Check out the website: https://lenspoliticalnotes.com  Look at the recent Political Notes and Len’s Letters on the website.  Len’s Letter #45 US Senate Candidates to donate to now.  Len’s Letter #46 US House Candidates to donate to now. Len’s Letter #47 Fifteen Post December Redistricting Candidates to Consider

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

February 26th                          Len’s Letter #48   An Alternative to Redistricting

No specific year for this.        Perhaps, a time in the future

The redistricting process has been dispiriting. States with Independent Redistricting Commissions find the commissions are not so independent.  State legislatures are explicit about gerrymandering in favor of the majority party.  Democrats are growing a little more ruthless while Republicans are so excessive state courts intervene.

The US Supreme Court has been explicit.  They will not intervene unless there is actual evidence that gerrymandering was for racial purposes.  Anything else, they say, is none of their business.  It appears that nothing is sufficiently excessive to get the US Supreme Court to intervene. They have told Alabama – go ahead, reduce the power of African American voters. We will pretend it is too late to fix redistricting.  It makes you think the Court would return to pre-civil rights era days if they could figure out how.  If there were a way to funnel Black people to the back of the bus or prevent them sitting at lunch counters without being explicitly racist, this Supreme Court might allow it.

“Dispiriting” is a polite word.  I hate the redistricting process.  Almost everything about it is scrapping for advantage. Legislators picking their constituents, picking the people who will vote for them.  What’s the right word?  Corrupt? Venal? Undemocratic? Unfair?

I wondered about an alternative and took a look at numbers. The House of Representatives has 222 Democrats and 213 Republicans (There are two vacancies,  One Republican resigned, another died.  I’m counting both as Republican seats).

In 2020, Joe Biden got 81,268,924 votes.  That was 51.3% of the total vote. Donald Trump got 74,216,154 votes which was 46.9% of the total vote.  If the Congressional delegation was distributed in proportion to the Presidential vote, Democrats would have 223 Members of Congress.  If Republicans had the remaining seats, they would have 212.  Compare that with the distribution we actually have.

We know our democracy does not work exactly democratically.  The electoral college as a way to elect a President makes no sense at all.   The US Senate has startling disproportionate representation.  Senators from our largest states represent far more people than Senators from small states.  It is not fantastic to contemplate more democratic ways to elect Members of the House of Representatives.  Although the House of Representatives is our most democratic body, we could have a better system than our “first past the post” system in gerrymandered districts.  We could have a slate system that would assure that members or political parties who are a minority in a state still get some representation.

Almost every member of the European Union elects its national parliament with some form of slate voting.  Voters vote for a party slate rather than individual candidates. Political parties, through primaries or otherwise, rank their candidates for parliament on their slate. If a party’s slate gets half the vote for a parliament with 100 seats, the top 50 candidates on the slate are elected.  If another party’s slate gets one quarter of the vote for a parliament with 100 seats, the top 25 candidates on the slate are elected.

Many countries have a mixed system. They rely on individual constituencies and on slates. Some countries award additional seats to the party that gets the most votes.  Israel (not in the European Union, of course, and a much smaller country than we are) uses a slate system exclusively and also sets a minimum percentage of the vote for a party to be able to have a single member of its parliament.

Would the Constitution allow a system different from our “first past the post” election single district system?  The US Constitution says:

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

The Constitution leaves open an enforcement process —

“Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members,”

Should Congress set out a national requirement for selection by slates, the authority for enforcing the rule rests in that language.

Look at the consequences of each state using a slate system for electing its Congressional delegation.  Consider two kinds of states –  1) those, with three or more representatives whose entire delegation is composed of Members from a single political party and 2) our four largest states.

The current Congress has six states with three or more seats in the House of Representatives and all of its Representatives are from a single party.

  • Nebraska has 3 Republicans
  • West Virginia has 3 Republicans (Beginning in 2022, it will be down to two)
  • Mississippi has 4 Republicans
  • Oklahoma has 5 Republicans
  • Connecticut has 5 Democrats
  • Massachusetts has 9 Democrats

In total these six states have 15 Republican Representatives and 14 Democratic Representatives.  In 2020, of course, there were no statewide votes on slates of candidates for Members of Congress to take office based on the proportion of the vote each slate received.  Instead, consider the 2020 Presidential vote as a proxy for statewide votes on Congressional slates.

  • Republicans carried Nebraska 556,846 to 374,583, winning with 58.5% of the vote. If representatives were apportioned proportionately, Nebraska would have sent 2 Republicans to Congress and 1 Democrat.
  • Republicans carried West Virginia 545,382 to 235,984 winning with 68.8 % of the vote. West Virginia would have sent 2 Republicans to Congress and 1 Democrat.
  • Republicans carried Mississippi 756,789 to 539,508 winning with 57.6% of the vote.  Mississippi would have sent 2 Republicans to Congress and 2 Democrats.
  • Republicans carried Oklahoma 1,020,2809 to 503,890 winning with 65.4% of the vote. Oklahoma would have sent 3 Republicans to Congress and 2 Democrats
  • Democrats carried Connecticut 1,080,831 to 714,717 winning with 59.3% of the vote. Connecticut would have sent 3 Democrats to Congress and 2 Republicans.
  • Democrats carried Massachusetts 2,302,282 to 1,167,202. Winning with 65.6% of the vote. Massachusetts would have sent 6 Democrats to Congress and 3 Republicans.

