The United States government is sick. A one-two punch of corruption is keeping our government from serving the people the way it should to. The ailments I refer to are gerrymandering and career politicians.
These two cancers respectively allow politicians to pick voters — instead of the other way around — and develop a ruling class that bears frightening resemblance to an aristocracy.
Fortunately, while it will take an enormous amount of work and a constitutional amendment, we can get well again. The first step is to understand the disease.
Gerrymandering is manipulating the boundaries of voting districts to favor one party or the other. After each census, the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are reallocated among the states to reflect population changes.
Texas, for example, has 32 seats in the House, and since the state’s population has grown, there will likely be more after next year’s census. Josh Kraushaar of
Politico.com projects Texas will gain three seats.
In most states, including Texas, the state legislature decides the shape of congressional districts. Districts need to have about the same population, but the legislature can design districts however it chooses.
Logically, districts should be largely based on preexisting boundaries such as metropolitan areas, school districts, rivers and so on. In practice, the party that controls the state legislature often designs districts to favor its congressional candidates.
For example, if Democrats control a state legislature and see a Republican in Congress won his or her last election by just a few hundred votes, they can expand the district to include areas that lean strongly Democratic or shrink it to cut out Republican areas. This is gerrymandering and to their great shame, both parties do it. This is why so many congressional districts look like Rorschach ink blots.
Probably the worst harm from this is the creation of “safe” districts for each party. If a district is virtually certain to elect a Democrat, the real contest is in the Democratic primary.
Unfortunately because relatively few people bother to vote in primaries (excluding presidential elections), they tend to be dominated by the extreme fringe of each party. In this example, that means two Democrats will compete to seem more liberal. This is a major reason there are so few moderates in Congress.
The cure? Draw congressional districts by some non-partisan means. One possibility would be for a citizen panel (sworn to work as objectively as they can) to draw districts based on rational considerations rather than party advantage. Then the panel’s plan could be submitted to the legislature for a straight up or down vote.
Our nation’s other great ailment is career politicians. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has been in the Senate since 1959. His political career stretches back so far, voters elected him despite his involvement in the Ku Klux Klan.
How can someone with that much time in Washington relate to ordinary Americans? How can someone like former President Bill Clinton, who literally became a political candidate straight out of law school, truly appreciate what it means to run a small business, live paycheck to paycheck or raise a child as a single parent?
They can’t. They certainly pretend to, and may even genuinely want to; but if they haven’t had a real job in 20 years (or ever) they simply lack relatable experience.
How to cure this scourge? Two words: term limits. The Supreme Court shot down federal term limits imposed by states in the 1995 case U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, but this wouldn’t stop a constitutional amendment.
What if no one could serve more than 12 years in Congress without sitting out at least six? Not only would this ensure regular turnover in Congress, it would also guarantee members of Congress would live in the real world for a substantial part of their lives, and force would-be Byrds to develop careers outside politics.
Although these reforms would better American democracy, they would hurt the personal interests of politicians. That means they’ll fight it, but like a sick child, we the people must make them take their medicine.
2 comments