RALEIGH – With President George W. Bush’s approval ratings stuck in the low 40s, Democrats favored over Republicans by double-digits in generic questions on control of Congress, and a multiplicity of problems, foreign and domestic, bedeviling the party in power in Washington, it would seem that 2006 ought to be a year of Democratic resurgence. Add history to the mix, the storied six-year-itch effect, and this year might even be seen as a potentially revolutionary cycle for the Dems.
Only, few outside of the fevered swamps of DailyKos-land actually believe this will happen in November. Certainly I don’t see a sense of panic among Republican politicians and consultants. Concern, yes, but not panic. I don’t see many pundits, of the Right or Left, predicting a Democratic sweep of contested seats and thus a Democratic takeover of the House.
The explanation is, in a word, redistricting. The number of truly competitive seats in the House is down to little more than two dozen. Even North Carolina’s legislative maps, inadequate as they are to foster political competition across the state, offer more potential for either party to control either chamber than the congressional maps do. With just a handful of House seats in play, say Republicans and their apologists, there’s no reason to expect a Democratic breakout. They’d have to virtually run the table.
This is, to put it bluntly, pathetic. Politicians who reassure their supporters about upcoming elections by pointing to gerrymandered districts as a check on voter disapproval need to look themselves in the mirror and ask some difficult questions. For one, are they truly interested in serving the public good or in the goods of public service? And if the voters manifestly desire political change, but cannot achieve it because of the rules of the game, for whom is the game being played?
It’s easy enough to criticize partisan insiders for manipulating the electoral system to ensure their continued incumbency when you are in the minority. Obviously, you believe that your party’s principles and politics would be in the public interest, so redistricting reform seems doubly justified for the public good. But political activists ought to be in favor of fairness, openness, and competition in the redistricting process even when applying these principles might result in short-term losses.
Using anti-democratic rules to stifle an opposition party is counterproductive in the long run, assuming of course that your goal is to govern and not simply to win an election or two. Any fundamental changes in government policy – any changes worth pursuing in the first place, in other words – must enjoy support or at least acquiescence from skeptical swing voters. If they believe the political deck is stacked, they won’t see the majority party as enjoying a mandate, and thus won’t see major changes as legitimate.
In North Carolina, redistricting has yielded the absurdity of hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians living in, say, the Piedmont Triad having essentially no chance of electing a Democrat even if they passionately desire political change. Ditto for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians in the Triangle area who, thanks to the political cartographers in the General Assembly, will be represented by Democrats in Congress whether they like it or not. Of 13 House districts in North Carolina, only one can be viewed as consistently competitive (the 8th), with one or two more in play in exceptional circumstances. Whatever this is, it is not truly representative government.
I favor a commission system to draw legislative and congressional districts, but I am under no illusions that it would be a perfect system. There are still difficult questions of principle, on issues such as compactness and strained modern interpretations of the Voting Rights Act, that will have to be resolved by lawmakers and judges. Whatever it takes, however, the time is now to begin reforming the rules of the electoral game.
And if, as a result, another team gets to win the game for a while – be it Democrats in Washington or Republicans in Raleigh – that’s how representative government is supposed to work. Just deal.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.