House? Some commentators, especially liberals, attribute it to what they say is the irrationality of Republican members of Congress.

“But the answer could be this instead: individual members of Congress are responding fairly rationally to their incentives. Most members of the House now come from hyperpartisan districts where they face essentially no threat of losing their seat to the other party. Instead, primary challenges, especially for Republicans, may be the more serious risk.” Vote for a tax increase to save the country, and you are likely to see a Grover Norquist-linked opponent trying to unseat you in the next election… which in the House takes place every two years.

Silver’s chart above analyzes the partisan trends in the House over the years. Just a quick cast of the eye shows how that yellow band in the middle has narrowed over the years, reflecting the polarization, that “unable to get compromised legislation to pass” logjam we call the House of Representatives. It is the ugly stepchild of Gerrymandered redistricting, and it is a legacy that will hamstring this nation for the years to come, effectively hogtying this nation into a rather profound inability to deal with the rather serious issues that are pounding us every day. “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 10% of Likely Voters rate Congress’ job performance as good or excellent, while 56% say they are doing a poor job.” RasmussenReports.com, December 6^th.

The effects of such Gerrymandering will continue to tank our national credit rating, impair the value of our currency, leave serious problems without any meaningful attempt at a solution and continue to engender disapproval, if not bitter anger, among the electorate. If we are unable to face our future with the flexibility to deal with it effectively, the precious notion of one nation, under God, will perish from this earth.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I thought learning to play together was something we dealt with in kindergarten!