Show Me The Money
I wanted to say something about Mark Schmitt's post from the other day on campaign finance and redistricting reform. I don't quite buy the current hype about gerrymandering. The best way to deal with this problem, I like, would be a move to multiple-member constituencies with a single-transferrable vote as described here. That would eliminate the entire gerrymandering phenomenon in small-to-medium sized states and dramatically reduce the potential scope for malfeasance in the bigger states. But as Mark said, this isn't a short-term possibility, so we're left tinkering around with non-optimal ideas. All that said, the idea of a "non-competitive district" strikes me as a little under-considered.
For any given electorate, you still have a median voter (allowing for the complexities introduced by the existence of multiple policy dimensions) so it should still always be possible to run a reasonably competitive race. If a given district has an unusually large number of conservative voters, that will mean winning candidates will need to be more-conservative-than-usual (and vice-versa if there are a lot of liberals), but there should still be a race.
To get specific, look at Paul Hackett. He was running in a quintessentially "safe" Republican district. But the GOP candidate was uninspiring, Hackett had a good life story, he's to the right of most Democrats on a few key issues, and he almost won.
And that's how it ought to go. Some districts contain too many Republicans for a conventional Democrat to win (and vice-versa) but that doesn't mean you can't have competitive races, it just means you need slightly unconventional Democrats (or vice-versa) to make the races competitive.
But the Hackett race, of course, was unusual. It was a special election. It was the only race going at the time. And thanks to the internet and various other things, Hackett could raise money from all around the country. Under ordinary circumstances, the Democrats simply wouldn't bother to finance a candidate running in such a GOP-friendly district. You focus your limited resources where they're most likely to make a difference, etc., etc., etc.
Which is where campaign finance comes into the picture. Most of what's been done on the federal level has pertained to trying to limit contributions. This hasn't, I think, been a great success. But some states (and New York City) have experimented with working on the demand side -- offering public monies to qualified candidates. This sort of thing could, if adopted at the federal revolution, wind up doing more than any kind of redistricting reform to make congressional races more competitive. If, simply put, every major party nominee in every district could count on having a reasonable bankroll then, all-of-a-sudden, lots of these races would turn competitive.
You'd have to try a bit to find candidates who could run in unfriendly terrain, but it can be done. It regularly is done in races for Senate and Governor. People mostly don't do it now, because it isn't worth doing. You know you're only going to fund X number of serious races, so you don't bother with the ones where you need to think far outside the box. But if the money was going to be spent one way or another, then it becomes worthwhile to try and do the extra bit of work associated with finding the right candidates.
There's going to be a "federal revolution"? Cool.
November 13, 2005 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the Democrats field a flock (herd? clutch?) of Lieberman's, and some number of them win in supposedly "safe" Republican districts, it's not clear that gerrymandering has "failed," at least if your ultimate concern is policy.
But there is something interesting here. Gerrymandering does two things: 1) by giving everyone a safe district, it protects incumbents of both sorts; 2) by giving the opposition a few very safe seats, and yourself a large number of pretty safe seats, you tilt the state's representation in your favor. But 2) can be risky: should events turn strongly against your party (for instance because your party's President is increasingly seen as a serial liar, war criminal, and incompetent boob) all of your guys can be swept away by the tsunami.
In such a circumstance, the most important thing the Democrats have to do is show up. A moderate will have better chances than a lefty, but even the lefty's chances can be OK, if the zeitgeist is favorable enough, as long as she's a credible candidate. But the incumbent will survive even a realigning election if the opposition candidate is feeble or nonexistent, as is often the case these days.
Right now the national party should be putting a lot of emphasis on recruiting plausible candidates in as many districts as possible.
November 13, 2005 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Matt is sfailing toappreciate how much people get that the most important vote any MOC will cast is for Speaker et al -- therefore, a conservative voter (to the finite extent that ideology qua ideology is at work in partisan affiliation) will give a strong benefit of the doubt to the GOPer, and vice-versa.
Obviously, cult of personality votes work well for Governor (and Mayor), since they are not (nearly as) beholden to anyone else, and thus we see things like Gov. Sebelius and Mayor Bloomberg, "things" that can be shown statistically to be more common than red districts Dems like Hackett succeeding.
November 14, 2005 4:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I saw a good suggestion in a blog post this weekend, which I unfortunately did not bookmark: remove all limits from contributions to politicians. Make all donations anonymous. That is, all donations are sent to the FEC, which collects the money in a pool and sends the candidates/incumbents checks every two months. You could seed in a random amount of federal/state funding too to make it even harder to tell who/when the money was given. Turn the whole process into a prisoners' dilemma that works against the law-buyers.
sPh
November 14, 2005 6:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, interesting! So, by creating more competitive, or less safe, districts, we would spread the party's attention and therefore reduce their power.
So, you're suggesting that it is in the interest of both political parties to have gerrymandering everywhere, and in the interest of democracy to have neutrally defined districts, proportional representation or what have you.
interesting...
November 14, 2005 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
So the Republicans run conservative candidates and the Dems run "moderate" candidates.
Which party runs liberal or progressive candidates? How do we ever get the issues of interest to the bulk of the populace to be represented?
