The End of Purple States and Competitive Districts
The news of the Virginia General Assembly’s creation of a 10-1 congressional district map should come as no surprise. The U.S. Supreme Court deferred to California and Texas as they chose to redraw their congressional districts to strengthen the presence of Democrats and Republicans, respectively, in Congress. The new Virginia map changes the Commonwealth from a purple state that has been a good bellwether of national political trends into a dark blue misrepresentation of our partisanship.
Sadly, this is nothing new.
The history of redistricting in the U.S. is sordid. Back in 1812, Gov. Elbridge Gerry was thrown under the bus for approving the new legislative district map drawn by the Democratic-Republican legislature. One district in northeastern Massachusetts was so contorted that a cartoonist suggested it looked like the mythical salamander. Hence, the term “gerrymander” was coined to describe bizarre districts drawn to favor one party or another.
The practice has continued throughout U.S. history for better and for worse. In some cases, states would agree to split influence so that the Democrats would control one house and the Republicans the other – even though the exact same voters were doing the voting. In others, racist legislatures did whatever they could to split up minority populations to prevent minority voters from winning seats. In an infamous case, the legislature of Alabama turned the border of Tuskegee from a square to what the Supreme Court described as an “uncouth” 28-sided figure to cut the black population out of city elections. In response, under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act, legislators were required to draw equally contorted districts to do the opposite and essentially ensure the election of minority candidates.
The latter practice was clearly benign: It was an attempt to overcome a history of racist disenfranchisement. Yet, it only worsened an already terrible situation in legislative and congressional elections. Turnout remained low, incumbents dominated general elections, and competitiveness disappeared. As a result, a regular report published by Fairvote.org declares the state of U.S. elections “Dubious Democracy.”
At this point, then, there will be no real reason for voters to waste their time voting in Virginia congressional elections. For all intents and purposes, the outcome will be foregone conclusions. Even if an incumbent retires, the districts will so favor the incumbent’s party that the only action – if there is any – will be in the party primaries. But, if you are in the new 9th that will be held by Ben Cline, why would the Democrats spend money trying to beat the GOP nominee who will succeed him? The same thing goes for the districts that will be held by Democrats.
So, the General Assembly has rendered congressional elections meaningless. This, by the way, is a practice that many scholars attribute to countries that they say are leaning toward authoritarianism. Granted, the authoritarianism scholarship is replete with hyperbole. But the comparison is not inapt. If elections do little to remove incumbents or change governments, elected officials can’t be held accountable. In this respect, Texas, California, and now, Virginia are contributing to the demise of American democracy. What is worse, they are using the presidency of Donald Trump to justify doing so. In the end, it is the voters who lose. Incumbent officials will be returned to office through elections that are, for the most part, performative contests.
The Supreme Court has wisely stayed out of the current mess. There remain no clear or easily applicable standards for how to draw election districts in a manner that ensures meaningful competition on Election Day. Any “formula” that scholars or practitioners propose can generate unintended consequences. For example, if every district were split evenly among partisans so that elections offered a close contest, it would be possible for one party to win all the districts with, say, a 51% majority. That would be disastrous.
There are alternatives to this. At least at the state legislative level, states could create multimember districts. This would give voters meaningful choices on Election Day. In my class on redistricting, students would divide the Commonwealth into 20 districts with two senators and five delegates each. This minimized the number of counties, towns, and cities that had to be divided and actually created enhanced opportunities for minority voters to coalesce behind candidates. The districts did not look like something used in a Rorschach test either. If we did this, candidates and parties would have to organize and campaign actively for votes because the districts would not be as lopsided as those drawn in the 10-1 congressional map. Whereas that map is good for candidates and bad for voters, a multimember scheme is great for voters and would make candidates much more responsive. That is the stuff of a robust democracy.
Alas, the General Assembly – along with California and Texas – has forsaken this. Purple, competitive democracy is now disappearing from the Commonwealth.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
