Friday, October 28, 2022

Minority Government — The Republican Advantage (Part I)

If it seems to you that the Republican Party has more political power than it should, you’re not just a bitter partisan.  There is a powerful bias built into the US Constitution that currently benefits the Republican Party in both US Senate and in presidential politics.  In addition, through gerrymandering and hardball politics, the party has parlayed that constitutional bias to significant advantage in the US House of Representatives and the Supreme Court.  The party is also seeking to hardwire further advantage through changes to state electoral laws.

The US Constitution

The Senate

In the original politicking that created the US Constitution, low-population states — afraid of being overpowered by an out-of-control populism — structured the Senate so that every state had two senators, regardless of population.  Over the two-and-a-half centuries since the founding, the population discrepancy between states has widened so that California, the most populous state, now has approximately one senator per twenty million people while Wyoming, the least populous, has approximately one senator per 290,000 people.  In other words, a Wyoming resident has almost seventy times the power in the Senate as does a California resident.

There are, of course, small Democratic states, such as Delaware.  But overwhelmingly today, less-populated, rural states are Republican while larger urban states are Democratic.  In the current 50 – 50 Senate, Democrats represent almost 42 million more people than do Republicans.  In fact, as documented in The New York Intelligencer,

Republican senators haven’t represented a majority of the U.S. population since 1996 and haven’t together won a majority of Senate votes since 1998. Yet the GOP controlled the Senate from 1995 through 2007 (with a brief interregnum in 2001–02 after a party switch by Jim Jeffords) and again from 2015 until 2021.

The US Constitution has given the minority Republican Party control of the Senate for seven of the most recent twelve legislative sessions.

The Electoral College

The Constitution provides for the indirect election of the president: Voters select electors who then actually choose the president.  Every state sends electors to the Electoral College equal to its number of representatives in the House of Representatives plus its number of senators.  The number of Representatives is roughly proportional to the state’s population (and is thus democratic) but, again, the two senators give smaller states disproportionate, non-democratic power.  While not as egregious as the Senate (due to the moderating effects of the House of Representatives number), the Electoral College still gives Wyoming three votes (or one for every 190,000 residents) while California receives 55 votes (or one for every 715,000 residents); the Wyoming voter has almost four times the power in electing the president.  States small in population — and thus, current Republicans — have disproportionate impact in choosing the president.

Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is the process of drawing voting districts to benefit one party.  As I have showed in some detail in this previous post, gerrymandering is accomplished by packing the opposition party’s voters tightly into one or several districts while spreading your own party’s voters out  over the remaining districts.  Thus, the opposition wins its proportionately fewer districts in landslides while your party wins its proportionately more districts by narrower margins.  Both parties gerrymander (the Democratic gerrymandering of Maryland’s Third District wins the prize for the most bizarre shape), but Republicans have in general been far more aggressive and successful in their gerrymandering.  Furthermore, as I explained in my last post, in 2010 the Republican Redistricting Majority Project (REDMAP) project, went after local state legislative races (as opposed to US congressional races), 

rais[ing] $30 million and target[ing] local state legislative races in sixteen states, including swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, funding negative ads in lower-profile state legislative races.  The Republicans commissioned polls, brought in high-powered consultants, and flooded out-of-the-way districts with ads.  Democrats were caught unaware and flatfooted.  All told, in 2010 Republicans gained nearly seven hundred state legislative seats.

The Republican Party has not won the popular vote for president since 2004 (George W Bush’s reelection) and Republican Senators have not represented a majority of the country’s voters since 1996, yet Republicans now control 62 state chambers (House or Senate) to the Democrats’ 36.  There are currently 23 Republican trifectas (where one party controls governor, House and Senate), 14 Democratic trifectas, and 13 divided governments where neither party holds trifecta control.

Dominant Republican statehouse control gives the minority Republican Party control of American politics.  Furthermore, its capacity to continue gerrymandering state legislative districts gives it the power to remain in control of statehouses.

(To be continued here.)

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