Ship of Fools: How representative is the 2012 House of Representatives?

Thread: How representative is the 2012 House of Representatives? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=024148

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

This is a spin-off from the 2012 Presidential Election thread.

quote:
Originally posted by Basilica on that thread:

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
So far as mandate questions are concerned, the composition of the House of Representatives following the 2012 elections raises much bigger questions this time than the result of the Presidential election.

Yes: the fact that Democratic candidates won half a million votes more than their Republican counterparts suggests that not all is as it seems when it comes to the Republican congressional majority. Especially when you consider the absurd gerrymandering that goes on, e.g. North Carolina's 12th district.

To UK eyes, it really looks quite odd that a 4% swing in the popular vote should lead to a gain of just two seats by the Democrats.

Are the current Districts fair overall to the electorate? Is reform necessary to make the House more representative? How might this be done, given current processes of change?

[ 12. November 2012, 08:49: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

The congressional districts of this country have become so effectively gerrymandered that the House is unlikely to change hands for a decade at least.

On top of that, representatives are have come to represent a vast population. After the ratification of the Constitution a Representative had around 33,000 people in his district. Now it's past 700,000. Yet making it as representative as it did back in the day would put over 10,000 people in congress.

So the US is working on a really bad representation issue.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

When, but a mere quarter-century or so ago, I was involved with backroom work on the 1983 Canadian re-apportionment (an exercise totally wasted as it was not proclaimed ever), I discovered how US districts were laid out and would summon colleagues over to enjoy the wondrous snaking reptiles of congressional districts. Looking through current one, I quite like Arizona 2d and Illinois 17th (aka "rabbit on a snakeboard"), although Pennsylvania 12th does deserve a special mention.

Running into congressional staff, they were astonished that MPs or parties did not design their own districts and were concerned that this made if very difficult to ensure re-election. I suppose they were right. The MP for whom I worked went down in flames in 1984.

While Canadians cannot really complain about democratic deficit south of the border as long as we have our appointed Senate (which rivals the US electoral college as the world's most improbable and eternal body), I think that our independent commission approach seems to spare us much (if not all) gerrymandering and, as it makes perpetual re-election more difficult, our representatives are kept a bit more lively.

[Fixed links, DT, Purgatory Host]

[ 12. November 2012, 19:46: Message edited by: Doublethink ]

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
To UK eyes, it really looks quite odd that a 4% swing in the popular vote should lead to a gain of just two seats by the Democrats.

But we get that kind of weird result in the UK as well - example being Labour who had large majorities at the three elections before 2010 despite never getting a majority of the vote.

Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :

The imbalance caused by carefully crafted districts can be seen in the gains for Democrats in the Senate - where the whole state votes - versus the House where districts have been engineered to keep Democrats out of office.

The Democrats have been just as guilty of that in their time.

It seem our leadership is not as concerned with representative government as they are with winning. It is likely to stay that way as the concept of truly representative government, and the importance of representative government, cannot be explained in sound bites.

The thing is that representative government can only really come about with a partnership of federal and state governments. The federal government does not select district lines or composition.* It is state legislatures where districts are selected. People do not seem to take much care in voting for state level office as federal level office as it doesn't seem to matter as much.

I say that, but we seem to have as high a percentage of idiots and dweebs in Congress as the Tennessee Legislature.

_________
*Yes, I know about the voting rights act, but the feds only review, they don't pick.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

In case anyone was wondering, congressional representation is redistributed every 10 years based on the constitutionally mandated census. Seats are moved from states with population declines or very slow growth to states with a growing population. I am not sure this process in particular has favored either party to a very strong degree.

After these seats are distributed, it comes time for states to redraw their district boundaries, which is always great fun for the party that happens to be in power in the state legislature.

