Reply #22: Remember Lani Guinier? [View All]

[flashl]

Lani Guinier is likely best known as President Clinton's nomination for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. She was called a 'quota queen' because she supported a system of proportional representation in local elections.

There is another problem in the election system that receives little attention, it is gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is a form of redistricting in which electoral district or constituency boundaries are manipulated for an electoral advantage.

Gerrymandering Is Alive and Well: Why We Need Redistricting Reform

Despite the “tidal wave” that allowed Democrats to wrest control of the House of Representatives from Republicans for the first time since 1994, the undemocratic effects of blatant political gerrymandering were alive and well.

Across the country the levees of politically gerrymandered congressional districts held against the tidal surge of voter outrage. The 2006 elections proved why gerrymandering is still a national scandal, and why those of us pushing for redistricting reform are more emboldened than ever.

Most states have vested authority over congressional redistricting in their state legislatures and that is where the problems often begin. Many of these state legislators are anxious to move up the political food chain, and so some of these politicians actually carve out a congressional district for themselves.

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The two most effective means of rigging the voting process in redistricting are known as “packing” and “cracking.”

Packing occurs when the party in control of the redistricitng process places as many voters of the opposite party into a single district to reduce their influence in other districts.

Cracking on the other hand disperses a concentration of voters from an opponent’s party into numerous districts in order to hinder the ability of those voters to elect representatives of their choice.

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The result is summarized by renowned Goldman-Sachs investment expert, Robert Hormats:

One of the reasons (for the horrific polarization of politics in America) is that as a result of gerrymandering in the Congress, you don't have to look for the center.

All you have do is --

if you're a Republican, you appeal to the Republican right;
if you're a Democrat, you appeal to the Democratic left.

There's very little incentive to appeal to the middle, because of the way Congressional districts are now allocated.

If your district is 80% Republican and 20% Democrat, you don't have to worry about the 20% Democrats; all you have to do is appeal to the hard-core Republicans and you will win. And the same thing with the Democratic districts.

So it reduces the incentive of members, in the House at least, to appeal to the middle.