James Joyner links to a a story about the competitiveness of House races, and states:
CQ titles the piece “Nearly Three Dozen GOP House Winners Dodged Obama’s Coattails,” as if to signal that this is an extraordinary number of seats potentially up for grabs. Another way of looking at it, though, is that 401 of the 435, or 92.2 percent, of the districts voted along party lines. That’s an extraordinary number of seats where the party primary is synonymous with the election.
Making it worse, some of the mismatches are one-off flukes, such as the Louisiana 2nd where William “The Freezer” Jefferson was narrowly defeated in a multi-candidate race run under arcane rules and which are likely to return to form in the next election.
Put more bluntly, this is why there are so many seemingly crazy people in Congress.
JenJen
We truly need mo’ better younger Democrats to challenge Republicans in these seats. The iron’s never gonna get hotter than it will be in 2010.
With Rahm otherwise occupied, we actually might have a chance at getting some truly progressive candidates on the ballot in the most vulnerable districts. ;-)
Incertus
So what’s the Senate’s excuse? Actually, I’m kidding–sure, the Senate has Coburn and Inhofe and Brownback, etc., but on the whole its slightly more sane than the House.
Comrade Stuck
Match that with the hazards of The Southern Strategy and you have the Andromeda Strain of wingnut. Once contagious crazy, now evolved to crazier but benign.
cleek
my theory: Senate races are bigger and they get more attention, so the truly crazy people just can’t get statewide majorities in most states.the stakes are higher and there are enough sane people to keep the loons out. but in most states the House districts are small and homogeneous enough that anyone with cash and decent party backing has a good chance of grabbing an open seat.
JenJen
Also, not all of these seats are in Wingnuttiest WingnutLand. Jean Schmidt (OH-02-patriotic scrunchie) barely won reelection, having been tampered with by a strong third-party candidate. Steve Chabot (OH-01-combover) actually lost to his young Democratic challenger. Both of these seats are in southwestern Ohio, and border John Boehner’s district.
And Michelle Bachmann (MN-06-Noted McCarthyite-you be da man) almost blew it, too. These seats are getable.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Wanna try something? Play the Redistricting Game:
http://www.redistrictinggame.org/
Like it or not, gerrymandering is as old as the republic. Both sides are to blame for Congressional districts being the way they are in 2008. States with independent redistricting boards (I believe Iowa is one), have, by far, more competitive districts.
This works well also for primarying crappy Dems of which we have a’plenty.
jibeaux
I hate to say it, but "truly progressive" candidates are not what I’d recommend for most of those 34, except for maybe Jefferson’s. If the seat stayed Republican in 2008, it’s unlikely a real liberal is going to make it flip two years later. The strategy that has been shown to be successful is the Heath Shuler model.
Indylib
OT David Addington is one of those Rs who should consider "going Galt" permanently.
Maybe this will help him decide it’s a good idea.
NonyNony
Oh yeah. Gerrymandering is probably the single worst thing that our Founders didn’t foresee that has caused our political process to be totally screwed up.
I wish I knew a way to fix it that didn’t depend on having some kind of complicated ballot structure (because holy god, our ballots right now in Ohio at least are always long and already discourage people from voting) or faux bi-partisan committees creating the districts (because all that does is ensure that the majority party pays for its lock on a majority of the districts by giving the minority party a lock on a smaller number of districts and everyone calls it a "good plan").
anticontrarian
and here i thought it was because we had so many crazy people in america.
amorphous
>seemingly crazy people
>seemingly crazy
>seemingly
Far, far, far too much credit, Mr. Cole. Far too much.
gbear
@anticontrarian:
Some districts have their fundies in a bundle. That’s how Bachman won her seat.
Joel
Part of the issue is that people confined to geographical areas tend to share political ideologies. To avoid the issue of crazies would require some serious gerrymandering and odd-looking districts.
Indylib
Gerrymandering is why the Republican Congresscritters from California are total wingnut wackos.
Yet it also causes some odd things.
We lived in military housing in San Diego, the line between Congressional Districts 50 and 53 was drawn around the perimeter of our housing area, including it in the area where most of the Navy bases are, and most of the other military housing. District 50 is Duke Cunningham’s old district and is now represented by a toadying little wingnut named Brian Bilbray. District 53 is represented by pretty liberal Congresswoman Susan Davis. Most of the Navy families in the area were represented by the Democrat.
schrodinger's cat
Question for history buffs have congressional elections always
been so uncompetitive or is this a more recent phenomena?
