Incumbent protection racket worked well TuesdayBy Walter Shapiro
Published November 8th 2002 in USA Today
For those who enjoy witnessing the formation of political cliches,
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.....
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.....
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.