In the 2008 election, Barack Obama won with
365 electoral college votes to McCain’s 173. But in 2010, both the house and
senate flipped, switching from democrat controlled to republican controlled.
Was this because in two short years the desires of the American people changed?
Perhaps, or perhaps it was due to the major redistricting that took place in
2010 after the census.
When we look at the state of our politics
today we can see a divide. This divide is not by accident, it grows every 10
years. The reason, Gerrymandering. Every 10 years we have a census. We count
the number of people we have in our country, legal or illegal. No
discrimination no risk for deportation[1] .
Then in most states, the districts are drawn by the state legislature, while
the governor has a veto. It is a tradition, it is necessary, but there is a
problem. The state legislature carves up these new districts not to further
diversify the votes and take true samples of society, but to retain power. It
started in 1812, governor of Massachusetts Elbridge Gerry, signed a bill that
allowed the redistricting of Massachusetts to benefit the then
Democratic-Republican Party. This process attacks democracy as states are
allowed to redistrict to politically benefit one party over another. With no
competitive districts, can democracy truly thrive? Is it not in the clashing
and conflict of principles that we can become further enlightened?
When we go through this redistricting process;
it is a major political battle, and it always ends with districts becoming more
and more partisan. There is, however, a way to counter this. Take Iowa, they
have a simple yet effective way to redistrict. After census data is reviewed,
there are four simple rules Iowa state representatives will follow when creating
new districts. One, population equality, without this rule one representative
could be responsible for many more people than another, as is the case with the
senate, I’ll save that for another time. Two,
contiguity, districts should look like each other, no weird shapes, no odd
angles, just simple square boxes, or as close as we can get. Three, Unity of counties and cities.
Representatives should represent the people in the county or city they are a
part of. That is the true purpose and reason for having a representative,
someone who lives within the community who can and will talk to the government
on the people's behalf. And fourth,
districts should remain as compact as possible. There is no reason to have
abnormally large districts, simple compact squares, that is what we need.
This process seems to work well for Iowa,
could we not implement it at a national scale? We already tried this, and it
worked! In the 1960s, the population was growing significantly. Cities were
getting larger and larger. Many people who lived in rural areas were moving to
the city. The result was cities that housed more people than the rural areas
had fewer representatives in congress, both at the state, and federal levels!
There were multiple court cases brought to the supreme court [Baker c Carr
(1962) Wesberry v Sanders (1964a), Reynolds v Sims (1964b)].
The supreme court decided that
malapportionment - drawing districts that differed in population size was
unconstitutional. This was held to violate the principle of “one person, one
vote,” which is derived from both Articles I of the Constitution and the Equal
Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Before malapportionment was outlawed,
districts could vary in population by a factor of ten; now districts need to be
redrawn every ten years following the Census to ensure they have an equal
population. This denied the state governments a powerful tool by which they
could fix political outcomes.
We have a problem though, in 2004 there was a
supreme court case Vieth v. Jubelirer (2004);
it was a challenge to the redistricting of Pennsylvania. In this case, the
court decided to not overturn a redistricting that occurred in Pennsylvania.
Although there were diverging opinions in the 5-4 ruling that day. The decision
was made more so the court will stay out of politics than the legality or
illegality of the redistricting. This decision is key to the reason for the
state of our politics. Although it may not have been the intention of our
supreme justices, they have effectively made challenging a districting plan on
the premise of gerrymandering practically impossible.
If partisan gerrymandering is again permitted,
this creates a loophole that once again gives state governments some of this power. It also seriously
undermines the egalitarian intentions of the “one person, one vote”
jurisprudence of the 1960s. The courts have already decided that they wish to
stay out of political decisions, and that is ok. What we need to do then is
bring this issue up, to our representatives, to our neighbors, or friends. The
more people are aware of this problem that divides our nation, then the more
likely we are to be able to do something about it.
There is no bigger proof than in the election
year of 2012, following the 2010 Census. There was a shift in the partisan
advantage. The Republican Party won a majority of the 33 seats though it won
fewer votes than the democrats. This was not an accident, but rather a
systematic bias that we will see be repeated throughout the next decade. The
House of Representatives has a total of 435 seats, 234 of those seats (54%)
were won by republican representatives, even though the Democratic Party won a
slim majority (50.6%) of the popular vote. This could only have been possible
through political gerrymandering.
If you are a democrat or republican, it
shouldn’t matter. Political gerrymandering is dividing our nation more so than
we already divide it. The more our nation becomes divided we weaken ourselves.
Yes, different ideas are good, it allows us to challenge and debate. However,
when our representatives only represent a specific demographic there is little
chance of compromise.
I beseech you, understand that compromise is
key, different ideas help create better ideas. Skewing the election only helps
those in power stay in power. New ideas are needed to stir the pot and create
even better solutions. Talk to your representatives, talk to your neighbors,
talk to your friends. Bring back the idea that we should take an active role in
our politics.
This is the start. After this, we take on the
senate, with their amassed consolidation of power, the excess of money they
deal with, and the lack of morals our political elite have.
References:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/27/gerrymandering-republicans-electoral-maps-political-heist
https://web.archive.org/web/20091107114029/http://www.centrists.org/pages/2004/07/7_buck_trust.html
●
Gerrymandering in America: the
House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and the future of popular
sovereignty / Anthony J. McGann, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow; Charles
Anthony Smith, University of California-Irvine; Michael Latner, California
Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo; Alex Keena, University of
California-Irvine.