AnotherBruce
and here i thought it was because we had so many crazy people in america.
We do, but teh crazy seems to be proportionally higher the closer you get to the magical "village" where socialism and nationalism are evil, capitalists are god like superheroes and free market fairies will
governrule a diverse population of 300 million people.Funkhauser
Any updates on Prop. 11 in California, supposedly designed to reduce extreme forms of gerrymandering?
John S.
What, you mean the fact that my Florida congressional district looks more convoluted than my lower intestine isn’t how the Founders envisioned things?
Napoleon
@schrodinger’s cat:
It has definitely gotten worst recently, and there are differing views on why. One camp (which in my unscientific seat of the pants view appears to be the bigger one, at least as to the pundits) feel it is because of more partisan/more scientific redistricting. Another camp (which I think are correct) think that there is a larger phenomena occurring of the population self sorting itself out into community of like minded people, in effect almost self gerrymandering.
Punchy
gbear, TOS….you guys have to essplane just how Michelle Freakin’ Bachmann got elected, then re-elected. Are there really conservative parts of Minny, or are peeps just afraid of dumping the saucy broad?
She’s full-on insane stupid crazy. Yet, apparently, Darwin has no influence on Congressional elections.
demkat620
@Incertus: Because you can’t redistrict a state. Becuase you have to win the whole state. Take a look at PA. Spector, Heinz moderate republicans. Once l’il Ricky showed his true colors he got tossed.
Pat Toomey can win the GOP vote in PA but he can’t win Statewide.
Skepticat
Gerrymandering is probably the single worst thing that our Founders didn’t foresee that has caused our political process to be totally screwed up.
Except it was one of our founders who started it: Eldridge Gerry, one of those who signed the Declaration of Independence, rearranged voting districts for help in his reelection campaign for governor of Massachusetts in 1811.
Andrew
Here’s a thought: "Districts" aren’t geographic features, but are instead determined by your last name at birth. Or some other pseudo-random determination that divides constituents geographically.
bnau
I saw an article in Atlantic several years ago concerning a change in the way reps are elected. This would be where a city or part of a city or state with widely varying ethnic or financial capacity populations would be grouped together and have their appropriate number of reps elected at large. I remember it being quite persuasive on several different levels. But constitutionally it probably would not cut the mustard without a const. amendment.
gbear
@Punchy:
Here’s a pdf map of Bachman’s district
The Twin Cities are solidly democratic, and the outlying areas of the state tend to lean democratic too, but there is a donut around the cities composed of white-flight conservatives living the I-got-mine suburban experience. MN districts are jerry-rigged so that two legislative districts are almost completely in that suburban donut. It almost guarantees a couple of whacko legistators from MN, but it also means that the district encompassing Minneapolis can elect the nation’s first Muslem legislator. My St. Paul district has Betty McCollum, who I think was just recognized as one of the most liberal of legislators. Go Betty!!
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Napolean and Schrodinger’s Cat
The recent implementation of high powered software combined with data mining of avg. income, voter ID, voting habits and other factors has magnified the age old practice of gerrymandering. This really got kicked into high gear in the past ten years. The Delay Texas redistricting was aided mightily by this. It really is a science now.
bootlegger
We need a federal constitution limiting districts to 4-sided parallelograms with exceptions for natural and state boundaries.
bootlegger
Another possibility is to elect representatives with the proportional system where people vote for a party and whatever percentage of votes the party gets is how many seats they fill.
gex
@Punchy: Bachmann comes from a very "conservative" section of Minnesota. It’s the kind of place where you see GlobalWarmingScam.com bumper stickers on Hummers.
gopher2b
@Indylib:
Yes, because Maxine Waters is completely sane and thoughtful.
Napoleon
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine:
But some say that it is not the primary cause, that there is a larger demographic sorting ("self sorting") that is now occurring on a national scale where people are now grouping together with like minded people. There is a lot of evidence for that proposition, and I happen to think it maybe correct. That is not to say that they have not come up with more powerful software for redistricting, but if people a geographically clinging together in groups of like minded people, it is a lot harder to gerrymander. So the question becomes has self sorting out run the refinement of redistricting technologies, or has the refinement of redistricting technologies out run self sorting.
