USA Today

Incumbent protection racket worked well Tuesday
November 8, 2002
By Walter Shapiro

For those who enjoy witnessing the formation of political clich��s, nothing matches being in Washington right after an election. Partisan theorists lay down their interpretations like wet cement and hope that they harden into the conventional wisdom.

Rueful over a bum prediction, which appeared in this space last Friday (the Democrats would pick up two or three Senate seats and come within a whisker of winning back the House of Representatives), this columnist brings well-earned humility to the post-election analysis game. But now that the verdict has arrived, here are four notions to carry us into a weekend blessedly free from inane political ads:

The Incumbent Protection Racket: The economy may be in the doldrums, but Congress has become virtually a layoff-free zone. Only eight of the 389 House incumbents who sought re-election were defeated, and half of those ran against other incumbents because of redistricting. Politicians crave job security, but a system built around safe seats deprives most voters of a meaningful choice.

Take California's 53 House districts. In only one race did the winner receive less than 55% of the vote, the traditional definition of a marginal district.

With two-year terms, the House was intended to be the most volatile body in our democracy. But the original intent of the framers of the Constitution has been defeated by the computer-assisted wizardry that both parties used to draw district lines after the 2000 Census.

The good-government cause for the end of the decade should be to take redistricting out of the hands of the politicians and bequeath this democracy-determining power to impartial commissions..... .