Our next census is 2020, which is probably when, barring a not-totally-unlikely major schism in the Republican party, is probably when the Democrats will finally take control of the House.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
On top of that, representatives are have come to represent a vast population. After the ratification of the Constitution a Representative had around 33,000 people in his district. Now it's past 700,000. Yet making it as representative as it did back in the day would put over 10,000 people in congress.

Not quite accurate. The U.S. Constitution specifies that you can't have any more Representatives than a 1:30,000 ratio, but if we assume the figures from the 1790 census are roughly accurate for the country as it existed in 1789 when the first Congress convened, the 65 members of the House of Representatives reprepsented about 3.64 million people, meaning each Representative represented almost 56,000 people. Of course, if you count slaves as only 3/5ths of a person then each Representative is representing just under 52,000 (whole and fractional) people. And if you drop women and slaves entirely from the number it comes out to about 22,700 free males per Representative.

It could still be argued that the House of Representatives is currently too small for a nation with the population of the U.S. and, more critically, the current population disparity between states in the U.S. Bumping the size of the House up to about 827 members would have several salutary effects. That's large enough to give greater diversity of opinion but still managable enough as a legislative body. Every state would have at least two representatives (as the population is currently distributed) and it would correct for some of the imbalances in the electoral college as currently constituted. And it would make gerrymandering more difficult (though not impossible).

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
When, but a mere quarter-century or so ago, I was involved with backroom work on the 1983 Canadian re-apportionment (an exercise totally wasted as it was not proclaimed ever), I discovered how US districts were laid out and would summon colleagues over to enjoy the wondrous snaking reptiles of congressional districts.

Interestingly enough, some of the least gerrymandered districts are in the Deep South. This is largely because those states were forbidden under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 from changing their electoral process (including, but not limited to, redrawing Congressional district boundaries) without approval by the Justice Department. While this has some drawbacks (the Justice Department is not entirely apolitical, some administrations have only a lackluster interest in enforcing the Voting Rights Act, etc.) it seems to have produced better outcomes than are seen in states where the Voting Rights Act is not in full effect. A simple and obvious fix, and one not requiring anything so complicated as amending the U.S. Constitution, is to extend the Voting Rights act to all the states.

[ 12. November 2012, 14:16: Message edited by: Crœsos ]

Posted by Lawrence (# 4913) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Interestingly enough, some of the least gerrymandered districts are in the Deep South. This is largely because those states were forbidden under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 from changing their electoral process (including, but not limited to, redrawing Congressional district boundaries) without approval by the Justice Department. While this has some drawbacks (the Justice Department is not entirely apolitical, some administrations have only a lackluster interest in enforcing the Voting Rights Act, etc.) it seems to have produced better outcomes than are seen in states where the Voting Rights Act is not in full effect. A simple and obvious fix, and one not requiring anything so complicated as amending the U.S. Constitution, is to extend the Voting Rights act to all the states.

And the Supreme Court is going to consider a challenge to the Voting Rights act this term. Many think the conservative part of the court is prepared to rule some of it invalid due to "changes in the South".

Posted by Choirboy (# 9659) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
The imbalance caused by carefully crafted districts can be seen in the gains for Democrats in the Senate - where the whole state votes - versus the House where districts have been engineered to keep Democrats out of office.

I am sympathetic to your conclusion, but you also have to look at that by State, since not all Senate seats were up for election. That is, in States with Senate seats up for election, how did the elections for Representatives go? There is also the problem of incumbancy providing an advantage. So this takes a bit more demonstration, even though my gut tells me to look in that direction.

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Choirboy:
I am sympathetic to your conclusion, but you also have to look at that by State, since not all Senate seats were up for election. That is, in States with Senate seats up for election, how did the elections for Representatives go? There is also the problem of incumbancy providing an advantage. So this takes a bit more demonstration, even though my gut tells me to look in that direction.

Not really. If gerrymandering didn't make a difference, no-one would indulge in such a bizarre practice. It's worth reminding ourselves that this is not just a Republican practice -- Dems love to stack the deck every bit as much as Republicans do. But, in the hands of either party, it is an abomination. Or so ISTM.