Those six states would have sent 15 Democrats and 14 Republicans – not very different from what they have now.  What would have been different is that Democrats from Nebraska, West Virginia, Mississippi, and Oklahoma would have had representation.  And Republicans from Connecticut and Massachusetts would have elected representatives.  The House of Representatives might be a different place with those different Representatives.

Consider our four largest states.

  • California elected 42 Democrats and 11 Republicans to the House of Representatives in 2020. Democrats carried California’s in the Presidential election 11,110,250 to 6006,429 winning with 65.3% of the vote.
    • If representatives were apportioned proportionately, California would have sent 35 Democrats to Congress and 18 Republicans
  • Texas elected 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats to the House of Representatives. Republicans carried Texas 5,890,347 to 5,259,126 winning with 52.1% of the vote.
    • Texas would have sent 19 Republicans and 17 Democrats to Congress.
  • Florida elected 16 Republicans and 11 Democrats to the House of Representatives. Republicans carried Florida 5,668,731 to 5,297,045 winning with 51.2% of the vote.
    • Florida would have sent 14 Republicans to Congress and 13 Democrats.
  • New York elected 19 Democrats and 8 Republicans to the House of Representatives. Democrats carried New York 5,244,886 D to 3,261,997 winning with 60.9% of the vote.
    • New York would have sent 16 Democrats and 11 Republicans.

These four states elected 85 Democrats and 58 Republicans to Congress in 2020.  With proportional apportionment based on slates, they would have chosen 81 Democrats and 62 Republicans.

The total does not change much.  New York and California would have elected more Republicans.   Texas and Florida more Democrats. Members of the minority in each state have a greater voice.  What would our Congress look like with more Democrats from Nebraska and Florida? More Republicans from Massachusetts and California? What would our governance be like if we were not spending a year or more watching state legislatures attempting to pick their state’s Congressional delegation by picking who the constituents would be?

Would our politics improve if we weren’t fighting over the shape of Congressional districts? If someone wants to start a movement for electing Members of Congress by state slates, be my guest.  It might make a difference for us.

Until we make that change, though, I will continue urging all of you to give money to individual Democratic candidates so they are first past the post.  Right now we have a Republican Party still preoccupied with its effort to overturn the 2020 election, a Republican Party that is abandoning democracy for power.  We have a Democratic Party and a Democratic President which are unpopular because they could not pass everything they wanted in an evenly divided House and Senate, because they could not remain in control of the process while extricating us from the War in Afghanistan, because the successful recovery from the Covid-related recession is marred by inflation.

Remember John F. Kennedy speaking about a mission to the moon:  “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things ….., not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

Joe Biden is not as eloquent as JFK or as eloquent as Barack Obama, for that matter.  He has, however, chosen domestic goals and foreign policy goals which are hard.  I am grateful that he has done that.  So should you be and so should the nation.  Support Democrats who support Joe Biden attempting to do hard things.  Help him win. Help us win.

Not relevant to today’s piece — but a word or two about what is happening in the world.  From Heather Cox Richard’s February 24 Letter from an American:

….while some leading Republicans are expressing support for Ukraine and simply ignoring President Joe Biden, the same Republicans who have been most closely associated with Trump and the January 6 insurrection are trying to use Russia’s attack on Ukraine to undermine the president. Following the lead of former president Trump, who says that Putin invaded because Biden is weak, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who took over for Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) when the House Republicans stripped her of her position as the third most powerful House Republican, tweeted that “Joe Biden is unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief. He has consistently given into [sic] Putin’s demands and shown nothing but weakness.”

This is simply an extraordinary statement for a lawmaker to issue at a time when a president is rallying the global community to stop an invasion of another democracy, but she is not alone. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called Biden weak and corrupt; Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said that former president Trump’s “unpredictability” (!) kept Putin cautious; Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) complained that the administration “project[s] weakness.” Representatives Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Paul Gosar (R-AZ); Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Ron Johnson (R-WI); and others all are working to undermine Biden in this moment of global crisis.

Diplomat Aaron David Miller, who spent 24 years in the State Department, had his own assessment of the president. He said: “So far, Biden has done a masterful job of leading and maintaining both E.U. and NATO unity.”

Organizations to support that are not part of the Democratic Party Establishment

Fair Fight https://fairfight.com Stacey Abrams organization to support fair elections

The New Georgia Project https://newgeorgiaproject.org  A non-profit registering voters.

The New North Carolina Project https://newnorthcarolinaproject.org A non-profit registering voters.  I had a great conversation with their Executive Director

The New Pennsylvania Project https://www.newpaproject.org A non-profit registering voters.

The Lincoln Project https://lincolnproject.us. Ex Republicans with tough messaging.

 

Democratic Party Establishment Organizations to support

The Democratic National Committee (DNC). https://democrats.org

The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (DSCC) https://www.dscc.org

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) https://dccc.org

The Democratic Governors Association (DGA) https://democraticgovernors.org

The Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) https://dems.ag

The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State (DASS) https://demsofstate.org

The Democratic (State) Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) https://dlcc.org

National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NRDC)  https://democraticredistricting.com Led by Eric Holder