Jay Cost: Some Thoughts On Redistricting

Bruce Reed had a great post on his Slate blog yesterday that discussed the implications of partisan redistricting. I highly recommend it. Here, I would like to offer first a critique and then, building on that critique, an amplification.

First off, I do think he lays too much blame on the GOP for the current district maps -- it is true that the redistricting of 1992 and 2002 benefited Republicans more than Democrats. But Democrats (a) benefited as well and (b) would be just as eager to engage in it if they could. As Michael Barone is wont to note -- all partisan debates about process are inherently dishonest. To wit -- the "sketchiness" of the DeLay redistricting of 2003 is matched only by the "sketchiness" by the Democratic-engineered maps of the 1990s, which ensured that Texas continually sent a Democratic majority caucus to the Congress despite the fact that, since 1994, a majority of its voters consistently voted for Republican House candidates. Barone is right: partisan debates about political process are little more than B.S.

Of course, I take Reed to be an honest broker here. Partisan jabs aside, he makes an interesting, and quite conservative, normative argument against the change in the nature of the House. He writes: "Rigged districts defeat the very reason we have a House of Representatives in the first place. The founders wanted one chamber that would be held accountable to the popular will every two years."

The House, of course, is not the only chamber to shift from the Framers' original vision. So also has the Senate. In the original design, the House was supposed to be the volatile chamber and the Senate designed to instill stability upon the Congress. However, since Senators have become popularly elected, the more stable branch has actually become the less stable branch, and vice versa. If the vision of the Framers is a normative goal, then perhaps the fact that the House is now more stable, and less inclined to electoral swings, is not such a bad thing.

What is more -- on balance, our institutions are much more democratic (or at least offer the promise of democratic participation, even if people are not actually participating) now than they were at the time of the Framers. The presidency, of course, was not intended to be a nationalized, "first branch" kind of office. And it is now. Nominations for all offices in the days of the Framers were made by legislative caucuses. Then they were, slowly but surely, handed over to party organizations that morphed into machines. Today we have primaries. We even have primaries for the presidency. So -- if the goal is to exercise maximal accountability over elected officials, or at least to have the opportunity to exercise such accountability, 2006 is to be greatly preferred over any other year, static House and all.

Redistricting is not, of course, the only culprit in the "ossification" (my word) of the House. Republicans might have managed to increase the incumbent reelection rate to 98.8% in 2004, but it has averaged 95% since World War II (even in 1994, it still hit about 93%). There are at least five secular trends that cannot be pinned on Rove or DeLay that have helped create the situation we currently "enjoy."

1. The professionalization of the House. The national government's power has quantitatively and qualitatively increased over the last century. As this has happened, so has the appeal of being in the House increased. Combine that with the ease of transportation and other societal changes that have reduced the costs of being in Washington for about half the year - and you have a professional class of legislators. Professional legislators are simply less inclined to voluntarily leave, and open seats have always been the prime source of party switchover.

2. The decline of the state party organization. What Reed seems to be lamenting, above all else, is the decline of competition. Democracy may be more present than ever, but competitive democracy is on the wane. This is probably true, and much of this can be traced to the decline of our state political parties. In the last century, competition for House seats decayed as state party organizations, traditionally in charge of nominating candidates, crumbled in the wake of progressive reforms like the primary system, which terminated the major function of the state parties. Without parties to actively offer up candidates, the number of contested races declined. Candidates became self-starters -- and so contests only emerged in "swing" districts as quality candidates eschewed making a run in a district they thought they would lose. Accordingly, many districts where a party could poll a respectable 40% to 45% -- and therefore win the odd election here and there -- ultimately became entirely uncompetitive.

Strong parties (the kind that the media just downright hates!) are a key ingredient in robust partisan competition. Of these five factors, I would peg this one as the most important (the order of the list is roughly temporal, with most recent trends being last). Unfortunately, political reformers of previous decades undercut the powerful-but-flawed party organizations of the past without replacing them with anything of sufficient power. Today - from a certain perspective, our parties are as weak as they have ever been. It is therefore no surprise to me that competition for the House is at such a low point.

3. The increase in campaign costs. Today's challengers will spend at least $1.5 million to win a House seat from the other party. Very few people have the capacity to raise that kind of cash -- and most donors are not willing to fork over that kind of money for only the glimmer of a hope that an underdog candidate will "ride a wave" into Washington. Increased costs, combined with strategic donors, mean fewer serious challengers come filing deadlines, and therefore less competition.

4. The rise of "new media." Independent of its effect on campaign costs -- new media has effectively personalized House contests. National issues are now seen through the prism of the personalities of the candidates in the race. This necessarily helps House incumbents, who are already well-known in their districts.

5. The tightly aligned nature of the current electorate. The Republicans, in the last 40 years, have slowly-but-surely exploited the tensions inherent to the Roosevelt realignment of 1932. FDR cobbled together a motley crew of political interests under the Democratic Party's banner. The GOP -- in large measure due to their "acquisition" of cultural conservatism -- were able to capture Southern Democrats on the presidential level, and then, ultimately, on the congressional level. Today, most congressional districts are "in sync" -- they vote on the congressional level as they do on the presidential level. This reduces political competition in the House -- as the portions of the nation that are most likely to be dissatisfied with Republicans are also the most likely to be represented by Democrats, and vice-versa.

Has redistricting had an independent effect? Most definitely. The point here is that the trend toward the ossification of the House has been a long time coming and has multiple causes.

Redistricting probably has its greatest role by amplifying most of these trends. Strangely shaped districts maximize sympathetic partisans and therefore the possibility of synchronicity between presidential and congressional elections. Strangely shaped districts require communication across multiple media markets, and are therefore more expensive. Strangely shaped districts ensure that the only political entity whom everybody knows is the incumbent House member, who therefore enjoys a kind of prestige hegemony. Strangely shaped districts cut across county lines and therefore defy control by any local party organization.

Final thought - the move to reform these districts smells to me a lot like the moves to reform our political system over the last 100 years. Our track record at reforming our system - insofar as the political parties are managing the aspect of the system in question - has been horrible. Much of this, I think, is explicable by a tension inherent to America since the time of the Founding (ironically embodied in Madison himself): we absolutely, positively need strong political parties for our democracy; however, we absolutely, positively hate strong political parties! Time and again, thanks to this tension, we have undercut the parties by "reforming" them - and, time and again, our system has failed to improve. Elections did not become more "democratic," government did not become more "responsible." In many instances - like the rise of the primary system, city managers, odd-year elections, and "non-party" ballots - our system has become appreciably less competitive and our government less responsible.

What makes me nervous about "non-partisan reforms" to our districting process is that I worry that they are based upon that good old-fashioned American hatred of our parties, and therefore advocates (a) underestimate the service that the parties perform for us, (b) overestimate the extent to which we can get along without the parties, and (c) underestimate the extent to which the parties, or at least what is left of them, can "manipulate" and "exploit" the reforms, twisting them into something much more unlikable than what initially existed. I mean - look at the absolute, unadulterated mess that the two parties have made of the presidential nominating system!

All in all, I am very wary of proposals that seek to limit party power even further, even if it seems quite obvious that competition or responsibility would increase. That was exactly the argument used by reformers who wanted the primary, my least favorite reform designed to enhance participation, competition and responsibility. Accordingly, I will close with a question: in how many of your community's last five primaries did you vote?

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