The Fresh Air episode from June 15 had its main segment about the new book Ratf*cked, detailing how the Republican Party managed strategically target state districts in 2010 and then use technology to ruthlessly gerrymander districts after the new census to give an unassailable majority despite losing the overall popular vote. This is a technically legal, but highly suspect process, that I think epitomizes how broken the US electorate is. However, I do not feel sorry for the Democratic party because I suspect that they would–and have–done basically the same thing. The important part, as I just noted, is that the system is broken.
The US electorate is deeply divided and there is a lot of dissatisfaction with both parties. There are a slew of reasons for this, including money in politics, and manipulating the voting regulations. Yet, the only place where this much imbalance between overall votes and representation is in state districts and, by extension, in the House of Representatives: i.e. the places where gerrymandering is made possible in conjunction with the tradition of single-member districts. To make matters worse, both national parties encourage this current setup, in part because it discourages third-party candidates.
There are a lot of things I would change about American politics, including truncating the campaign season, but there is one that I think would fundamentally address gerrymandering. For positions that are elected every two years, change from single member districts to a form of proportional representation, with seats allotted based on the percent of the vote won. I am sure that there are unintended consequences to this proposal (possibly making it even more difficult to pass laws), and leaving alone the Senate Presidential elections while changing the other would raise some hackles, but in those other election there isn’t a deep gap between popular vote and representation. Further, this proposal would bolster third-parties, perhaps empowering voters whose concerns are not adequately represented by the major parties. I don’t believe this would, in the short term, change the makeup of the Senate or lead to a third party president and the result would be coalitions in the HoR not unlike how the Republican party absorbed the Tea Party except, perhaps, that there would not be the same formal annexation.
I realize that there would be wrinkles that would need to be ironed out in terms of the transition and I know why this won’t happen, but why *shouldn’t* it happen?
Noodlings 