Is rampant redistricting good for democracy?
We've all heard of the story in Texas, where Tom "I AM the federal gub'ment!" Delay is leading an effort by the Texas state legislature to redraw the Congressional district maps in order to eliminate the seats of moderate Democratic Congressmen. A bunch of Democratic state legislators fled to Oklahoma last month to deny Republicans a quorum and prevent a vote on redistricting. All for naught. The governor is calling a special session of the legislature, and the Democrats say they'll stay put and go down fighting. Nice summary here.
I won't rehash the arguments for why many people think this is a bad thing. The thought occured to me, though, that in the long run it might well be a very good thing for democracy, if a bad thing for Democrats in the short-term.
In brief, the two reasons I think this:
1. Constant redistricting restores a national relevance to state legislatures that was lost when Senators began to be elected by popular vote
2. Constant redistricting to eliminate incumbants reduces the overall number and value of incumbants
The first bit about state legislators:
Who here knows the name of their state legislator? Not me. Most people don't care and don't think they need to care, despite whatever important role the state legislators play in education, health care, road building, etc. This wasn't always the case. The most famous set of political debates ever, the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, were not part of a Senate campaign, though both men wanted to be a Senator. They were part of the campaign for the Illinois state legislature elections, for those legislators would then elect the Senator. Imagine state legislature electiosn today taking on such national (and these days, probably international) prominence? It's inconceivable. And that's a loss for democracy, especially at the state level. If the legislatures can redistrict at will, suddenly who they are and what they stand for takes on much greater importance. Voters will pay attention.
Incumbants:
Most pundits agree that the strength of incumbancy is one of the major dangers facing our democracy. Somewhere around 10% of House seats are seriously contested in any given election. The money that flows to incumbants, and the desire (until now) of both parties to use redistricting to preserve incumbants provides them with an awesome advantage that can rarely overcome. Near-absolute job security in representative government is a bad thing. It reduces responsiveness and responsibility to the voters. Term limits might help, but have been hard to put into practice and have the unfortunate side effect of kicking out the good and bad alike, destroying institutional memory and leaving only newbies to govern. Rampant redistricting offers a way to shake things up. New districts are formed that lack an effective incumbant, or perhaps include two incumbants - creating competitive races where none were before. If the process happens often enough, it becomes a sort of de facto term limit for mediocre incumbants. The really good, popular Congressmen, the ones who draw bipartisan votes anyway, will survive while party tools are targeted and booted out.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm curious what others think of this opinion. It was spurred by an observation in the article linked above that Democrats were threatening to retailiate if Texas redistricting goes through - in California. Got me wondering if that would result in political nuclear winter or creative destruction.
I won't rehash the arguments for why many people think this is a bad thing. The thought occured to me, though, that in the long run it might well be a very good thing for democracy, if a bad thing for Democrats in the short-term.
In brief, the two reasons I think this:
1. Constant redistricting restores a national relevance to state legislatures that was lost when Senators began to be elected by popular vote
2. Constant redistricting to eliminate incumbants reduces the overall number and value of incumbants
The first bit about state legislators:
Who here knows the name of their state legislator? Not me. Most people don't care and don't think they need to care, despite whatever important role the state legislators play in education, health care, road building, etc. This wasn't always the case. The most famous set of political debates ever, the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, were not part of a Senate campaign, though both men wanted to be a Senator. They were part of the campaign for the Illinois state legislature elections, for those legislators would then elect the Senator. Imagine state legislature electiosn today taking on such national (and these days, probably international) prominence? It's inconceivable. And that's a loss for democracy, especially at the state level. If the legislatures can redistrict at will, suddenly who they are and what they stand for takes on much greater importance. Voters will pay attention.
Incumbants:
Most pundits agree that the strength of incumbancy is one of the major dangers facing our democracy. Somewhere around 10% of House seats are seriously contested in any given election. The money that flows to incumbants, and the desire (until now) of both parties to use redistricting to preserve incumbants provides them with an awesome advantage that can rarely overcome. Near-absolute job security in representative government is a bad thing. It reduces responsiveness and responsibility to the voters. Term limits might help, but have been hard to put into practice and have the unfortunate side effect of kicking out the good and bad alike, destroying institutional memory and leaving only newbies to govern. Rampant redistricting offers a way to shake things up. New districts are formed that lack an effective incumbant, or perhaps include two incumbants - creating competitive races where none were before. If the process happens often enough, it becomes a sort of de facto term limit for mediocre incumbants. The really good, popular Congressmen, the ones who draw bipartisan votes anyway, will survive while party tools are targeted and booted out.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm curious what others think of this opinion. It was spurred by an observation in the article linked above that Democrats were threatening to retailiate if Texas redistricting goes through - in California. Got me wondering if that would result in political nuclear winter or creative destruction.
Comments
But I think at some point it has to stop. It's costly, it takes time, and it's confusing to voters who get their district changed. Once every census sounds right to me.