I should mention that some think that the increase in safer districts has nothing to do with either, that it is simply that the advantageous of incumbency have increased, independent of districting.
Comrade Stuck
@bootlegger:
Here is before and after of Delay’s "link sausage districts"
CPT Oregon Guy, JA
Bootlegger, @ 28:
Hear, hear!
But it will never happen because that would mean the demise of both the Democratic and Republican parties.
Halteclere
@bootlegger:
I was thinking the same thing, with the added criteria of a minimum aspect ratio.
Brien Jackson
I love how it’s proof that Howard Dean is a genius…until they actually start voting.
The Moar You Know
@Indylib: I’ve lived in CA-50 for most of my life. Good lord, Bilbray sucks. Carpetbagging shitheel. What’s really infuriating about it is that the noveau riche in this district are not going to be electing a Dem anytime soon, either.
The last Dem to represent my district got kicked in 1990, back when it was CA-44. Jim Bates. He had his own set of issues.
We got Duke Cunningham as a replacement. Oh joy.
Most of CA-50 was farmland then. Man, has it changed.
Punchy
@gbear: Thats some FUCKED UP boundary lines. You ain’t kidding.
I’ve always pictured Minny akin to Washington — educated, high-income, but environmentally sensitive, and thus largely progressive. I guess all burbs have some form of Crazy Cracker Effect.
Indylib
@The Moar You Know:
We lived in PB and you have no idea how happy I was to live in Davis’s District. The wingnuts in San Diego are an extra peanutty version of wingnut.
gopher2b
Not that this is at all related to the this post but here is my solution for day to solve the housing crisis.
(1) Rewrite every mortgage in the country (per Roubini) to bring them in line with housing values. Either give everyone, good and bad borrowers alike, a reduction in principal or interest rate.
(2) In exchange, take the mortgage interest deduction out of the tax code. This could be the most important first step in getting rid of the hundreds of silly deductions.
Josh Hueco
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
It’s true that Iowa has a non-partisan board that finalizes its congressional district boundaries. But that hasn’t stopped the good people of western Iowa from sending platinum-grade douchenozzle Steve King to DC year after year after year.
The Moar You Know
@Indylib: No shit. It’s always been that way. As a kid, I used to go to the Del Mar fair and the John Birch people would always be there. I will put a San Diego wingnut up against any of them anywhere. Maybe all the sunshine distills the wingnut essence, I don’t know, but goddamn we have some crazy here, the likes of which you’d be hard-pressed to find even in the Deep South.
carsick
Those numbers don’t take into account places like Hamilton County, Ohio. Those folks went for a Democrat for the first time in 40 years.
GSD
The nation is being overrun by bisexual communist muslins and Messican drug gangs and you are worried about gerrymandering?
Moran!
-GSD
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Napoleon: Probably a combination of factors as you say. The software probably allows them to fine tune the district lines. The self selection angle makes a lot of sense to me. I live in the West U section of Houston. West U is probably the least ethnically and politically diverse place I have ever lived.
Culberson is our guy – what a windbag – it was a bummer knowing that the Obama wave would never carry his opponent to victory.
Indylib
@The Moar You Know:
I used the local wingnuts as an example of how crazy the Republicans were to start weaning my Republican career-Navy husband away from his knee jerk support of most things Republican. Duke Cunningham was a good place to start and Hunter and Issa helped right along nearly every time they opened their mouths.
Nancy Darling
OT, but check out this link (via Sullivan) and scroll down to page 7 of the PDF file to see how far into all our lives the tentacles of AIG reach. We are so f**ked!
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/03/aig-is-the-risk-systemic/
Cerberus
Well we could have a PR system of electing House officials, but then we’d lose the valuable individualism that defines so much of congressional politics. /snark
gbear
@gopher2b:
How do you feel about pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers?
tatere
It’s not gerrymandering. Not entirely.
It’s largely what Napoleon describes – self-segregation. Highways made our population mobile, and after decades of rattling the marbles around in the box, many people have chosen to live with (they think/hope/wish) similar people. Competitive districts are where the real-world clusters run into each other. Gerrymandering can reduce that sort of thing, but it’s not what accounts for most of the safe seats.