--Tom Clune

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
To UK eyes, it really looks quite odd that a 4% swing in the popular vote should lead to a gain of just two seats by the Democrats.
But we get that kind of weird result in the UK as well - example being Labour who had large majorities at the three elections before 2010 despite never getting a majority of the vote.

Rant Alert

We can't criticise anyone on these grounds. In the 2005 election, Labour got a comfortable overall majority in the Commons with only 35% of the vote . In 2010, the Conservatives got 1% more of the total vote, did not get an overall majority, and a lot of them still think 'we was robbed'.

They weren't, but any political system that could give any of the parties a comfortable working majority in 2005 fails the basic test of what is representative.

Back in 1983, Labour on 27% of the vote got 209 seat, and the then ancestors of the Lib Dems got 25% of the vote and 23 seats. The Conservatives (Mrs Thatcher) got a huge majority but only actually had 42% of the vote.

Posted by art dunce (# 9258) on :

Even Conservative Republicans admit they only held onto the House because of gerrymandering and the 2010 redistricting.

Posted by Choirboy (# 9659) on :

quote:
Originally posted by tclune:

quote:
Originally posted by Choirboy:
I am sympathetic to your conclusion, but you also have to look at that by State, since not all Senate seats were up for election. That is, in States with Senate seats up for election, how did the elections for Representatives go? There is also the problem of incumbancy providing an advantage. So this takes a bit more demonstration, even though my gut tells me to look in that direction.
Not really. If gerrymandering didn't make a difference, no-one would indulge in such a bizarre practice. It's worth reminding ourselves that this is not just a Republican practice -- Dems love to stack the deck every bit as much as Republicans do. But, in the hands of either party, it is an abomination. Or so ISTM.

--Tom Clune

The question is not merely whether it made a difference, but whether gerrymandering was enough to secure a Republican majority in the house. So an estimate of effect size still requires work.

And don't overestimate the intelligence of experts. Just because they do something doesn't mean it actually helps - just that they believe it helps. There are numerous examples in medicine that were later proven incorrect by clinical trials in spite of anecdotal evidence and expert opinion in the other direction.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

I'm not arguing that consitutency boundaries are perfect in the UK or that our general first past the post system doesn't produce anomalies when compared with the popular vote patterns. I'm in favour of electoral reform in the UK anyway.

[For US eyes, here is how we regulate electoral boundaries in the UK

Boundary Commissions

Swing used to be quite an effective predictor in the UK when our political system was more "two major party" than it is now. See this article on its history and effectiveness You'll note it became less effective as a result of the moves towards a more multi-party system; also as a result of more regional variations in swing during the Thatcher era.]

The US is still much more a two party system than the UK now is. I wouldn't expect the swing pattern to be consistent across regions in the US. But a majority on the popular vote and a substantial minority in the House still looks odd, doesn't it?

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

I just finished my work as a budding party activist (somebody used that term to describe me [Eek!]

) with a submission, both oral and written, to the present Redistribution Commission for Ontario. I had a pleasant conversation on Friday morning with the MP for the next-door riding, who is a Tory. I am an NDP member, but it didn't make a difference. We agreed completely, as did every other presenter, that the Commission's proposals for this part of Ontario were unsuitable and should be redrawn along a north-south axis rather than an east-west axis.

The Tory member also said that it didn't matter much how the ridings were drawn, it didn't make a difference in terms of polls. But nobody wanted a riding that stretched three hours from here to Ottawa.

I told the Tory member what the Commission had said the previous day and what the local reaction was. The Tory member then told the Commission his opinion, which I and the NDP Riding Association agreed with completely. I hope it made a difference.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

@SPK-- from my experience of the exercise years ago, it should. Commissions make smile-faces when seeing a position supported by more than one political party. As a former commission member said to me, We know that there are problems with our proposals; we will be polite about dissent, but we really want solutions.

In the 1982/3 case, we gave them a solution by drawing a map where the lines we wanted would work with minor changes affecting a group of 8 ridings, and which we sustained with historical and demographic arguments (belated thanks to the RCC and ACoC diocesan archives and their parish maps). As any shift affected several districs, they would only be receptive to a shift which either changed nobody else (almost impossible) or a proposal for a series of shifts which held together and (here's the trick) everybody liked. In our case, the only local sitting Conservative was happy with it, and the NDP liked it. Two Tory riding associations did not, but they only noticed the Commission's work six months after the deadline. (The metro Toronto Liberal MPs group did not like it either, but they were too busy licking their chops about my then-boss' prospective demise to do anything about it)

[ 12. November 2012, 19:41: Message edited by: Augustine the Aleut ]

Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on :

I have a theory that many voters are rather fond of gridlock. They're afraid of what would happen if either party could get what it wants. It's safer to have a government that won't change or act decisively unless there is an emergency.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

Augustine:

Yes, the Commission really wanted solutions. I provided a nice document full of them, with the math to go with it. Even better, I did tease out that Durham Region is over quotient, as is Ottawa, so Central-East Ontario has to take the surplus under the present map and it is grossly distending our riding boundaries.

The NDP Riding Association has a crackerjack political operator, used to be a staffer in Bob Rae's office when he was Premier. He is a whiz at working the numbers.

He presented in another town today. If anything, I confirmed what he suspected and he has an obvious solution: Belleville - Quinte West as its own riding, then the rural areas can be drawn more or less on their county lines. Everybody's happy.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
In case anyone was wondering, congressional representation is redistributed every 10 years based on the constitutionally mandated census. Seats are moved from states with population declines or very slow growth to states with a growing population. I am not sure this process in particular has favored either party to a very strong degree.

After these seats are distributed, it comes time for states to redraw their district boundaries, which is always great fun for the party that happens to be in power in the state legislature.

Our next census is 2020, which is probably when, barring a not-totally-unlikely major schism in the Republican party, is probably when the Democrats will finally take control of the House.

The Australian system works much the same way in terms of reassigning the number of seats between States.

Where it parts company is that the States don't then get to decide the boundaries of the electorates. I'm pretty sure it's all done by the Australian Electoral Commission. These days we have a rule that the voting population has to be within 10% of the mean (I know this partly because the ACT has the 2 largest electorates in the country, as we're just inside the margin and don't have anough population to warrant a 3rd seat.), and I'm fairly sure there are criteria about how to draw the boundary based on not artificially splitting communities or lumping ones together that don't have social links.

Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :

Unfortunately, there are several states where creating voter problems for "the other side" goes on beyond just the legislature.

Here in Nashville it came as no surprise recently when the new Republican Election Commissioner somehow managed to not have any early voting in west Nashville where voters are predominately Democrat.

It also came as no surprise when he had training for poll workers to check citizenship for - you know those people because their voter ID's might be forged. That earned us Department of Justice observers. I was so proud.

Why his ass isn't already fired is beyond me.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

The law in Canada is that a riding has to be within 25% of quotient, else you have get a deviation approved by the House of Commons, and the Commissions vastly prefer 10%.

Not all provinces have equal quotients due to the Senatorial and Grandfather clauses. The Canadian Senate, unlike the Oz Senate does a very poor job of representing regional interests.

I will go on record as saying that Canada could and should adopt many ideas from Oz, which would improve our constitution and government. Senatorial elections according to the Oz method, the Referral Power, Joint Sittings to resolve deadlock. The Charlottetown Accord, if adopted, would have introduced Joint Sessions of Parliament to resolve deadlocks into Canada.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

The Australian Senate is a heck of a lot less representative of regional interests than it used to be. It does have its occasional moments. But it's not that common to see Senators uniting across regional lines rather than party lines.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0