distort policy preferences. In the House of Representatives, single-member districts with plurality winners mean that the relationship between the seats a party wins and the votes it receives will be distorted, even without conscious gerrymandering.49 Thus, perfect correspondence between the policy preferences of the public as a whole and of the legislators collectively (let alone the policy output of the legislature) is, by design, nearly impossible to achieve.
Others believe a significant level of collective representation is necessary if the people are to rule in any meaningful way. Legislatures should produce policies that the electorate desires. When they don’t, they are not providing the responsiveness that democracy requires. There are many reasons why the public’s policy preferences might not be reflected in actual public policy. The many “veto players” in the American system (e.g., the president, majorities in the House and in the Senate, and filibuster-wielding minority in the Senate) are a key reason for the disconnect. But another is that the partisan makeup of the legislature might not match the partisan preferences of the electorate (partisanship being a shorthand indicator of a set of policy preferences). For those who believe collective representation is indispensable for democracy, disproportionate election outcomes, like those mentioned at the outset of this chapter, are prima facie evidence that election processes are undemocratic. And while disproportionate outcomes are always possible in a system of single-member plurality elections, they are made more likely by partisan gerrymandering.
It is, of course, possible for individual representatives to do a good job representing the views of most of their constituents (dyadic representation) while the legislature as a whole does not represent the views of the public very well in the aggregate (collective representation). The reverse may also be true. Tables 1.1 and 1.2 offer hypothetical illustrations of how representation can go awry. In table 1.1, a clear majority in each district share conservative views with the representative from the district. This is good dyadic representation.
Table 1.1 Hypothetical Example of Good Dyadic (District-Level) Representation but Poor Collective Representation
Note: Numbers in the last three columns indicate the percentage of the district that holds a given ideological point of view. Check marks indicate the point of view held by the district’s representative.
Table 1.2 Hypothetical Example of Poor Dyadic (District-Level) Representation but Good Collective Representation
Note: Numbers in the last three columns indicate the percentage of the district that holds a given ideological point of view. Check marks indicate the point of view held by the district’s representative.
Collectively, however, the population is not well represented as nearly a third of the electorate is liberal and yet not a single representative holds liberal views. In table 1.2, the opposite problem exists. Collective representation is very good as the even split between conservative and liberal representatives (five each) mirrors the breakdown of conservatives and liberals in the population (48.5 percent of the population in each category). District-level representation is not particularly good, however, because the representative from each district represents a view that commands less than a majority.
As contrived as these hypotheticals may seem, results like these do exist. In Connecticut, following the 2018 midterm elections, Republicans held none of the five seats in the US House of Representative even though they received 38 percent of the vote statewide (as in table 1.1). Similarly, Democrats won 35 percent of the House vote in Arkansas but took none of the state’s four seats. A real-world example of table 1.2 is harder to find but the results of Minnesota’s congressional elections in 2018 are close. In five of the eight House districts, the winner garnered less than 56 percent of the vote leaving a very large portion of the electorate (roughly 44 to 49 percent) presumably unhappy with its representation. Statewide, however, the division of seats (five Democratic and three Republican) is reasonably close to the statewide division of votes (55 percent Democratic and 44 percent Republican).
Regardless of their real-world applicability, the hypotheticals serve to illustrate the fact that dyadic and collective representation do not necessarily occur simultaneously. They can, of course, but even the most neutral district boundaries will not automatically produce robust levels of both types of representation. Importantly for our purposes, these hypotheticals also test the priorities of the two sides of the redistricting debate. If forced to choose one of these two scenarios as the most preferable, those in the realpolitik camp are more likely to prefer table 1.1 to table 1.2 while those who favor civic redistricting would likely prefer table 1.2 to table 1.1.
The realpolitik view accepts the partisan nature of the process and is likely to also view district-level representation as a critical element in the delicate balance established by the framers of the Constitution. As such, those in this camp are far more likely to be satisfied with solid dyadic representation based on partisan or ideological preferences. Those who wish to take partisanship out of the redistricting process prefer districts to be drawn in ways that will enhance accountability and responsiveness to the entire population, not just a primary electorate. To the extent that the public’s partisan preferences should influence representation, they should be reflected proportionally in the number of seats each party receives statewide.50 After all, it’s the people as a whole who should govern.
At this point, a word about incumbents is probably in order. Much of the previous discussion has concerned partisan gerrymandering. That is, the debate is about whether parties should be allowed to draw district boundaries that benefit only their candidates. However, bipartisan gerrymandering – or incumbent protection gerrymandering – is also controversial. The realpolitik camp is likely to see nothing wrong with protecting incumbents because, ultimately, incumbent protection is still partisan. In order to create districts that are safe for existing incumbents of both parties, the partisanship of districts has to be taken into account. This, from the realpolitik point of view, does not preclude the possibility that incumbents will be held accountable and could be kicked out of office. It’s simply that the primary electorate, or voters within the incumbent’s party, are the ones who hold the incumbent accountable.
It is precisely because incumbent protection is nonetheless partisan that the advocates of civic redistricting oppose it as well. To be sure, some of the opposition from this perspective is motivated by an anti-incumbent attitude. The fear is that incumbents in safe districts are not likely to be challenged by another candidate from their own party in large part because the party organization will discourage it. Even if incumbents were to receive primary challenges, voters in their party are unlikely to turn them out because name recognition has such a powerful impact on the vote. Thus, safe incumbents can stay in office for as long as they want, increasing the possibility that they will become out of touch with their constituents. Ultimately, however, those
