JB: Great recap! The whole movement and the four examples you gave are all proof of the strong nation-wide desire for fairer elections. Partisan gerrymandering is one symptom of the various ways that our elections have broken down. With the country more and more polarized, is it even possible to remove the politics from the redistricting process? Doesn't everyone have a political view, if not agenda? Michigan has taken that into account. What about other states?
I respectfully disagree that the country is getting more polarized. It's the parties that are getting more polarized, and I think that is an important distinction to make.
The parties have to rally their shrinking bases of voters -- voters that fall further and further to ideological extremes. This has widened the gap between Republicans and Democrats and caused the hyper-partisan political environment we see today. Politicians do what they can to appease their base voters out of fear of being primaried out.
Eric Cantor, you might remember, was a top Republican leader in the US House. He might have been speaker one day. However, Roy Blunt -- a stricter conservative ideologue -- challenged him in the 2010 primary as being soft on health care. His message was that Cantor wasn't doing enough to stop Obamacare. The incumbent's primary defeat sent shockwaves throughout the US political landscape, but what happened after that is important to note. Republicans started using tougher, more divisive language about health care on the campaign trail and in the media, and the Democrats became as divisive with their own rhetoric to counter the messaging. The parties drifted even further apart on the issue, as has happened on other hot button social and domestic issues commonly known as "wedge issues."
I digress a bit, but this increasing divisiveness between the parties and the rhetoric it is producing from both sides is one of the main reasons why people are choosing not to identify with the Republican and Democratic Parties and registering outside them. They don't want to be party to what is going on anymore.
Gallup finds that 44% of American voters identify outside the major parties. Registered independent voters outnumber members of at least one of the major parties in about half the states that register voters by party affiliation. Independents outnumber registrants of both parties in 9 states.
But the parties maintain control of the electoral and political processes in most states, and have managed to protect themselves from outside competition -- in terms of alternative parties, candidates, and voters. So, voters are convinced they really have only two viable options, and millions of them are torn. When they don't get change from one party, the system only gives them one alternative.
This lack of political competition is fueling the flames of division that dominates media coverage and the campaign rhetoric. Candidates of the dominant political party don't have to broaden their appeal to get elected, because they just need to rally their base. In most districts, they know they are safe in general elections. They can stick to the "us vs them," "good vs evil" politics that perpetuates and worsens the cycle of hyper-partisanship and gridlock.
That is a long way of explaining why reformers seek a nonpartisan approach. The other three proposals on the ballot this year, for example, give independents a near equal or equal seat at the table, and require competitive districts. The independent commissioners are also needed for final approval of maps in an effort to ensure that the Republican and Democratic members don't scheme to just divide the territory based on their partisan interests.
In Colorado, Amendments Y and Z establish 12-member independent redistricting commissions to draw congressional and legislative maps, respectively. These commissions are comprised of four Republicans, four Democrats, and four voters registered unaffiliated. The amendments set strict guidelines for the commissioners that require them to make districts as competitive as possible. A supermajority is needed to approve final maps, which must include at least two of the four unaffiliateds.
Amendments Y and Z passed with approximately 71% of the vote on election night. And the other proposals have similar guidelines and requirements.
The reform movement around redistricting has moved more in this direction as a whole -- acknowledging that the parties have a huge stake in the redistricting process, but also that just letting people with partisan interests control how electoral maps are drawn will only lead to further problems down the road. We see these commissions that give independents greater power in the process already at work in states like California and Arizona.
Several states already had some form of redistricting commission prior to new, nonpartisan systems passing. However, many of them have no actual requirement that explicitly gives people not registered with the Republican and Democratic Parties a decisive role on the commission -- or a role at all.
As a plurality of Americans identify outside the major parties, the only way to ensure these voters are heard and recognized in the redistricting process is to give them greater access to the decision-making process. And we are seeing that in more and more reform proposals.
JB: Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. Anything you'd like to add before we wrap this up?
This was hands down the biggest under-reported story of the 2018 elections. The push for nonpartisan political election reform that swept the nation on election night -- from nonpartisan redistricting to anti-corruption measures to historic voting reforms used for the first time. All of these efforts are an attempt to create a political system that better represents all voters, rather than partisan minorities, and create greater accountability and a healthier process. This nonpartisan reform movement is not only growing, but making historic gains at the ballot and expect to see more in 2020. And if anyone wants further details on any of these efforts they can visit IVN.us.
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