Even in the face of the outrages over the corrupting clout of the superrich investment in partisan politics, a fresh insight can prove haunting. And let’s not dignify that as “donations.” That’s my reaction to a passage from David Cole’s review of Burt Neuborne’s new book, Madison’s Music: On Reading the First Amendment.
It’s not just at the highest levels, either. When the infusion of cash hits smaller races, the whole system gets bought.
As Cole’s “Free Speech, Big Money, Bad Elections” (New York Review of Books, November 5) points out:
… increasingly sophisticated gerrymandering has ensured that many elected offices are sinecures for one of the two major parties. In the House of Representatives, only about forty seats, or less than 10 percent of the chamber, are filled in genuinely contested general elections. The results can be perverse.
I happen to live in one of those seats that’s become contested, after decades of being a Republican stronghold. Cole, however, presses his case that many of the general elections are rigged in favor of one side or another:
In North Carolina in 2012, the popular vote for House members was 51 percent Democratic and 49 percent Republican. Yet North Carolina’s delegation to the House consisted of nine Republicans and four Democrats. North Carolina’s state legislature had packed Democratic voters into four districts, ensuring that Republicans would win the other nine. …
So who’s really representing the people? And who are the winning officeholders really representing? It’s not just North Carolina, either, as Cole notes:
Democrats received more than half of the House votes in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in 2012, and did not get a majority of House seats in any of them. In what sense can such outcomes be called democratic?
Considering the low turnout rates in general elections – a consequence, as Cole details, of a sense of futility for many would-be voters or outright obstacles put in their path – an observer can wonder how much of the public the winners really do represent. That is, if 49 percent of a 40 percent turnout can win 247 seats in the House (this is a theoretical model, mind you), one could argue that the majority of the House of Representatives represents just 20 percent of the public. And if the Freedom Caucus, about 20 percent of that party, insists on dictating its ideology on the rest of the nation, that could be a mere 4 percent trying to run the country. In some places, that would be considered a coup.
Yes, I know the numbers wouldn’t all fall that neatly in one direction or the other. But it’s scary, all the same.
Jnana's Red Barn 
I sometimes think that states should just be divided into districts where the districts are a certain number of counties. Suppose a state had 12 counties. You could have 4 districts of 3 counties. Each group of 3 would be geographically connected (northwest 3, southwest 3 etc.). It’s just a rough idea that will need some refinement.
It would work if the populations were roughly equal. The geographic connection in one I like, assuming there’s some commonality in their placement. That’s not what I see in New Hampshire’s two districts, though.
I’ve been thinking about that population problem, too. Most states have densely populated sections and other sections that are less so. I haven’t got an answer for that right now. But districts that wind their way through particular demographics to achieve a certain kind of election outcome have got to be done away with. Another problem is districts that are mostly urban or mostly rural and are pitted against one another. though this may be more of an issue in state government.