Nomenklatura

Down with Gerrymandering. Check out another RTD homerun editorial:

Watch California

Richmond Times-Dispatch
Apr 11, 2005

The Senate considers itself the world's most exclusive deliberative body. The House of Representatives takes pride in its status as "the people's house."

Every state sends two Senators to Washington; House delegations reflect population. South Dakota has one Congressman, for instance, while California has 53. Senators originally were selected not by citizens but by state legislators. The 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, stipulated the election of Senators by direct popular vote. House terms run for two years, Senate for six. More frequent elections supposedly ensure that the House reflects the immediacy of popular opinion; longer terms allow the Senate to cool the passions. The entire House membership faces re-election every two years. Only one-third of the Senate is up in any given campaign. The differences suggest the House experiences greater turnover than the Senate.

Facts:
Democrats controlled the House for 40 years. Republicans have not lost the House since their 1994 breakthrough.

Republicans took the Senate in 1980; Democrats reclaimed it in 1986; Republicans regained a majority in 1994; Democrats pulled to a tie (broken by a GOP Vice President) in 2000 and took control in 2001 when a Republican became an independent and caucused with the Democrats; Republicans moved back into a majority in 2002; the GOP widened its margin in 2004.

Since the early 1950s the House has seen one partisan shift (several elections saw significant numerical movement without changes in partisan control); during the past 25 years, the Senate has witnessed several shifts with profound implications for legislation and policy. The Senate has become an electoral battleground. The House resembles fortresses in the rear. Fighting can break out there, especially when the enemy stages raids, but the protracted combat occurs at the front.

Gerrymandering helps to explain the situation. Senate seats correspond to states. Politicians cannot alter the maps. Every decade, however, they redraw congressional lines. Although gerrymandering dates almost to the beginning (Elbridge Gerry, the Massachusetts governor who lent his name to the practice, signed the Declaration of Independence), it has grown more sophisticated. Computers reduce the guesswork. It does not stretch the truth to suggest operatives know the partisan preferences of almost every house on almost every block. Republicans and Democrats alike disregard communal interest and geographical compactness when they create districts to maximize their performance. Such maps distort political preferences. States such as California, Texas, and Florida produce House delegations that are more lopsided than their statewide returns would indicate.

The proliferation of safe seats also has implications for intra-party relations. When the vast majority of districts lack competitive elections in November, parties lose an incentive to cultivate the mainstream. The edge in nomination contests slips to the hardcore. Democratic activists are more liberal than grassroots Democrats; Republican activists are more conservative than grassroots Republicans. The bitterness heard today reflects in part the infantile partisanship fueled by gerrymandering.

This must stop.

. . .

Here comes Arnold!

Arnold Schwarzenegger not only is cleaning up California's fiscal mess but is putting gerrymandering on his reform agenda. Californians will vote on his referendum to transfer redistricting from politicians to independent commissions authorized to draw lines without regard to partisan advantage. The political establishment is appalled (and afraid). A Schwarzenegger win would deprive it of one of its most potent weapons.

Gerrymandering allows politicians to turn the tables. They decide which voters they will represent. Voters no longer make the picks.

Progressives everywhere are rooting for Schwarzenegger.

Indeed, numerous states have redistricting reforms on their slates. A sweep in California could make the cause irresistible.

Virginia would benefit from a push. For many years the Commonwealth's Democrats gleefully gerrymandered maps for the General Assembly and the U.S. Congress. For many years the Commonwealth's Republicans expressed their outrage at Democratic perfidy. GOP Assembly majorities produced schemes that were as gerrymandered as the Democratic maps. Democrats had no institutional standing to complain. Although both parties have members who support reform, neither party's collective record deserves respect.

The Times-Dispatch blasted gerrymandering during the Democratic era. Republican gerrymandering is every bit as egregious. Virginians should root for the success of Schwarzenegger's Golden State anti-gerrymandering referendum -- with aftershocks that reach the Old Dominion.

It would not be surprising if this first attempt failed. The nomenklatura elite, reinforced by special interests thriving on the system as it is, will counterattack with all its might. Yet thanks to Schwarzenegger, the nation's most politically important state has joined the battle. Eventually the war will be won.