In a recent piece by Jamelle Bouie in The Washington Post, he wonders, "What explains the Republican Party’s intransigence?" His piece argues two points. The first point he makes is that it is at least partially due to gerrymandering. Here's what he writes:
I was unable to get the exact Congressional district by district breakdown, but I did manage to find the 2012 apportionment of Congressional districts, and 2010 census data that was used to apportion the districts. The chart below shows the resulting distribution of average population by Congressional district by state:
In this chart, red columns represent states where >50% of the congressional districts were won by the GOP in 2012 and blue lines represent states where >50% of the congressional districts were won by Democrats in 2012, with grey being states where they split it evenly.
Note in this chart the higher the average number of people per congressional district, the less each voter's vote counts. So, lower is better.
Looking at this chart you'll notice that in fact, the GOP does not really have an advantage. In fact, if you compute the weighted average of the number of voters in Congressional districts won by GOP vs Democrats, assuming the congressional districts are relatively evenly apportioned and are unbiased, you find that the Democrats land up with ~707K people per Congressional district vs GOP lands up with ~710K people per Congressional district, i.e. the Democrats have an advantage.
On the other hand, if you glance through this analysis of margins of victory by Ballotopedia and look at the margins of victory of Congressional seats, it becomes clear that the GOP has 204 seats they won by margins of 10%+ vs 168 such seats for the Democrats. The system is rigged a little bit more in favor of the GOP than the Democrats.
So, how do we explain the fact that Democrats won more votes than the GOP in the House races and yet lost the House? The answer is buried in Ballotopedia's analysis: "The average margin for Democratic victors was 35.7 percent, which is
significantly higher than the Republican figure of 28.6 percent."
So, let's explain what's happening. The Democrats win a lot of seats by landslide margins. The GOP tends to win seats by slimmer but still comfortable margins. The result is that the GOP wins more seats, while the Democrats waste votes.
Part of this may well be gerrymandering, and if so, it suggests that the GOP purposely designs districts to be less polarized for them than for the Democrats or that the Democrats design their districts to be more Democrat leaning than the GOP.
Another reason may well be a simple question of urban rural divide. If you look below, you'll see urban areas are almost always Democratic. If urban areas are overwhelmingly Democratic, short of breaking up urban areas and combining them intelligently with rural areas, the Democrats are likely to have a disadvantage.
In summary, gerrymandering may well be an issue, but its not the whole story.
Jamelle Bouie's other point is that the current climate of intransigence may have more to do with a culture in the GOP that does not reward compromise, i.e. a culture of ideological purity. There is no easy empirical way to prove this. However, there are two considerations that suggest he may be right.
If you have a safe seat, i.e. a seat that your party usually wins by 10%+ margin, then the key to victory may actually be winning the party's primary. An example of this is Mark Sanford, who despite many a question about his conduct defeated his Democratic rival in the special election in 2013. According to ballotopedia, in 2012 the GOP had 245 contested primaries vs 227 for the Democrats. If you combine this with the fact I mentioned above, that the GOP has 204 safe seats to 164 for the Democrats, you;d conclude that the higher number of safe seats and more contested seats may be driving GOP representatives to be more extreme to pander to their primary voters.
Another interesting hypothesis is that a second more important factor may be at play - a lack of leadership and vision in the GOP.
In the Democratic party, first with Clinton and then, even more so, with Obama, there has clearly been a national leader who can effectively speak for the party. The biggest evidence of this has been Obama's ability to forge legislative coalitions to back his policies. Obama has been able to ram through his agenda with his own party with very little dissent from his ranks. In fact, Obama's signature accomplishment, The Affordable Care Act, should, by all accounts, never have passed muster with Democrats as it does not really meet the party's platform, yet, he has managed to get his party to sign on.
By contrast, the GOP has had no equivalent voice since Reagan. Even George W Bush failed to get the necessary votes for his immigration reform initiative, despite his own party having majorities in both the House and the Senate. That is not to say that the GOP is not disciplined. However, the GOP discipline appears to be driven by ideology and bottoms up orthodoxy than by leadership which can help them accept difficult decisions. Without a spokesperson whom the base can trust, the GOP is left to the whims and fancies of its most fanatical supporters.
Politico points to gerrymandering as the source of this GOP strength, but that overstates the situation. There’s no doubt gerrymandering plays a part, but the GOP’s current majority has much more to do with geographic sorting and the natural malapportionment of the House. In short, because the Constitution provides a representative for every state, regardless of population, some smaller states have more relative representation than their larger counterparts.