Some states are too big for this, but lots aren’t. Who lives in Vermont? In Alabama? You get more "mavericks" in the Senate because individual Senators have more power and visibility. For the House, you’re voting for the party you want to be in charge, mostly.
You can have competitive primaries still. The Democrats get all upset and teary-eyed about those, though. Republicans seem to survive them.
You can’t have competitive general elections without two sane parties, no matter who lives there. Or, I should say, two parties that share a common standard of sanity.
Prop 11 is a scam.
If you really wanted to change this, you could go to Superdistricts. Collapse 5 existing CDs into one, and everyone votes for their 5 favorites. Top 5 vote getters are seated. Any state could do this on their own, as far as I can figure it.
The Moar You Know
@Indylib: Issa is a national treasure. That man puts the "crazy" in crazy.
KCinDC
@bootlegger:
Republicans would love that. Democrats are more concentrated in cities, while Republicans are spread out in rural areas. Forcing all districts to be compact means you’ll tend to get a bunch of, say, 70% Democratic districts and then a whole bunch more 55% Republican districts, so even if the overall numbers of Democrats and Republicans is equal, you’ll get more Republicans in the House. The ideal way to draw districts is not obvious.
Jon Karak
There are two fixes for gerrymandering that can be put to work in tandem:
1) Use an independent commission (of retired judges, etc.) to oversee every decennial redistricting process
2) Eliminate spoiler voting by using Instant-runoff-voting
Both of these can be done at the state level, with no constitutional amendments needed.
Throw in a few other fixes, like: federal voting holiday, proportional representation, eliminating the electoral college, and we might have ourselves a modern democracy.
Down and Out of Sài Gòn
No. What you need is that districts be drawn up by independent commissions immune to political interference. That is the model in pretty much the rest of the western world – including Australia. Don’t let politicians muck the process around. Let the commissioners get on with it. In my experience, they’ll draw fair but uncomplicated boundaries.
Relying on "parallelograms" assumes that population density is uniform. It almost never is.
Joey
Jenjen – As a constituent of Jean Schmidt’s, I can say that she didn’t ‘barely’ win re-election. Unfortunately, she won by her largest margin yet. Not sure what results you’re looking at. At this point, the DCCC has spent millions trying to defeat her. It’s useless and it drives me nuts knowing the hundreds of thousands spent here are thrown down the toilet. Why not focus on keeping Driehaus in? If a D were to actually win Jean’s seat, surely the Republicans would pick it back up next election. It’s pointless!
bootlegger
@KCinDC: You shrink the size of the district in more heavily populated areas so the districts are all roughly the same size. A computer program could draw the optimal parallelograms accounting for population density so that all districts had the same number of people. This would negate, through randomness at the very least, any current or future party’s advantage.
KCinDC
Bootlegger, of course I’m assuming any algorithm would have to produce districts of equal population. The problem is that is you put compactness as your primary goal and draw the districts in the simplest way possible, then you’ll end up favoring Republicans because Democrats are more concentrated.
Democrats are more likely to live in areas that are overwhelmingly Democratic (we call them "cities") than Republicans are to live in areas that are overwhelmingly Republican. That makes it hard to draw lines if your goal is to produce a distribution of parties in the House that reflects their support in the electorate. Simple parallelograms aren’t going to cut it.
JenJen
@Joey: It’s not useless trying to defeat Schmidt, although you’re right about the ’08 results. Wulsin was even weaker this last year; remember the Paul Hackett special in the summer of ’05, though? She’s weak. She’ll always be weak. It’s just going to take someone like a Driehaus or another Hackett. Putting Wulsin up every two years has only made Jean stronger.
David Krikorian has announced he’s going to go after the Democratic nomination; I think it’s going to make the OH-02 worth watching again.
Shygetz
No such thing. It’s hard enough to find one independent person that is immune to political interference; how on earth do you propose to find an entire commission? And with what criteria do you propose to have them make their supposedly independent district assignment? You can either have geographical criteria (which a computer can do actually independently) or you can have political criteria (which is CERTAINLY not going to be immune to political interference; it’s based entirely on political interference).
It should be done by geography, and assigned by computer using the most recent census data.
ibid
34 is only the number of GOP reps in districts won by Obama. 49 Dems won in districts won by McCain, so 83 districts (19.1%) split the ticket.