Making Votes Count: Elections With No Meaning

From: Subject: Making Votes Count: Elections With No Meaning Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 16:24:45 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0000_01C3FA29.8CBC9C40"; type="text/html" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0000_01C3FA29.8CBC9C40 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Location: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/21/opinion/21SAT1.html?pagewanted=print&position= Making Votes Count: Elections With No Meaning

February 21, 2004

MAKING VOTES COUNT=20

Elections With No Meaning

3DL=20 et's hope the presidential contest is a = close one this=20 November. Otherwise, many of the voters who go to the polls may = ask=20 themselves why they bothered to show up. It's highly unlikely that = the=20 contests for Congress or the state legislatures will make them = feel as if=20 their votes make a difference. Both parties have succeeded in = drawing=20 district lines in ways that cement their power by eliminating = contested=20 elections.

The Supreme Court is poised to rule in a case that could put = limits on=20 this partisan gerrymandering and put power back where it belongs: = with the=20 voters. The plaintiffs have already made a compelling case, but = two recent=20 events =97 an investigation in Texas and a court ruling in Georgia = =97=20 underscore the need for the Supreme Court to act against the = scourge of=20 partisan line-drawing.

Totalitarian nations hold elections, but what sets democracies = apart is=20 offering real choices in elections. In recent years, contests for = the=20 House of Representatives and state legislatures have looked more = and more=20 like the Iraqi election in 2002, when Saddam Hussein claimed 100 = percent=20 of the vote for his re-election. In that same year in the United = States,=20 80 of the 435 House races did not even include candidates from = both major=20 parties. Congressional races whose outcomes were in real doubt = were a=20 rarity: nearly 90 percent had a margin of victory of 10 percentage = points=20 or more. It is much the same at the state level, only worse. In = New York,=20 more than 98 percent of the state legislators who run for = re-election win,=20 usually overwhelmingly. Anyone who knows anything about New York's = state=20 government knows that's not because the populace is thrilled with = the job=20 they're doing.

A major reason legislative elections are becoming a charade is = that the=20 parties that control the redistricting process now routinely = follow the=20 dictum of "pack, crack and pair." They pack voters from the other = party=20 into a single district and crack centers of opposition strength,=20 dispersing opponents to districts where they will be in the = minority. They=20 redraw lines so two incumbents from the other party will wind up = in one=20 district, fighting for a single seat. Using powerful computers,=20 line-drawers can now determine, with nearly scientific precision, = how many=20 loyal party voters need to be stuffed into any given district to = make it=20 impregnable.

This sort of hyperpartisan line-drawing was evident in Texas = last year,=20 when Republicans pushed through a plan that, by aggressively = packing and=20 cracking Democratic voters, could unseat as many as 8 of the = state's 17=20 Democratic members of Congress. Now a local prosecutor is = investigating=20 charges that a political action committee run by Tom DeLay, the = House=20 majority leader, may have illegally used corporate contributions = to help=20 Republicans take control of the State House of Representatives =97 = control=20 that the party needed to have a free hand in redrawing new = Congressional=20 districts. The investigation is revealing just how much planning = Mr. DeLay=20 and the national party put into their Texas strategy, which seems = to have=20 involved every political player in the state except the = voters.

In Georgia, a three-judge federal panel recently struck down = the=20 Democrats' blatantly partisan redrawing of state legislative lines = in=20 2001. The ruling is good: the amount of packing, cracking and = pairing that=20 went on was indefensible. But the court did not rule, as it should = have,=20 that the lines were unconstitutional because they had been drawn = in such a=20 partisan way. Instead, it bent existing voting-rights law beyond=20 recognition to hold that the lines violated the = one-person-one-vote=20 doctrine because the population variations between districts were = too=20 great. But the variations are in the range courts routinely = uphold. It=20 seems clear that the court wanted to strike down the districts = without=20 wading into the difficult question of whether partisan = gerrymandering is=20 unconstitutional.

The Georgia decision is dangerous because the court appears to = have=20 decided on the outcome it wanted, and then come up with a legal = pretext to=20 get there. It is, in this regard, similar to the Supreme Court's = decision=20 in Bush v. Gore, when the court's conservatives applied a rigorous = equal-protection analysis they have not supported in other cases. = (Some=20 Democrats are also asking whether the case means that Democrats' = partisan=20 gerrymandering will be illegal, while Republicans' gerrymandering = in Texas=20 and elsewhere is allowed.) The principled way to stop partisan=20 gerrymandering =97 and the way to create a doctrine that can be = applied=20 uniformly nationwide =97 is to hold that it violates the = Constitution,=20 something the Supreme Court can do this spring in a Pennsylvania=20 Congressional redistricting case now before it.

Gerrymandering =97 named after one of the founding fathers =97 = goes back a=20 long way, but computer technology has made it far more pernicious. = Districts can be created with surgical precision, taking into = account not=20 just party registrations, but also voting history =97 and = line-drawers have=20 become adept at drawing districts to exclude the homes of rival=20 candidates. The populace ends up stuck with the candidates the = dominant=20 party inflicts on them, and once those candidates are elected, = they, as=20 incumbents, usually have life tenure.

When the justices heard arguments in the Pennsylvania case in = December,=20 some of them appeared reluctant to strike down partisan = gerrymandering.=20 That is not surprising because most judges have a political = background,=20 and many may regard this sort of business as fair game. But the = Supreme=20 Court needs to look at the big picture, and help push the United = States=20 back toward being a true democracy, not just a country that holds=20 elections.

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