For instance, California — with a population of 38 million — has nearly 717,000 constituents per representative. By contrast, Wyoming has one representative and a population of 576,000 — giving each Wyoming resident a little more representation than a given Californian. When you couple this with political geography — Democrats tend to live in urban centers, Republicans tend to live in rural counties and exurbs — you have a situation where the GOP begins the game with a small advantage that magnifies in situations like 2010, where a large chunk of the country had turned decisively against the Democratic Party.Hmmm ... what intrigued me was his claim that there is "no doubt gerrymandering plays a part". I always get suspicious when people make such emphatic claims and then cite data that does not actually support their claim.
I was unable to get the exact Congressional district by district breakdown, but I did manage to find the 2012 apportionment of Congressional districts, and 2010 census data that was used to apportion the districts. The chart below shows the resulting distribution of average population by Congressional district by state:
In this chart, red columns represent states where >50% of the congressional districts were won by the GOP in 2012 and blue lines represent states where >50% of the congressional districts were won by Democrats in 2012, with grey being states where they split it evenly.
Note in this chart the higher the average number of people per congressional district, the less each voter's vote counts. So, lower is better.
Looking at this chart you'll notice that in fact, the GOP does not really have an advantage. In fact, if you compute the weighted average of the number of voters in Congressional districts won by GOP vs Democrats, assuming the congressional districts are relatively evenly apportioned and are unbiased, you find that the Democrats land up with ~707K people per Congressional district vs GOP lands up with ~710K people per Congressional district, i.e. the Democrats have an advantage.
On the other hand, if you glance through this analysis of margins of victory by Ballotopedia and look at the margins of victory of Congressional seats, it becomes clear that the GOP has 204 seats they won by margins of 10%+ vs 168 such seats for the Democrats. The system is rigged a little bit more in favor of the GOP than the Democrats.
So, let's explain what's happening. The Democrats win a lot of seats by landslide margins. The GOP tends to win seats by slimmer but still comfortable margins. The result is that the GOP wins more seats, while the Democrats waste votes.
Part of this may well be gerrymandering, and if so, it suggests that the GOP purposely designs districts to be less polarized for them than for the Democrats or that the Democrats design their districts to be more Democrat leaning than the GOP.
Another reason may well be a simple question of urban rural divide. If you look below, you'll see urban areas are almost always Democratic. If urban areas are overwhelmingly Democratic, short of breaking up urban areas and combining them intelligently with rural areas, the Democrats are likely to have a disadvantage.
In summary, gerrymandering may well be an issue, but its not the whole story.
Jamelle Bouie's other point is that the current climate of intransigence may have more to do with a culture in the GOP that does not reward compromise, i.e. a culture of ideological purity. There is no easy empirical way to prove this. However, there are two considerations that suggest he may be right.
If you have a safe seat, i.e. a seat that your party usually wins by 10%+ margin, then the key to victory may actually be winning the party's primary. An example of this is Mark Sanford, who despite many a question about his conduct defeated his Democratic rival in the special election in 2013. According to ballotopedia, in 2012 the GOP had 245 contested primaries vs 227 for the Democrats. If you combine this with the fact I mentioned above, that the GOP has 204 safe seats to 164 for the Democrats, you;d conclude that the higher number of safe seats and more contested seats may be driving GOP representatives to be more extreme to pander to their primary voters.
Another interesting hypothesis is that a second more important factor may be at play - a lack of leadership and vision in the GOP.
In the Democratic party, first with Clinton and then, even more so, with Obama, there has clearly been a national leader who can effectively speak for the party. The biggest evidence of this has been Obama's ability to forge legislative coalitions to back his policies. Obama has been able to ram through his agenda with his own party with very little dissent from his ranks. In fact, Obama's signature accomplishment, The Affordable Care Act, should, by all accounts, never have passed muster with Democrats as it does not really meet the party's platform, yet, he has managed to get his party to sign on.
By contrast, the GOP has had no equivalent voice since Reagan. Even George W Bush failed to get the necessary votes for his immigration reform initiative, despite his own party having majorities in both the House and the Senate. That is not to say that the GOP is not disciplined. However, the GOP discipline appears to be driven by ideology and bottoms up orthodoxy than by leadership which can help them accept difficult decisions. Without a spokesperson whom the base can trust, the GOP is left to the whims and fancies of its most fanatical supporters.
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