Gerrymandering

I’m poking around some of the stats on various initiatives around the country.   A few interesting ones to me:

• California Measure 8 (same-sex marriage ban) has been called to pass.  (Note to same-gender couples, Connecticut would now love to host your weddings.)
   
• California Measure 11 (redistricting reform) has also been called to pass.  That could make 2012 a very interesting election on the west coast.
   
• Florida Measure 2 (same-sex marriage ban) also is expected to pass, as is Arizona Measure 102 (same topic), and Arkansas Amendment 2 (prohibit same-sex couples from adopting).  While we are going to have a non-white President, it looks like bigotry still reigns.
   
• Looks like Arkansas will be getting a state lottery, with Amendment 3 passing.
   
• Constitutional Convention calls failed in Connecticut and Illinois
   
• Maryland gets early voting with passage of Measure 1.  (Wish we had it in Connecticut; it would have been easier to get if our ConCon question had passed.)
   
• Massachusetts voted to keep its income tax, decriminalize marijuana, and to free the greyhounds with its three ballot measures.
   
• Michigan joins the list of states which would permit medical marijuana use but for the federal ban, with Measure 1 being approved.
   
• Looks like Oregon’s redistricting measure (55) passes, but Oregonians apparently don’t share my dislike of closed primaries and have voted against Measure 65.
   
• South Dakota is voting down its proposed ban on abortions (Measure 11).

I’ve written a few posts about why I voted YES for the Connecticut Constitutional Convention question on my absentee ballot.   As usual, someone else has put together a far better-written argument than I’ve been able to craft.

Seen at Connecticut Commentary:

The argument usually brought against ballot initiative and referenda is that both are un-republican. In a republican form of government, it is said, the people elect representatives who then vote “their conscience” on bills presented before them. If those bills are unpopular, the people can then elect to change circumstances by voting out the unpopular representatives and by this means effect the changes they wish. This vision of things does not anticipate a compromised conscience or a bought legislature.

And this means of change is possible only in a system of government in which there is a healthy roll over in representatives. The dominance of a single party in the legislature, gerrymandered districts, the overwhelming advantages enjoyed by incumbents, a compromised media adverse to change, the evident capture of certain incumbents by permanent factions in the state; these are all signs that the democracy itself has been overcome by unrepresentative ruling forces that are perfectly willing to act athwart the will of the people, who are unorganized and rendered powerless.

Under these circumstances, initiative and referenda are aides to a more representative, less sclerotic government.

The question that lovers of liberty should be asking when they go to the polls to vote on the convening of a constitutional convention is this: What would Jefferson do?

(Note: parts of this post are taken from a post I made last summer.)

Last week, I mentioned that in a winner-take-all, one-representative-per-district system, ending gerrymandering and moving towards a politics-blind method of drawing district boundaries would ease my concerns of two-party duopolistic power, with politicians beholden to themselves more than the citizenry they are supposed to serve.

There are two problems with the scheme I described however: 

First, to the extent that geographic constituencies need to be defined in order to improve the odds of particular groups of interest being represented, a politics-blind redistricting plan would likely erode those groups’ potential influence.

Second, it does nothing to my theory that two-party rule is an artifact of how we determine political representation.

In this day and age, I have to wonder whether it still makes sense for legislative representation to be based solely on geography.   As more of us forge connections that aren’t necessarily constrained by geography, you have to wonder if geography is the best basis to allocate political power.

For example, even though I live in northern Connecticut, I’m at least as interested in the affairs of folks in Boston and New York (the two cities I telecommute to), in southern Alabama (due to family ties), or in assorted other jurisdictions around the country (due to the nature of my work).

However, many of my political concerns — potential government involvement in catastrophe insurance on the coasts, bolstering the changing economy in Alabama’s Wiregrass region, or traffic/transportation related issues around Boston and New York — probably won’t rank terribly high on a list of priorities for my Connecticut-based Congressman.

So why must we be limited to the idea that we can vote for one candidate who happens to reside in the same general geographic region as we do?

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that we live in a jurisdiction represented by 10 legislators, 10,000 voters, two major parties (”D” and “R”) and two minor parties (”G” and “L”).  Today, that legislature would likely take its members from 10 districts (A-J), where election results could look something like this:

Candidates R-A, R-B, D-C, R-D, R-E, D-F, D-G, R-H, D-I, and D-J are elected, giving us a legislature made up of 5 R’s and 5 D’s.   In aggregate, the legislature would look sort-of-kind-of like the political leanings of the entire jurisdiction (if the L’s are assumed to be like R’s, and the G’s are assumed to be like D’s), but it does have the unfortunate side effect of many voters potentially being unserved by the representative from their district.   Minor parties are completely unrepresented in the legislature.

If I could wave a magic wand, I’d be very tempted to revise the world so that in this example jurisdiction, we’d maintain 10 legislators, but have only half as many geography-based districts.  Voters could still vote for only one candidate, but candidates may run in multiple districts.   The ten legislators would be made up of the top vote-getter in every jurisdiction, plus the top five vote-getters who weren’t otherwise elected.  (And, in the event of retirement/etc., the replacement would come from the next-highest vote-getter, etc.)

So, my example jurisdiction described above, might end up looking like this: