Redistricting out the democracy


Op-ed from the Merc on redistricting that should make that otherwise fine paper ashamed. Two parts regurgitation of unconsidered pap plus one part novel ideas that would generate minor problems like abolishing democracy.

The piece buys into the bankrupt idea that turnover per se is a desirable goal, but takes it one step further, to suggest that we should abandon the concept of majorities in favor of pluralities and find ways to elect candidates even in large geographic areas where no supporters actually live.

A good proposal that won't do much
(Merc) An independent redistricting panel would protect minority rights, make districts compact, and not split cities or communities.

All to the good, as far as it goes, which brings us to point B: It won't go all that far. The bipartisan gerrymander after the 2000 U.S. census produced a nirvana of safe seats for the Republicans and Democrats. Not one of the Legislature's 120 seats changed parties in the past election. But even an impartial redistricting is unlikely to create competition in more than a fifth of the districts. There just aren't enough Republicans in the Bay Area or Democrats in the Central Valley to make more districts competitive.

If improving elections and the quality of representation is the goal, here are some more dramatic changes to consider:

Larger, multimember districts

The difference between five single-member districts and one five-member district, for example, would be significant.

Suppose Democrats and Republicans are distributed 60-40 in a region. A partisan gerrymander creates five safe Democratic seats. Even a neutral one probably creates only one district for a Republican.

One large district, on the other hand, would probably elect three Democrats and two Republicans, because candidates finishing fourth and fifth would need only 17 percent of the votes or less to win a seat.


This is so illogical it beggars the imagination.

First: As we've argued before, there's no inherent value to "compactness" beyond a kind of dimwitted aesthetic intuition. Populations are irregular; geography is irregular. There is no reason to demand that districts ought to have convex outlines or whatever it is that "compactness" means, and strong reasons to expect that they ought not to.

Second. It is precisely by "splitting cities and communities" that redistricting proponents imagine that they will restore balance to the Force. Current districts are indeed defined by demographic features (urban centers vs. suburbs) and communities, which are often in turn defined by factors like ethnicity and socioeconomic class, which happen to be predictive of voting behavior. It's only by starting to draw district lines that ignore things like cities and communities that competition will be (artificially) enhanced

And don't even get me started on the idea of redesigning the electoral process to allow "wins" by candidates who couldn't get one in five voters to support them. (I propose the following rule of thumb: If you can't at least do better than Alan Keyes, you don't belong in the Capitol.)

If there aren't enough partisan voters in an area to guarantee competition regardless of the district lines, then it's counter-democratic to try to generate competition by allowing candidates to take office on the basis of a tiny plurality.

Posted: Thu - March 31, 2005 at 10:22 AM   | Category:     |   |   | |


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