Competition Isn’t Everything

When the founding fathers discussed “apportionment” in the Constitution, their intent was to create electoral districts of similar populations across the nation. Neither they nor the Constitution ever mentioned anything about districts shaped so that that all congressional and legislative elections are close, hard-fought contests.

But to hear Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tell it, electoral districts (whether congressional or legislative) should be, above all, competitive. They shouldn’t be straightforward or compact or based on traditional neighborhoods, but instead should be politically diverse, so that incumbents aren’t “protected” and elections are up for grabs. That’s why he wants to take redistricting out of the hands of the Legislature (which he says is protecting its own members) and have it done by a nonpartisan panel of retired judges.

But frankly, his case is pretty thin. I don’t see any significant advantages to competitive districts, and in fact they have certain clear disadvantages.

Consider my case. I represent a 65% Democratic state Senate district in the heart of Los Angeles, which suggests that I am ideologically compatible with at least 65% of my constituents. In other words, two out of three of my constituents are, presumably, happy with the guy they’ve got.

If you redrew the district lines and turned it into a 50-50 district, only half would be happy -- and the other half would not. What’s so great about that?

Here’s another way of looking at it: Today, about 43% of California’s voters are Democrats, 35% are Republicans and 4% belong to parties further to the left or right. Only about 18% are somewhere in the middle and swing back and forth depending on the issues. So why should we be directing our efforts at creating competitive swing districts that shift back and forth? Over time, that would make the 18% happy by giving their concerns priority, while leaving the 82% out in the cold.

Frankly, closely fought races are the most polarizing ones. For instance, the last presidential race took place in an evenly divided country, and the Republicans won by motivating their most ideologically dogmatic voters to vote for the most conservative president ever. Such elections would be about which party could get their craziest, most passionate people out to vote. So you would see more divisive wedge issues, more polarizing campaign ads and more nasty attacks.

Finally, a push for more competitive districts would drive up the role of special interest money in politics -- at a time when most people want to see it reduced. With more hotly contested elections you would have candidates looking for ways to raise more money, pushing our system further into one controlled by special interest dollars. Take the strongly contested race in the 5th Senate District last year in which Sen. Michael Machado (D-Linden) and challenger Gary Podesto spent a combined $10 million. Imagine 100 contested legislative elections each cycle and how much special interest money that would take.

Despite Schwarzenegger’s concern with competitiveness, the California Constitution, the courts and the federal Voting Rights Act have all traditionally demanded “compact” legislative and congressional districts that protect the cohesion of traditional communities of interest. That’s exactly counter to the idea of creating evenly divided districts where no strong majority view prevails. In truth, I think that people are happier being represented by someone who believes as they believe.