As long as elections are so expensive then only the wealthy and those able to raise corporate money will be able to afford to run. All these people are beholding to the business sector. That is why we no longer see any socialists, populists, greens or other points of view represented.
The Populists never gained control of congress but they managed to get their concerns discussed and many reforms were passed by those wishing to attract their support. There is little chance of this happening the way things are organized now.
Public funding needs to combined with a way to have TV advertising made low or no cost. It is the principal way to reach voters and there is no reason commercial media should be profiting on such an important social mechanism. The broadcast stations are using a public resource and should have to serve the public as part of the license.
November 14, 2005 7:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
A good basic question about gerrymandering: are the Republicans winning a majority of the seats in the House even though nation-wide they're getting less than a majority of the votes in the various districts? Answer--from a column Google brought up: no. Their margin in the country is about the same as in the House.
My source on this is pretty shaky. Anybody have better data? Any reason to suppose that the vote could go to say 52-48 or 53-47 Democratic nation-wide and still the Repubicans would retain the majority of House seats?
There are two issues lurking here: does the House reflect the willof the people? Do individual members most years have little to worry about in November, more from a primary challenge? The latter seems to be the main problem.
November 14, 2005 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Public Law 62-5, passed by the United States Congress on August 8, 1911, set the number of members of the United States House of Representatives at 435. The law did not take effect until 1913. It also included a provision for the addition of one seat each for Arizona and New Mexico when they became states. The number of Members increased temporarily to 437 when Alaska and Hawaii were admitted as states during the 87th Congress, but the 1960 census reduced the number to 435.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)
There are a lot more Americans in 2005 than there were in 1911 - nearly 300 million vs 90 million back then. Why not upgrade the House?
If the Dems ever win back the House, they could revise that number up to, say, 1450 members. This would serve several purposes by making each congressperson represent fewer constituents:
1. Gerrymandering becomes less of a factor.
2. "Safe Seats" become more difficult to maintain.
3. Each seat is reduced in importance; perhaps the cost of running for that seat will diminish as well.
4. The House will be more democratic and more Democratic.
Could the bill pass?
Who knows?
Just an idea.
November 14, 2005 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
1. One big wrench in this theory is the extent to which party ID, rather than ideology, informs voters' decision-making. If the strategizing involves a liberal-to-conservative spectrum, the candidate has room to manuever and find the median, but in a dichotomous choice between Democrat and Republican, you can't move to the median.
2. The primary process means that, especially for challengers, you need to find the median in the outlying group of people within your own party who vote in Congressional primaries (i.e., the ideologically "pure" activists, in many cases) before trying to find the median of the general electorate.
November 14, 2005 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Lockesthegreatest's numbers are incorrect. I think Dems have received more votes overall in several elections in which they've had fewer House reps elected than the GOP. Keep googling.
Also, Matt, I believe they have an election system something like what you suggested in Cambridge MA, and I believe people (even there) find it rather intimidating. I think it could complicate elections and probably drive turn-out down among voters who don't understand it, which I think could be a high number across the country.
November 14, 2005 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another point in Matt's post is that Dems may need to accept, as well as fund/help in other ways, more conservative Democratic candidates in more conservative districts, i.e. those who may be, to pick the most obvious issue, pro-life.
The GOP party apparatus understands this fact. That's why it supported Arlen Specter over his conservative GOP challenger Toomey in the GOP primary. The point will be underscored if Santorum loses to pro-life Dem Casey.
Despite being pro-choice, Specter probably won't keep anti-Roe/Casey judges off the court (voted for Roberts and will most likely vote for Alito, although perhaps unclear exactly how they'll vote on Roe/Casey). Same would most likely go for pro-life Dems -- they almost certainly wouldn't vote against judges who would uphold Roe/Casey.
Given that, there's almost no practical consequence of supporting some more conservative, including pro-life Dems. I grew up in a strongly conservative district (Rep. Regula in OH), and I can tell you that it would be exceedingly difficult for a pro-choice Dem to even get people there to consider voting for her/him. Being pro-life gives them a chance. They could also take the Tim Kaine (and similar to Romney on the GOP side) pledge not to change abortion law even though they are against it, although I still think that position seems pretty tough to argue in practice.
November 14, 2005 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Jeffmoskin that an expanded congress would be quite valuable. While the Constitution set the minimum (not maximum) number of voters per district at 30,000, it is my understanding that they didn't expect the ratio to move that far away from this. Certainly, they hadn't taken into account many technological changes which they couldn't predict, but the current ratio just seems to be extremely off kilter.
November 14, 2005 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that running candidates that would appeal to more conservative voters would be possible and beneficial, but I don't think pro-life is the biggest issue. I think pro-military candidates (Hackett, for example) are more key. Most areas that send a lot of men to the Armed Forces tend strongly Republican--that's mostly because they perceive the Democrats as hostile to the military. A lot of them would vote for Scoop Jackson or Zell Miller.
November 14, 2005 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fair redistricting is one of the many areas where federalism works against reform. Unless all states were to adopt the same reform at the same time, a party would be giving up an advantage in one state with no offsetting gain in another. For the dems, it makes no sense to give up their edge in California; while the repugs kept theirs in Texas.
November 15, 2005 6:03 AM | Reply | Permalink