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://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.
