The Importance of Federalism
Why do the states matter? Let me offer you yet another reason: it's state Legislatures who redistrict the U.S. House of Representatives every 10 years - a staggeringly important task! Although many people gripe about partisan gerrymanders, I fear most people are overlooking the importance of state elections in creating those oddly-shaped districts.
It's misplaced to expect or hope for legislation on the matter from Congress. This is for two reasons: first, the power is clearly a state function; and second, once a Congressman is elected, he has little or no incentive to change the make-up of his 'winning' district. So one party's advantage over another in Washington starts in state capitols and in state House races.
Over the past decade, Republicans - led by Delay - got very good at using state Legislatures to ensure their districts would always be the safe ones. Finally, some Democrats are getting on the same bandwagon, according to the Washington Monthly:
It might seem unusual for a novice challenger like Schockman, whose opponent is very well-funded, to merit such professional backing. One explanation is that this November, Michigan Democrats hope to win six seats to control the state Senate for the first time in 20 years. More intriguingly, though, they also have an eye on redistricting. After the 2000 election, Michigan Republicans controlled all three branches of state government, and redrew congressional lines to give the GOP a 9-6 advantage in the delegation, although the state voted for the Democratic candidate in the last four presidential elections. Schauer aims to reverse that. He’s thinking long-term, but if his party holds the governorship and wins the state house, he doesn’t see any need to wait to revisit the electoral map. “If we have the kind of year that’s possible,” he said, “I don’t have any qualms about making the case that Michigan’s legislative and congressional seats are not in conformance with the balance of the state.”Something for everyone to think about as they vote in November, most likely paying little attention to the 'down the ticket' races.
posted by Joshua @ 4:51 PM
4 Comments:
Misplaced to expect? Certainly
Misplaced to hope? Yes, if you are hoping for federal legislation. As Tacitean points out it is a State power. But should it be? And if not, why should we not think of amending the federal constitution on this issue? It is, after all, the sort of thing that constitutional amendments were meant for. When part of the basic machinery established by the constiution has become broken, I think amendment of the constitution is justified. It may be misplaced to hope, but it doesn't hurt to do so.
Yes, the power should be a state power.
If the power were given to the federal government to establish Congressional districts, I dare say the results would have even less bearing on actual representation. I can easily imagine scenarios in which whole states are essentially 'neutered' by federal districting. I bet you can, too - what would happen to Massachusetts if, say, Texas were to have any say in its redistricting?
I say, keep it with the states where there's at least some chance a small group of well-intentioned reformers can experiment with fairer methods of redistricting. At the federal level, you might as well contract it out to K Street.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it should be the purview of an equally divided FEC, with Iowa as the model. You put the representatives in control of the means by which they're elected and it'll be corrupt at any level. It should be a non-partisan commission, redistricting every ten years immediately following the census.
Apologies for being somewhat unclear. I was not suggesting that we amend the process so that the federal legislature does the redistricting every ten years. That would certainly lead to the sort of problems you predict. That would simply replace one corrupt partisan and adversarial system with another similar system even more removed from local realities. However, we could amend to require the states to follow certain non partisan standards in setting up their redistricting process. This would still leave room for the states to play with the exact mechanism, but might also stop the worst of the excesses that result from the current system. Iowa might be a good model, but I would be wary of being too specific with the requirements. It would be a balancing act of course, but I think the current imbalance shows a clear need for some sort of change.
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